Personal Well-Being among Spanish Adolescents

Journal of Social Research & Policy, Volume: 3, Issue: 2, pp. 19-45.

Date: December 2012

ISSN: 2067-2640 (print), 2068-9861 (electronic)

Abstract: Although results from several samples of 12 to 16-year-old adolescents in Cataloni (region of N.E. Spain), obtained and published between 1999 and 2012, suggest a constant decrease in adolescents’ subjective well-being (SWB) with age, until now no such data have been available for the general Spanish adolescent population. In this article we present results for a representative Spanish sample (N=5934), limited to students in the first year of ESO (Educación Secundaria Obligatoria or Compulsory Secondary Education) (mean age = 12.09). The aims of this article are twofold: (a) to validate an adaptation of the PWI for Spanish adolescents of around 12-years-old, which we will call PWI8adp; and (b) to identify variables which show significant differences in children’s subjective well-being (SWB) – using the PWI8adp as an indicator of SWB – when dichotomically comparing groups or categories of children. With this sample, among other findings we observe that Spanish adolescents scoring highest in subjective well-being tend to live in semi-urban environments, were born in Spain, have not repeated a school year, live in only one family household, have two adults at home with paid employment, have parents with secondary education or higher and have more material and cultural belongings at home compared to children with lower SWB. Furthermore, the adolescents with significantly higher subjective well-being are those that never worry about money, think other people treat them well, feel greater personal safety, feel they are listened to, report doing daily activities together with their family, do physical exercise or sport every day, have been told children have rights, have experienced fewer important recent changes in their lives and feel their time is well organized.

Keywords: Adolescents; Subjective well-being; PWI'; Life satisfaction; Spain; Catalonia