Introduction

This chapter explores connections that exist among values, policies and outcomes for young children in Canada, Norway and the United States. For example, values are likely to be directly associated with the wellbeing of children by influencing parenting styles and the expectations which parents have for their children. Values may help to shape social policies that affect the well-being of children; existing social policies may help to shape the values of the people who experience them. Social policies available to families with young children might be expected to have important associations with family poverty status as well as indicators of children’s well-being such as physical or emotional health or success at school; perceptions about problems/success of children will influence perceived social policy needs.

To examine some of these connections, use is made in this chapter of three different collections of microdata from the early to mid-1990s: The World Values Survey (1990); the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) (1994 and 1995); and three microdata surveys which provide information about child health and well-being (the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (1994/95); the Norwegian Health Survey (1994) and the US National Longitudinal Survey of Youth – Mother/Child Survey (1994).

An obvious question to ask at this stage is why it makes sense to study Canada, Norway and the US? The US and Canada are obvious choices for comparison, given the proximity and policy similarities between the two. Norway makes an interesting third choice insofar as it is a country with policies that are very different from the other two. (Of course, a necessary condition was also that all countries have accessible microdata on child outcomes, which in practice was a very limiting condition.) While there are differences in policy between Canada and the US, they are less dramatic than the difference between what is available in Norway and what is available in either of the North American countries. This variation increases what can be learned from the cross-country comparisons.

While Canada, Norway and the US are all affluent, industrialised countries, it should be noted at the very beginning that the three countries studied do differ significantly in terms of geography and culture.