Is it just a matter of personality? On the role of subjective well-being in childbearing behavior

Moglie, Marco Le; Rapallini, Chiara

doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2015.07.006

Cited by 57 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 81 publications

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“…Le Moglie et al (2015) show that subjective well-being in a given year positively predicts childbearing the following year, controlling for a large set of characteristics (personality traits, age, education, marital status, the number of previous children, current health, immigration status, working hours, housing conditions and characteristics, having a cleaning lady, percentage of housework, scaled income, and share of household income). Along the same lines, Parr (2010) analyses Australian HILDA data to show that being happy increases the likelihood of having a child in the two subsequent years.…”

Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 93%

Happy People Have Children: Choice and Self-Selection into Parenthood

Cêtre

Clark²,

Senik³

2016

Eur J Population

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There is mixed evidence in the existing literature on whether children are associated with greater subjective well-being, with the correlation depending on which countries and populations are considered. We here provide a systematic analysis of this question based on three different datasets: two cross-national and one national panel. We show that the association between children and subjective well-being is positive only in developed countries, and for those who become parents after the age of 30 and who have higher income. We also provide evidence of a positive selection into parenthood, whereby happier individuals are more likely to have children.

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Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 93%

Happy People Have Children: Choice and Self-Selection into Parenthood

Cêtre

Clark²,

Senik³

2016

Eur J Population

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“…Particularly relevant for this paper are applications of Lewbel's method in which subjective well‐being is considered as a cause—rather than a consequence—of certain outcomes. For example, Le Moglie, Mencarini, and Rapallini () use the method to estimate the causal effect of subjective well‐being on childbearing behavior, while Mishra and Smyth () apply it to a model relating subjective well‐being to male and female earnings. In addition to models in which well‐being is the main explanatory variable of interest, applications of Lewbel's method include estimating the causal effect of adolescent body weight on academic performance (Sabia ), class size on educational attainment of high school students (Denny and Oppedisano ), and academic seniority on research productivity (Mishra and Smyth ).…”

Section: Empirical Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given this, for our baseline specification in Equation , we used measures of well‐being lagged to time t −1. To test whether our results are robust to using measures of well‐being further in the past, we re‐conducted our analysis using life satisfaction or GHQ‐12 at time t −2 (instead of time t −1) as the main explanatory variable (Le Moglie, Mencarini, and Rapallini ). As reported in Table A1, our IV estimates are qualitatively similar to those in Table .…”

Section: Robustness Checksmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Instrumental variable (IV) methods can be useful in dealing with the aforementioned empirical issues. However, the practical difficulty here is finding an appropriate variable to instrument for well‐being (Le Moglie, Mencarini, and Rapallini ; Mishra and Smyth ). When ordinary instruments are difficult to obtain or may not be available altogether, Arthur Lewbel has proposed a novel identification method (Lewbel ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Happy People Are Less Likely to Be Unemployed: Psychological Evidence From Panel Data

Kesavayuth

Zikos

2017

Contemporary Economic Policy

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There is a large literature showing that unemployment reduces people's well‐being. Yet little is known about the reverse possibility, namely that well‐being itself may influence unemployment propensity. Understanding the potentials of human well‐being in relation to unemployment is important as many developed countries are currently facing high unemployment rates. As well‐being is likely to be endogenous, we use British panel data and implement Lewbel's novel empirical approach for identification. We show that higher well‐being implies a negative causal effect on the probability of being unemployed. The result holds for two very different well‐being measures: life satisfaction and a 12‐item scale of mental health. As such, it provides new empirical evidence on the causal link between well‐being and unemployment propensity. (JEL D03, I31)

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“…Recently, demographers have also demonstrated that subjective well-being plays a role not only as an outcome following demographic events-it also drives demographic outcomes (i.e. Le Moglie et al 2015).…”

Section: Children Matter For Parents' Subjective Well-beingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Parenthood Happiness Puzzle: An Introduction to Special Issue

Köhler

2016

Eur J Population

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Contrary to conventional wisdom, recent studies argue that parenthood is not necessarily related to higher parental subjective well-being (SWB). However, parenthood remains an important aspect of adults' lives, also in highly developed societies where childbearing has become optional, financially expensive and affecting other goals in life. Whereas a great deal of effort has been put into answering why fertility is low in so many developed countries, one may even ask why is it not even lower. The answer is not obvious but stems from the fact that, to date, the relationship between fertility and SWB has been understudied and the mechanisms at work are not well understood. This special issue makes a step forward in this line of research, providing a coherent set of papers addressing different dimensions of the relationship between fertility and SWB and its mechanisms, starting from a demographic perspective, but integrating theories and research results from other disciplines. The collection of papers assesses the effect of the birth of a child on the individual SWB from angles still unexplored with the idea that the effects of fertility on individuals' SWB are diverse depending on individual, couple and country contextual factors.

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Is it just a matter of personality? On the role of subjective well-being in childbearing behavior

Cited by 57 publications

References 81 publications

Happy People Have Children: Choice and Self-Selection into Parenthood

Happy People Have Children: Choice and Self-Selection into Parenthood

Happy People Are Less Likely to Be Unemployed: Psychological Evidence From Panel Data

The Parenthood Happiness Puzzle: An Introduction to Special Issue

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