Finally, we wished to explore the concept of children’s subjective well-being. There has been a remarkable growth in interest internationally in the topic of subjective well-being over the last few decades. There is now a substantial research evidence base on this topic in relation to adults, and the issue of subjective well-being has attracted the interest of governments and policy organisations3. In comparison the study of children’s subjective well-being has lagged behind. In recent years there have been a number of studies within specific countries, including some done by members of the core group for the Children’s Worlds project itself4. There is also some subjective data available for the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children survey, which has been used in two of the UNICEF Report Cards5 and in two recent journal articles6. However international comparative data on children’s subjective well-being across the full range of relevant aspects of their lives has not been available prior to the study described in this report.