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This article exploits British Household Panel Survey data to explore trends in subjective well‐being of young people aged 11‐15 over the period 1994‐2008. Two dimensions of subjective well‐being are measured using multi‐dimensional scales representing ‘happiness’ and ‘selfesteem’. This 14‐year period has seen many changes in the environment of young people that may have had an impact on their well‐being, including economic growth, increases in parental employment and major efforts to improve social policy for children. Has all this activity had an impact on what young people say about their lives? The evidence from this analysis suggests that there has been an improvement in the average level of happiness of 11‐15 year‐olds over time, especially for girls. It is impossible to draw clear conclusions about the causes of this improvement in happiness but there is some evidence that it focused on relationships with friends and happiness with school.

European Union (EU) indicators on poverty and social exclusion employ only two child breakdowns: the proportion of children living in households with incomes below 60% of the national median using the modified OECD equivalence scale and the proportion of children living in workless households. The UK also uses these indicators in the Opportunities for All series. This article first develops a new indicator of child poverty based on income, subjective and deprivation indicators which may be more reliable than income alone. It then explores the extent to which income poverty and worklessness represent international variation in child well‐being using an index that we have developed. The conclusions are that: (1) relative income poverty and worklessness are poor indicators of child well‐being, especially for some of the new EU countries; (2) deprivation has a stronger association with overall well‐being than relative income poverty or worklessness; (3) there are a number of other single indicators of child well‐being that could be used as proxies for overall child well‐being; and (4) The EU (and the UK) could easily develop its own index of child well‐being.

The secondary analysis of the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) is used to examine inequality in the United Kingdom compared with other European Union (EU) countries and to analyse how inequality has changed over the period from the start of the great financial crisis in 2008–2015. The analysis compares inequality in market income, gross income and disposable incomes, and measured inequality using the Gini coefficient, 80/20 and 90/10 ratios. It includes an analysis of the impact of cash benefits and direct taxes on market income and how the composition of households in different parts of the income distribution has changed over time. In addition, inequality within the EU is explored. The chapter concludes with a discussion of what contribution the EU itself through its own institutions and policies plays in mitigating market inequalities. We find that the distribution of market income in the United Kingdom is comparatively unequal, but the UK’s relative position on disposable income is greatly improved, due to an effective system of direct taxes and transfers. The conclusions remain broadly similar for all the inequality indices that are considered. There is evidence that households with children have moved down the distribution between 2008 and 2014 and aged households have moved up the distribution in most EU countries including the United Kingdom. The chapter concludes that EU policies have relatively little impact on inequality and that inequalities can really only be tackled using national redistributive policies.

The concept of ‘well‐being’ is entering into the policy debate on the back of recent research on ‘happiness’ ‐ self‐assessed evaluations of quality of life. It stands for a reassertion of relationships and feelings as central to positive evaluations and against the competitive and consumerist ethos of market individualism. Although the findings of research on well‐being among adults need to be adapted to suit children's situations and perceptions, work on this is in progress. This article presents some of the issues for measuring children's well‐being and for comparing measurements between countries. It also considers the implications for children's services of an approach that re‐values the relational elements in human service work, and argues that coherence between services is as important as the outcomes of interventions with individuals and families.

This article reviews the contents of the previous year's editions of the Journal of Children's Services (Volume 2, 2007), as requested by the Journal's editorial board. It draws out some of the main messages for how high‐quality scientific research can help build good childhoods in western developed countries, focusing on: the need for epidemiology to understand how to match services to needs; how research can build evidence of the impact of prevention and intervention services on child well‐being; what the evidence says about how to implement proven programmes successfully; the economic case for proven programmes; the urgency of improving children's material living standards; how to help the most vulnerable children in society; and, lastly, the task of measuring child well‐being.