Abstract
This paper aims to consider whether there is a link between youth happiness levels and adult life satisfaction. Our results are unequivocal that such a link exists both because demographic and socio-economic conditions are persistent over a lifetime and also because there is a persistence in personality effects. To test this link, we estimate a model of happiness for a sample of young people. This model provides us with a range of variables measuring socio-economic effects and personality effects amongst young people. These variables are then included in the adult life satisfaction model. The model is estimated using data from the British Household Panel Survey for 1994–2008. In addition to childhood happiness levels influencing adult life satisfaction significantly, we also find that the youthful personality trait for happiness has a larger effect on adult life satisfaction than demographic and socio-economic conditions.
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Notes
We exclude those who live with same sex parents or did not live with at least one parent e.g. lived with grandparents, other relatives or non-relatives, since some of our variables relate to the relationship with their parent(s), and it was not always obvious who their main guardian was. We also removed the few (189 cases) who had “other” parents (e.g. adopted, foster) as it was difficult to identify where to place these children (with biological parents or step parents).
Note that an exogenous variable in the Hausman–Taylor context is defined as a variable that is not correlated with the unobserved individual effect (αi) while an endogenous variable is one that is. Neither is correlated with the idiosyncratic error term (εit).
see Land et al. (2001) for an index of Child and Youth Well-being based on a combination of these domains of life.
Including twins (only 120 cases of being a twin) and step siblings of the same age.
In some cases, it was evident that the answers did not necessarily relate to parents living within the household. Thus, young people answered the question even when they had earlier indicated that parents were not living in their household. The answer might therefore relate to their parents living in other households (after divorce or separation for example). We took the answers as given but made the interpretation conditional on the child stating having that parent.
Household income was adjusted for household size (weighting adults by 1 and children by 0.5).
This fixed effect is obtained in Stata through predict u, u after the regression specified in Eq. 2—which is fixed for each individual.
The predicted values without the individual effect is obtained in Stata through predict, xb; the predicted value with the individual fixed effect through predict xbu and the residual through predict, e.
In estimations not shown in this paper, we find that when the parent employment variables are excluded, being part of a single parent family reduces happiness for both sexes but the effect is smaller than that for being part of a step family. The fact that the parent employment variables affect the single parent variable could indicate that time spent with the child could mitigate any effects of only having one parent.
Other measures of income—monthly income and income quintiles—were also tested but all turned out to be insignificant.
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to participants at the European Society for Population Economics conference in Berne 2012, the International Association for Feminist Economics Conference in Barcelona 2012 and participants of the internal seminars at the University of Reading for comments. We would also like to thank Wiji Arulampalam, Marina Della Giusta, Adelina Gschwandtner, Alois Stutzer and two anonymous referees for providing insightful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
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Appendices
Appendix 1
Variable | Definition/questions | Source |
|---|---|---|
Stage 1 variables | ||
Happiness | How do you feel about your life as a whole? On a scale of scale of 1 (completely happy) to 7(completely unhappy) | Youth questionnaire |
Family structure | Whether live with both natural parents, part of a step family or single parent. Excluded cases of same sex parents or where did not live with a parent e.g. lived with grandparents, other relatives or non-relatives | Household members relationship records |
Siblings | Number of younger and older siblings in household | Household members relationship records and main adult questionnaire for siblings age |
Relationship with parents | How often do you quarrel with your mother (father)? How often do you talk to your mother (father), about things that matter to you? Responses: Most days (1) More than once a week (2) Less than once a week (3) Hardly ever (4) Don’t have a father/mother (5) (Reverse coded to aid interpretation so higher values reflect a closer relationship for the talking variable and more arguments for the arguments variable) | Youth questionnaire |
Family relationship | In the past 7 days how many times have you eaten an evening meal together with your family? Responses: None, 1–2, 3–5, 6–7 | Youth questionnaire |
Relationship with peers | Thinking back over the last 7 days, how many times have you had friends round to your house?” Responses: none, 1–3, 4–6 and 7 How many friends do you have? | Youth questionnaire |
Household income | Log (annual income) adjusted for household size (weighted 1 for adults and 0.5 for children) and inflation | Household questionnaire |
Parents employment status | Whether father is employed, whether mother is employed and working full or part time | Adult questionnaire (matched through parents personal identifier) |
