IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ese/iserwp/2017-02.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Income effects on children’s life satisfaction: longitudinal evidence for England

Author

Listed:
  • Knies, Gundi

Abstract

Using longitudinal data for children aged 10-15 years living in England in 2009-2014 we test the hypothesis that income matters for children’s life satisfaction. The results suggest that children are more satisfied with life the more income their family has. Income effects are larger the less income the family has and statistically significant for children from the age of 13. Overall, the effects are small and governments aiming to increase population well-being in this group may expect greater returns from addressing satisfaction gaps experienced during school holidays and focussing on British/Irish white males and females from ethnic minority backgrounds.

Suggested Citation

  • Knies, Gundi, 2017. "Income effects on children’s life satisfaction: longitudinal evidence for England," ISER Working Paper Series 2017-02, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:ese:iserwp:2017-02
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/files/working-papers/iser/2017-02.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mark Holder & Ben Coleman, 2008. "The contribution of temperament, popularity, and physical appearance to children’s happiness," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 279-302, June.
    2. Blanchflower, David G. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2008. "Is well-being U-shaped over the life cycle?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(8), pages 1733-1749, April.
    3. Richard Layard & Andrew E. Clark & Francesca Cornaglia & Nattavudh Powdthavee & James Vernoit, 2014. "What Predicts a Successful Life? A Life‐course Model of Well‐being," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 124(580), pages 720-738, November.
    4. Clark, Andrew E & Oswald, Andrew J, 1994. "Unhappiness and Unemployment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(424), pages 648-659, May.
    5. Andrew E. Clark & Ed Diener & Yannis Georgellis & Richard E. Lucas, 2008. "Lags And Leads in Life Satisfaction: a Test of the Baseline Hypothesis," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(529), pages 222-243, June.
    6. Gundi Knies, 2012. "Income Comparisons Among Neighbours and Satisfaction in East and West Germany," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 106(3), pages 471-489, May.
    7. van Praag, B. M. S. & Frijters, P. & Ferrer-i-Carbonell, A., 2003. "The anatomy of subjective well-being," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 29-49, May.
    8. Paul Frijters & John P. Haisken-DeNew & Michael A. Shields, 2004. "Money Does Matter! Evidence from Increasing Real Income and Life Satisfaction in East Germany Following Reunification," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(3), pages 730-740, June.
    9. Andrew E. Clark & Nicolai Kristensen & Niels Westergård-Nielsen, 2009. "Economic Satisfaction and Income Rank in Small Neighbourhoods," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(2-3), pages 519-527, 04-05.
    10. Gibbons, Stephen & Silva, Olmo, 2011. "School quality, child wellbeing and parents' satisfaction," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 312-331, April.
    11. Frick, Joachim R. & Goebel, Jan & Schechtman, Edna & Wagner, Gert G. & Yitzhaki, Shlomo, 2006. "Using Analysis of Gini (ANOGI) for Detecting Whether Two Subsamples Represent the Same Universe: The German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) Experience," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 34(4), pages 427-468.
    12. Paul Frijters & David W. Johnston & Michael A. Shields, 2014. "Does Childhood Predict Adult Life Satisfaction? Evidence from British Cohort Surveys," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 124(580), pages 688-719, November.
    13. Carmel Proctor & P. Linley & John Maltby, 2009. "Youth Life Satisfaction: A Review of the Literature," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 10(5), pages 583-630, October.
    14. David M. Blau, 1999. "The Effect Of Income On Child Development," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(2), pages 261-276, May.
    15. Adam Shapiro & Corey Keyes, 2008. "Marital Status and Social Well-Being: Are the Married Always Better Off?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 88(2), pages 329-346, September.
    16. Rasheda Khanam & Son Nghiem, 2016. "Family Income and Child Cognitive and Noncognitive Development in Australia: Does Money Matter?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 53(3), pages 597-621, June.
    17. Holford, Angus, 2016. "Do parents tax their children? Teenage labour supply and financial support," ISER Working Paper Series 2016-05, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    18. Haridhan Goswami & Christopher Fox & Gary Pollock, 2016. "The Current Evidence Base and Future Needs in Improving Children’s Well-Being Across Europe: is There a Case for a Comparative Longitudinal Survey?," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 9(2), pages 371-388, June.
    19. Anne M. Gadermann & Martin Guhn & Kimberly A. Schonert-Reichl & Shelley Hymel & Kimberly Thomson & Clyde Hertzman, 2016. "A Population-Based Study of Children’s Well-Being and Health: The Relative Importance of Social Relationships, Health-Related Activities, and Income," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 17(5), pages 1847-1872, October.
    20. Mundlak, Yair, 1978. "On the Pooling of Time Series and Cross Section Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 69-85, January.
    21. Daniel Kahneman & Alan B. Krueger, 2006. "Developments in the Measurement of Subjective Well-Being," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(1), pages 3-24, Winter.
    22. Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell & Paul Frijters, 2004. "How Important is Methodology for the estimates of the determinants of Happiness?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(497), pages 641-659, July.
    23. Curtis, Lori J. & Dooley, Martin D. & Phipps, Shelley A., 2004. "Child well-being and neighbourhood quality: evidence from the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 58(10), pages 1917-1927, May.
    24. Dolan, Paul & Peasgood, Tessa & White, Mathew, 2008. "Do we really know what makes us happy A review of the economic literature on the factors associated with subjective well-being," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 94-122, February.
    25. Drukker, Marjan & Kaplan, Charles & Feron, Frans & van Os, Jim, 2003. "Children's health-related quality of life, neighbourhood socio-economic deprivation and social capital. A contextual analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 57(5), pages 825-841, September.
    26. Bradley Hardy, 2014. "Childhood Income Volatility and Adult Outcomes," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(5), pages 1641-1665, October.
