Our broad understanding of well-being and health incorporates a wide range of aspects that make up young people’s quality of life. As well as age, influencing factors also include gender, the amount of money a person has available, their parents’ wealth, and their level of education. Personality also plays a role – because children, adolescents and young adults are not dropped into a ready-made world by parents and teachers, but rather help to shape their own lives. To do so they must be able to become proactive and view themselves as self-effective. They must have the capacity to act, and must have opportunities for action and participation within their own environment.

Social relationships also have a major impact on well-being and health. Given this, we have shed light on young people’s environment: How are they doing within their family? Do they receive support and recognition from their parents? How important are friendships for people who are gradually growing up? How are they doing at school or work? And what impact has the coronavirus pandemic had on this age group? We incorporated these and many other aspects into our analysis of the well-being and health of young people, so we have set them out in this section.