Child well-being and neighbourhood quality: evidence from the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth

In this paper, we use the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth data to examine the links between child well-being and neighbourhood ‘quality.’ This study adds to the literature by (i) investigating the relationship between neighbourhood quality and child health, (ii) by utilizing subjective assessments by individuals familiar with the neighbourhood (i.e., the survey respondent and interviewer), and (iii) by utilizing multiple assessments of neighbourhood quality, and (iv) by investigating several measures of health. Other work has found that controlling for family level characteristics reduces or eliminates the apparent association between neighbourhood quality and health. We find, measuring both child well-being and neighbourhood quality multi-dimensionally, that even after controlling for family level characteristics neighbourhood quality has strong associations with child well-being.