Children in Bangladesh

International survey on children’s well-being in Bangladesh

Dr Haridhan Goswami has recently completed fieldwork for this international survey. Using a child-centric approach, this survey, for the first time in Bangladesh, gathers data from over 3,000 children (aged 8 to 12) who assessed level of happiness in different aspects of their lives including school, family, friends, neighbourhood, safety, material conditions, health, leisure, and freedom.

This project is part of an international consortium of researchers from over 40 countries who are carrying out survey on children’s subjective well-being in collaboration with Children’s Worlds (http://www.isciweb.org). The study aims to collect solid data on children’s lives and daily activities, their time use and in particular on their own perceptions and evaluations of their well-being. The purpose is to improve children's well-being by creating awareness not only among children, their parents and their communities, but also among opinion leaders, decision makers, professionals and the public.

The project in Bangladesh, led by Dr Goswami (Dept. of Sociology, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK), has academic partners from University of Rajshahi (Professor B. K. Banik, Dept. of Sociology) and Govt. B M College (Dr M. Ibrahim Khalil, Dept. of Sociology). North South University has become dissemination and impact building partner for this project. This three-year long project (2016-2019) has received funding from Jacobs Foundations, Manchester Centre for Youth Studies, and QR GCRF.

Dr Goswami will disseminate the key findings of the survey in a seminar hosted by the School of Humanities and Social Sciences (SHSS) at North South University in Bangladesh on 6th December 2018. In this seminar titled ‘How happy are the children in Bangladesh? Results from a national survey for shaping child well-being policies,’ he will focus on factors affecting children’s and young people’s lives and discuss policy implications of the survey results for improving child well-being in Bangladesh.