S URVEY ON CHILD WELL - BEING INDICATORS IN I TALY Valerio Belotti Coordinator Italian Childhood and Adolescence Documentation and Analysis Centre

Public Policies and Data G OOD P OLICIES G OOD D ATA ? ( IT S EASY !) G OOD D ATA..... G OOD P OLICIES ? ( IT S HARD !)... I N I TALY

Public Policies and Data G OOD P OLICIES G OOD D ATA ? G OOD P OLICIES......

TRADITIONAL PERSPECTIVE T HE NATIONAL CENTRE FROM 1997 TO TODAY : Find basic data concerning children, lost in the institutional statistics Organise all the basic data and indicators in the traditional academic and socio- demographic categories 170 facts and indicators on-line

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED? ARE THEY USEFUL FOR TARGETED QUESTIONS ON A SPECIFIC THEME, ON A SPECIFIC PUBLIC POLICY (HOW MANY CHILDREN HAVE BEEN REMOVED FROM THEIR OWN FAMILIES ?) ARE THEY DIFFICULT FOR NON-EXPERTS TO CONSULT? T HE CONTEXTS IN WHICH THE DATA ARE COLLECTED ARE NOT MEANINGFUL FOR THE LIVES OF THE CHILDREN THEY DO NOT RESPOND TO THE OPINION MAKERS (WHO WANT STATISTICS IN SYNTHESIS (ARE THE CHILDREN BETTER OFF/WORSE OFF THAN BEFORE?) THEY DO NOT HIGHLIGHT THE BASIC DATA WHICH ARE MISSING OR ARE NOT COLLECTED THEY DO NOT HELP TO COMMUNICATE - TO BUILD A PUBLIC EVENT IN WHICH TO HIGHLIGHT THE CHILDRENS DAILY SITUATION

NEW OBJECTIVES Identify domains of meaning in which to aggregate the data and the indicators BUILD SYNTHETIC MEASURES TO MEASURE THE CHANGE IN THE CHILDRENS SOCIAL CONDITION Communicate synthetic and legible data to the mass media Contribute to highlighting in the public sphere the theme of childrens well-being Accompany public policies

Cfr. Crc 1989: 3P Bradshaw et al. 2007; 2008 Unicef-Irc 2007

I NDICATORS AND DIMENSIONS OF MEANING Indentification and calculation of the indicators AVAILABLE TODAY to distribute in the different dimensions of meaning

RESTRAINTS IN THE CHOICE OF INDICATORS: REFERRED DIRECTLY TO CHILDREN CONSISTENT IN THEIR RELATION BETWEEN THE INDICATOR AND THE MEANING OF THE DIMENSION AVAILABILITY IN TIME BOTH SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE PROVIDED BY THE INSTITUTIONAL SOURCES (I STAT, M INISTRIES, R EGIONS, C ENTRE, EU, WHO)

WELL-BEING CONTEXT NATIONAL R EGIONAL (n° 20) NATIONAL R EGIONAL (n° 20) NATURE OF INDICATORS AND TERRITORIES

D OMAIN OF MEANING AND INDICATORS Dimensions N° sub- dimensions N° Indicators N° only context N° well- being N° only national N° regional Relations and ties Material well-being Subjective well-being Social well-being Time Health School inclusion Safety and danger Social and educational services Social structure dimensions

SYNTHESIS OF OBJECTIVES A. Changes over time B. Performances of the different regional welfare services

Regional welfare performances: procedures The general map is reduced in size and in the indicators References to a two or three-year period due to a lack of annual data Summary indexes of indicators built from z-scores Summary indexes not based on a simple average but on a pondered average based on correlation coefficients between the various indicators

Relazione familiari: Applicazione dei pesi agli z-scores z-scores Relazioni familiari Regioni % di 3- 10enni che giocano con il padre nei giorni festivi % di 3-10enni che giocano con la madre nei giorni festivi % di 3-17enni che hanno genitori che non sono mai attenti ai programmi televisivi. videocassette/dvd visti dai figli % figli minori con affidamento congiunto e/o alternato (condiviso dal 2006) nelle separazioni % figli minori con affidamento congiunto e/o alternato (condiviso dal 2006) nei divorzi Figli affidati nelle separazioni per minori residenti Figli affidati nei divorzi per minori residenti % di assenso all'interruzione volontaria di gravidanza da parte dei genitori (2003) wkwk media pesata media semplice Piemonte Valle d'Aosta Lombardia Trentino-Alto Adige Veneto Friuli-Venezia Giulia Liguria Emilia-Romagna Toscana Umbria Marche Lazio Abruzzo Molise Campania Puglia Basilicata Calabria Sicilia Sardegna Relazioni familiari: Z-scores e Pesi

Family relations: 2 classifications RankRegionsPondered averageRankRegionsSimple average 1Lombardy0.6881Lombardy Marches0.6302Emilia-Romagna Emilia-Romagna0.5213Veneto Valle d'Aosta0.4924Marches Piedmont0.4295Piedmont Veneto0.2876Friuli-Venezia Giulia Trentino-Alto Adige0.2357Tuscany Friuli-Venezia Giulia0.1828Valle d'Aosta Tuscany0.1739Trentino-Alto Adige Liguria Molise Sardinia Liguria Basilicata Abruzzi Molise Sardinia Apulia Umbria Abruzzi Basilicata Umbria Apulia Calabria Calabria Campania Latium Sicily Campania Latium Sicily-0.628

Final regional classifications Relations and ties Material well- being Health School inclusion Safety and danger ConsumptionServices Average positions Region E Region H Region D Region C Region K Region F Region I Region J Region A Region M Region B Region L Region N Region R Region G Region P Region Q Region O Region T Region S

Objective B. Changes over time : ….. We are still in the analysis phase …. Our intention is to establish, with a jury of experts, some (few) indicators for each of the dimensions of meaning and to propose annual variations ….

Problems and Opportunities We are still far from an ideal map, but we are beyond a simple starting point. Perhaps there is no other social condition in which, in Italy, there are so many regional indicators. Thanks to the impetus given by the Crc 89 Various indicators are available at a national level The continuous increase in surveys hinders comparison between different time periods The evident lack of some indicators serves to legitimate and promote specific statistical surveys Some indicators do not adequately represent certain dimensions of meaning (we need the courage to remove some of them) It is necessary to reinforce the monitoring/process evaluation of the policies in order to have more stringent and consistent indicators

Public Policies and Data... GOOD POLICIES ARE NEEDED TO PRODUCE GOOD DATA AS WELL AS SOCIAL RESEARCHERS OF COURSE, BUT THE QUESTION OF POLICIES IS ANOTHER MATTER!