Gender | Gender | Fixed wave information |
Age | Age indicator variables—11, 12, 13, 14, 15/16 | Youth questionnaire |
Ethnicity | Race of respondent: white or other | Fixed wave information record |
Stage 2 variables | ||
Life satisfaction | Overall life satisfaction—individuals were asked on a scale of 1(not satisfied at all) to 7(completely satisfied) “How satisfied or dissatisfied are you with your life overall?” | Adult questionnaire |
Average youth happiness | Average across an individual’s happiness values in youth panel | Youth questionnaire |
Youth happiness measures | See methodology section | Own calculations |
Age | Age and age squared | Fixed wave record |
Gender | Sex of respondent | Fixed wave record |
Ethnicity | Race of respondent: white or other | Fixed wave record |
Whether live with a spouse partner | An indicator dummy or whether they live with a spouse or partner | Adult questionnaire |
Qualifications | Highest level academic qualification—divided into higher/first degree, other tertiary qualifications, A level, school level qualifications and no qualifications | Adult questionnaire |
Log of household income | Log of annual household income divided by the number of adults in the household and adjusted for inflation | Adult questionnaire |
Labour market status | Current labour market status with options of: employed, unemployed, retired, family care, education/training, sick/disabled and other – divided into employed, full time education, unemployed and out of the labour market | Adult questionnaire |
Children | An indicator variable of whether they have any children who live with them | Adult questionnaire |
Health limits daily activities | Whether health limits daily activities | Adult questionnaire |
Appendix 2: Variable descriptive statistics
Girls | Boys | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Mean | SD | Mean | SD | |
Youth variables | ||||
Happiness | 5.77 | 1.28 | 5.97 | 1.17 |
White | 0.61 | 0.49 | 0.59 | 0.49 |
Aged 11 | 0.18 | 0.38 | 0.18 | 0.39 |
Aged 12 | 0.20 | 0.40 | 0.20 | 0.40 |
Aged 13 | 0.20 | 0.40 | 0.20 | 0.40 |
Aged 14 | 0.20 | 0.40 | 0.20 | 0.40 |
Aged 15/16 | 0.22 | 0.41 | 0.21 | 0.41 |
Age | 13.09 | 1.43 | 13.07 | 1.43 |
Log (annual household income) | 9.03 | 0.61 | 9.06 | 0.65 |
Live with both natural parents | 0.61 | 0.49 | 0.60 | 0.49 |
Step family | 0.18 | 0.38 | 0.19 | 0.39 |
Single parent family | 0.21 | 0.41 | 0.22 | 0.41 |
Number of older siblings | 0.71 | 0.84 | 0.66 | 0.81 |
Number of younger siblings | 0.80 | 0.96 | 0.83 | 0.93 |
Only child | 0.14 | 0.34 | 0.12 | 0.33 |
Argue with parent same sex | 2.06 | 1.10 | 1.48 | 1.05 |
Argue with parent opposite sex | 1.49 | 1.10 | 1.87 | 1.06 |
Talk with parent same sex | 2.71 | 1.19 | 1.79 | 1.21 |
Talk with parent opposite sex | 1.62 | 1.16 | 2.31 | 1.20 |
Father work—two parent family | 0.67 | 0.47 | 0.69 | 0.46 |
Mother not work—two parent family | 0.42 | 0.49 | 0.42 | 0.49 |
Mother work full time—two parent family | 0.29 | 0.46 | 0.30 | 0.46 |
Mother work part time—two parent family | 0.28 | 0.45 | 0.28 | 0.45 |
Single parent—not work | 0.87 | 0.33 | 0.87 | 0.34 |
Single parent—work full time | 0.07 | 0.26 | 0.08 | 0.27 |
Single parent—work part time | 0.05 | 0.22 | 0.05 | 0.22 |
0 evening meals with family | 0.12 | 0.32 | 0.11 | 0.31 |
1–2 evening meals with family | 0.24 | 0.43 | 0.24 | 0.43 |
3–5 evening meals with family | 0.25 | 0.43 | 0.26 | 0.44 |
6–7 evening meals with family | 0.39 | 0.49 | 0.39 | 0.49 |
No of friends | 6.75 | 5.78 | 7.28 | 7.35 |
Friends round house 0 times | 0.32 | 0.47 | 0.34 | 0.47 |
Friends round house 1–2 times | 0.43 | 0.49 | 0.41 | 0.49 |
Friends round house 3–5 times | 0.16 | 0.37 | 0.16 | 0.37 |
Friends round house 6 + times | 0.10 | 0.30 | 0.09 | 0.29 |
No of obs. | 7,865 | 8,022 | ||
Women | Men | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Mean | SD | Mean | SD | |
Adult variables | ||||
Life satisfaction | 5.14 | 1.2 | 5.28 | 1.17 |
Age | 21.1 | 2.79 | 21.06 | 2.79 |
Age squared | 452.86 | 124.46 | 451.21 | 123.9 |
White | 0.95 | 0.21 | 0.94 | 0.24 |
Higher/first degree | 0.13 | 0.33 | 0.09 | 0.29 |
Other tertiary | 0.22 | 0.42 | 0.21 | 0.41 |
A levels | 0.33 | 0.47 | 0.31 | 0.46 |
No qualifications | 0.04 | 0.19 | 0.05 | 0.22 |
Live with spouse/partner | 0.25 | 0.43 | 0.14 | 0.35 |
Have child | 0.18 | 0.39 | 0.06 | 0.23 |
Employed | 0.59 | 0.49 | 0.64 | 0.48 |
In Full time education | 0.23 | 0.42 | 0.24 | 0.43 |
Unemployed | 0.07 | 0.25 | 0.10 | 0.30 |
Log (household income) | 9.12 | 0.79 | 9.17 | 0.84 |
Health limits daily activities | 0.08 | 0.27 | 0.05 | 0.22 |
No of obs. | 3,887 | 3,595 | ||
Appendix 3: Descriptive statistics: youth measures (non-standardised values)
Mean | SD | Min | Max | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Women (n = 942) | ||||
Youth average happiness | 4.79 | 1.48 | 1.00 | 7.00 |
Youth happiness trait | 0.00 | 0.74 | −3.73 | 1.49 |
Average predicted happiness without FE | 5.66 | 0.27 | 4.71 | 6.40 |
Average predicted happiness with FE | 5.66 | 0.83 | 1.70 | 6.91 |
Average residual | 0.00 | 0.20 | −1.63 | 0.70 |
Men (n = 883) | ||||
Youth average happiness | 5.18 | 1.35 | 1.00 | 7.00 |
Youth happiness trait | 0.01 | 0.52 | −2.73 | 1.03 |
Average predicted happiness without FE | 5.92 | 0.20 | 5.14 | 6.45 |
Average predicted happiness with FE | 5.93 | 0.58 | 2.86 | 6.87 |
Average residual | 0.00 | 0.36 | −2.61 | 1.10 |
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Jewell, S., Kambhampati, U.S. Are Happy Youth Also Satisfied Adults? An Analysis of the Impact of Childhood Factors on Adult Life Satisfaction. Soc Indic Res 121, 543–567 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-014-0642-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-014-0642-6
Keywords
- Life satisfaction
- Personality
- Youth happiness