Long-term illnesses and allergies are more common among both girls and boys in economically vulnerable families and children who do not live with both their original parents.
In two out of three cases, not living with both one's original parents implies that the child lives with a single parent and thus runs the risk of being economically vulnerable.
Psychosomatic disorders
Girls have psychosomatic disorders considerably more often than boys. Psychosomatic disorders include headaches, stomach aches, sleeping disorders or feelings of stress. Some of these disorders are at least twice as common for girls than for boys. For instance, 27 percent of girls and 14 percent of boys feel stressed several times a week. Fifteen percent of girls and 7 percent of boys have some disorder daily.
Mental well-being
Twenty-one percent of boys feel that the statement about mental well-being describes them exactly. The corresponding figure for girls is 14 percent. Similar differences occur when describing a lack of mental well-being. While 11 percent of girls agree that the description on a lack of mental well-being suits them, only 6 percent of boys reply so. Mental well-being is worse in later teen years than among younger children - above all for girls. Among girls in later teen years, a lack of mental well-being was nearly three times as common as among boys of the same ages – 14 percent of girls and 5 percent of boys in later teen years have a lack of mental well-being.
The material is based on interviews with parents about the health of children (aged 3–15) and interviews with the children themselves (aged 10–18) in 2004 and 2005.