A New Non-Weird Cross-Country Comparative Child Subjective Vulnerability Indicator - International Child Subjective Vulnerability-Resilience Index

Background: Prevention of and early intervention in child vulnerability entails the need to assess the likelihood of future suffering. Recently, composite child indicators based on objective/statistical data have been constructed. However, children should not be seen as an ‘object of concern’. Children’s own views and perspectives on their life should be taken seriously when trying to measure their vulnerability.

Aims: To introduce the first version of the International Child Subjective Vulnerability-Resilience Index (ICSVRI) that aims to be an international cross-country comparable child subjective vulnerability measure; to test internal consistency and external validity of ICSVRI; to provide international comparisons of children’s subjective vulnerabilities; and to examine inequalities in child subjective vulnerability by age and gender.

Data: The current first version of ICSVRI is operationalised using data from the third wave of International Child Well-being Survey (ISCWeB) collected from 10 and 12-year-old children in 20 countries around the world. ISCWeB is not a WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, and Democratic societies) survey; for example, in its third wave countries as diverse as Algeria, Nepal, and Wales were included.

Results: Internal consistency of ICSVRI was very good, e.g. Cronbach’s alpha ranging from 0.813 in Albania to 0.915 in Wales. Also, ICSVRI was strongly and negatively associated with overall subjective well-being measured with the 5-item version of the Children’s Worlds Subjective Well-Being Scale (CW-SWBS5). Based on ICSVRI, children’s overall subjective vulnerability is highest in Brazil and Hong Kong and lowest in Albania. In almost every country, 12-year-old children had higher level of subjective vulnerability than 10-year-old children. In some countries like Estonia, Wales and Croatia, this age difference was especially apparent among girls.

Conclusion: ICSVRI helps to detect the groups of children whose subjective vulnerability level is relatively high, thus, needing the attention of policymakers.