FERRAN CASAS, CRISTINA FIGUER, MO ` NICA GONZA ´ LEZ, SARA MALO, CARLES ALSINET and SANDRA SUBARROCA THE WELL-BEING OF 12 - TO 16-YEAR-OLD ADOLESCENTS AND THEIR PARENTS: RESULTS FROM 1999 TO 2003 SPANISH SAMPLES 1,2 (Accepted 6 June 2006) ABSTRACT. This study adopts satisfaction with life as a whole and satisfaction with specific life domains as indicators to analyse the relationships between the well-being of 12 to 16-year- old adolescents and some related constructs such as self-esteem, perceived control and perceived social support. Well-being indicators from a 2003 Spanish sample using an 11-point scale (N = 1,634) are compared with an equivalent 1999 Spanish sample using a 5-point scale (N = 1,618). The different results obtained from the 2003 sample with a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) using a shorter and a longer list of life domains are also discussed. A sub- sample of the adolescents’ results from the 2003 sample are compared with their parents’ answers, using the same well-being indicators. Using a list of 8 life domains, and despite the change of scale used, overall results show no relevant changes in adolescents’ satisfaction with life domains between 1999 and 2003 in Spain and are in agreement with normative data ex- pected from western societies [Cummins: 1998, Social Indicators Research 43, pp. 307–334; Cummins et al.: 2001, Australian Unity Well-being Index (Australian Centre on Quality of Life, Deakin University, Melbourne)]. Adolescents’ overall life satisfaction has been shown to cor- relate consistently with the other well-being related constructs. However, it clearly decreases with age over the period studied. The results also show that increasing the list of life domains has a major impact on the structure of the results obtained. When we compare results from parents with those from their own child, outstanding differences in well-being appear between generations: few domain satisfaction dimensions show significant correlation between parents and children and more than 20% of the population studied shows high discrepancies in the answers in four domains. KEY WORDS: adolescents, overall life satisfaction, parents, perceived social support, perception of control, satisfaction with life domains, self-esteem, well-being 1. INTRODUCTION Well-being in childhood and adolescence is a growing field of study and discussion (Ben-Arieh et al., 2001), not only in terms of the number of researchers interested in the topic and the conceptualisation of new theoretical models, but also with respect to the development of new Social Indicators Research (2007) 83:87–115 Ó Springer 2007 DOI 10.1007/s11205-006-9059-1