Can Schools and Education Policy Make Children Happier? A Comparative Study in 33 Countries

Our understanding of child subjective well-being and how to promote it has improved substantially over the last decade. In relation to the role of education policy in shaping subjective well-being, although valuable research has been conducted, many questions remain unanswered. This paper aims to fill this gap by studying the links between education policy and students’ life satisfaction. We use linear and multilevel regression to analyse PISA 2015 data on 15-year-old students in 33 countries. Our interest is in within society differences and how these vary across societies. We find that (1) there is an association between multiple education policy-relevant factors and students’ life satisfaction, which is particularly prominent –and observed in a larger number of countries- in the domains of family relationships, schoolwork-related anxiety and bullying. Our models explain between one-fifth and one-third of the variation in students’ life satisfaction. Results also indicate that (2) schools may play an important role in shaping students’ life satisfaction. This is supported by evidence that these associations tend to vary by school; by evidence on the existence of school effects in all countries but two; and by the finding that a proportion - substantial in some countriesof the variation in students’ life satisfaction is explained by differences between schools. Finally, we find that (3) in relation to both questions, there are important differences across societies. Overall, these results provide evidence that an association between education policy and children’s subjective well-being seems to exist but is of a complex nature.