Maternal Life Satisfaction and Child Outcomes: Are They Related?

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. This series presents research findings based either directly on data from the German SocioEconomic Panel Study (SOEP) or using SOEP data as part of an internationally comparable data set (e.g. CNEF, ECHP, LIS, LWS, CHER/PACO). SOEP is a truly multidisciplinary household panel study covering a wide range of social and behavioral sciences: economics, sociology, psychology, survey methodology, econometrics and applied statistics, educational science, political science, public health, behavioral genetics, demography, geography, and sport science. Terms of use: Documents inThe decision to publish a submission in SOEPpapers is made by a board of editors chosen by the DIW Berlin to represent the wide range of disciplines covered by SOEP. There is no external referee process and papers are either accepted or rejected without revision. Papers appear in this series as works in progress and may also appear elsewhere. They often represent preliminary studies and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be requested from the author directly. This paper investigates the association between maternal life satisfaction and the developmental functioning of two-to three-year-old children as well as the socio-emotional behavior of five-to six-year-old children.We use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), which allows us to control for a rich set of child and parental characteristics and to use the mother's life satisfaction before the birth of her child as an instrument to eliminate potential reverse causality. The results indicate that the more satisfied the mother, the better her child's verbal skills and the lower his or her socio-emotional problems. The relation is more pronounced for boys than for girls. The results are robust even when mothers' personality or mothers' cognitive skills are controlled for. JEL classification: J13; I22

Moving to an Earnings-Related Parental Leave System Do Heterogeneous Effects on Parents Make Some Children Worse Off?

“…54 Clark et al (2008) find that it is not absolute but relative income which matters for happiness, because individuals compare their income both to others (social comparison) and to themselves in the past (habituation). Berger and Spiess (2011) investigate the relationship between maternal life satisfaction and child outcomes using data from the GSOEP. They find that higher maternal life satisfaction leads to better socio-economic development at the age of 5 to 6 years.…”

“…According to RWI (2008), most parents were not aware of the progressivity effect when receiving Elterngeld and thus even overestimated the gain in income. Berger and Spiess (2011) showed that the verbal skills of 2-3-year-olds improve the higher their mother's life satisfaction is. This can be explained by either qualitatively better attachment or better parenting behavior of happy mothers.…”

“…According to Berger and Spiess (2011), maternal life satisfaction can influence a child's attachment to the mother and thus is related to the quality of care the mother provides to her child.…”

Trick or Treat? Maternal Involuntary Job Loss and Children's Non-Cognitive Skills

“…Maternal job loss might decrease a mother's life satisfaction which in turn could deteriorate the emotional stability of her relationship with her child, since a mother might have re-entered the labor market after being dissatisfied with "solely" being a mother (see for example the study on maternal life satisfaction and child outcomes by Berger & Spiess 2011). A change in parents' emotional balance is closely related to the literature on unemployment and life satisfaction (see for example the work by Clark et al (2010) or Knabe et al (2010)).…”

“…The SOEP started in 1984 and is an annual household panel 8 that comprises a series of mother-child questionnaires as well as a youth specific questionnaire. The child-specific modules of the SOEP 7 Berger & Spiess (2011) show that higher maternal life satisfaction decreases children's socio-emotional problems. They argue that the positive effect of maternal life satisfaction stems from more responsiveness to the children, which affects the quality of mother-child interactions.…”