The Ecological Indicator Model

The indicator model chosen for the Children in North America child well-being reports is an ecological one that groups indicators in two overarching sets of domains: contextual or environmental domains, and outcome or well-being domains.

The ecological model posits that children are affected by the environments within which they live and grow. Research in human development has clearly demonstrated that children are affected by a wide variety of family, neighbourhood, community, and broader social influences. Nurturing, supportive families and positive, consistent parenting styles have been demonstrated to have a strong influence on healthy child development. Furthermore, family income, and social and educational status all contribute to children’s outcomes, and safe and supportive communities and neighbourhoods partly determine how well children fare in many domains – health, learning and social. We therefore tried to include indicators that reflect this range of environments.

In our selection of the child outcome domains, we have been guided by the framework of The Multi-National Project for Monitoring and Measuring Children’s Well-Being, an ongoing, multi-phase effort to improve our ability to measure and monitor the status of children around the globe. The project looks beyond the traditional realm of child survival to consider indicators in the domains of children’s economic resources and contribution, safety and physical status, personal life, civic life, and activities.

Indicator selection was guided by a number of other considerations. The indicators for the report series were selected to highlight the opportunities, barriers and risks facing children and youth in North America. The project goal is to document how children are living their lives today and how each country is preparing them for the future. Where we could, we aimed to show how these opportunities, risks and selected disparities have changed over time since 1990. Therefore we chose to look at economic well-being, health and safety, and capacity and civic engagement (a combination of the personal life, civic life, and children’s activities).