LAUSR

Abstract This paper sets out to identify similarities and differences in typical ways that children aged around 12 years old spend their out-of-school time across 14 diverse countries in four continents using the Children’s World study. First we identify a number of different profiles of activities within each country using latent profile analysis. Then we identify common profiles and compare them between countries. In a second step background characteristics (gender and socio-economic background) and well-being of children within each of these profiles and countries are taken into account. In sum our results indicate that there are distinct comparable profiles in different countries – even in different parts of the world – however there are not two countries with an identical set of profiles. The background characteristics within a profile between countries are similar. In that way we could support that childhood(s) seems to be more similar between children and youth belonging to a similar economic background than to a certain country.