    27. Michael Shields & Stephen Wheatley Price & Mark Wooden, 2009. "Life satisfaction and the economic and social characteristics of neighbourhoods," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 22(2), pages 421-443, April.
    28. Lim, Chaeyoon & Putnam, Robert David, 2010. "Religion, Social Networks, and Life Satisfaction," Scholarly Articles 11105537, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    29. Luigino Bruni & Pier Luigi Porta (ed.), 2007. "Handbook on the Economics of Happiness," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 3437.
    30. Kate Levin & Torbjorn Torsheim & Wilma Vollebergh & Matthias Richter & Carolyn Davies & Christina Schnohr & Pernille Due & Candace Currie, 2011. "National Income and Income Inequality, Family Affluence and Life Satisfaction Among 13 year Old Boys and Girls: A Multilevel Study in 35 Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 104(2), pages 179-194, November.
    31. Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Ada, 2005. "Income and well-being: an empirical analysis of the comparison income effect," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 997-1019, June.
    32. Ed Diener & Ed Sandvik & Larry Seidlitz & Marissa Diener, 1993. "The relationship between income and subjective well-being: Relative or absolute?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 28(3), pages 195-223, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gill Main, 2019. "Money Matters: a Nuanced Approach to Understanding the Relationship between Household Income and Child Subjective Well-Being," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 12(4), pages 1125-1145, August.
    2. Kenisha Russell Jonsson & Joan Busfield & Marita Södergren & Miia Karen & Nicholas Kofi Adjei, 2020. "Social Capital, Deprivation and Psychological Well-Being among Young Adolescents: A Multilevel Study from England and Wales," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(10), pages 1-19, May.
    3. Gwyther Rees, 2019. "Variations in Children’s Affective Subjective Well-Being at Seven Years Old: an Analysis of Current and Historical Factors," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 12(1), pages 141-160, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gundi Knies, 2022. "Effects of Income and Material Deprivation on Children’s Life Satisfaction: Evidence from Longitudinal Data for England (2009–2018)," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 1469-1492, April.
    2. Knies, Gundi & Nandi, Alita & Platt, Lucinda, 2014. "Life satisfaction, ethnicity and neighbourhoods: is there an effect of neighbourhood ethnic composition on life satisfaction?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 55669, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Byela Tibesigwa & Martine Visser & Brennan Hodkinson, 2016. "Effects of Objective and Subjective Income Comparisons on Subjective Wellbeing," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 128(1), pages 361-389, August.
    4. Leonardo Becchetti & Alessandra Pelloni, 2013. "What are we learning from the life satisfaction literature?," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 60(2), pages 113-155, June.
    5. Paul Downward & Simona Rasciute, 2011. "An Economic Analysis of the Subjective Health and Well-being of Physical Activity," Chapters, in: Plácido Rodríguez & Stefan Késenne & Brad R. Humphreys (ed.), The Economics of Sport, Health and Happiness, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Stefano Bartolini & Ennio Bilancini & Francesco Sarracino, 2013. "Predicting the Trend of Well-Being in Germany: How Much Do Comparisons, Adaptation and Sociability Matter?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 114(2), pages 169-191, November.
    7. Powdthavee, Nattavudh & Lekfuangfu, Warn N. & Wooden, Mark, 2015. "What's the good of education on our overall quality of life? A simultaneous equation model of education and life satisfaction for Australia," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 10-21.
    8. Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell, 2013. "Happiness economics," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 35-60, March.
    9. Pawlowski, Tim & Downward, Paul & Rasciute, Simona, 2014. "Does national pride from international sporting success contribute to well-being? An international investigation," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 121-132.
    10. Bonsang, E. & Klein, T.J., 2012. "Retirement and subjective well-being," Other publications TiSEM f7d1a3d3-eb51-42d0-a3da-0, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    11. O’Leary, Nigel & Li, Ian W. & Gupta, Prashant & Blackaby, David, 2020. "Wellbeing trajectories around life events in Australia," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 499-509.
    12. Sarracino, Francesco, 2013. "Determinants of subjective well-being in high and low income countries: Do happiness equations differ across countries?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 51-66.
    13. AMENDOLA, Adalgiso & DELL'ANNO, Roberto & PARISI, Lavinia, 2015. "Happiness, Inequality and Relative Concerns in European Countries," CELPE Discussion Papers 136, CELPE - CEnter for Labor and Political Economics, University of Salerno, Italy.
    14. Adrian Chadi & Clemens Hetschko, 2021. "How Job Changes Affect People's Lives — Evidence from Subjective Well‐Being Data," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 59(2), pages 279-306, June.
    15. Bahadır Dursun & Resul Cesur, 2016. "Transforming lives: the impact of compulsory schooling on hope and happiness," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 29(3), pages 911-956, July.
    16. Antje Mertens & Miriam Beblo, 2016. "Self-Reported Satisfaction and the Economic Crisis of 2007–2010: Or How People in the UK and Germany Perceive a Severe Cyclical Downturn," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 125(2), pages 537-565, January.
    17. Bonsang, Eric & Klein, Tobias J., 2012. "Retirement and subjective well-being," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 311-329.
    18. Andrew E. Clark, 2018. "Four Decades of the Economics of Happiness: Where Next?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(2), pages 245-269, June.
    19. Caporale, Guglielmo Maria & Georgellis, Yannis & Tsitsianis, Nicholas & Yin, Ya Ping, 2009. "Income and happiness across Europe: Do reference values matter?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 42-51, February.
    20. Senakpon F. A. Dedehouanou & Johan Swinnen & Miet Maertens, 2013. "Does Contracting Make Farmers Happy? Evidence from Senegal," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 59, pages 138-160, October.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ese:iserwp:2017-02. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Jonathan Nears (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rcessuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.