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Suffer the Little Children: Measuring the Effects of Parenthood on Well-Being Worldwide

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Author Info
Luca Stanca ()

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Abstract

This paper tests the rational-choice approach to fertility decisions by investigating the relationship between parenthood and well-being in a large sample of individuals from 94 countries. We find that world- wide, controlling for demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, having children has a negative effect on well-being. Conditioning on age, gender, marital status and education can only partially help to interpret this finding. We show that the negative effect of parent- hood on well-being is explained by a large adverse impact on financial satisfaction, that on average dominates the positive impact on non- financial satisfaction. The results are robust to alternative empirical specifications and to the inclusion of the reported ideal number of children as a proxy variable to address the endogeneity of parenthood decisions.

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File URL: http://dipeco.economia.unimib.it/repec/pdf/mibwpaper173.pdf
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File Function: First version, 2009
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers with number 173.

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Length: 25 pages
Date of creation: Oct 2009
Date of revision: Oct 2009
Handle: RePEc:mib:wpaper:173

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Related research
Keywords: well-being; fertility; children; decision-making;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values
D10 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - General
D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - General Welfare
J17 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Value of Life; Foregone Income

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  2. Bruni, Luigino & Stanca, Luca, 2008. "Watching alone: Relational goods, television and happiness," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 65(3-4), pages 506-528, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Raquel Fernández & Alessandra Fogli, 2006. "Fertility: The Role of Culture and Family Experience," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(2-3), pages 552-561, 04-05. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Hung-Lin Tao, 2005. "The effects of income and children on marital happiness -- evidence from middle- and old-aged couples," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 12(8), pages 521-524, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Catherine Hakim, 2003. "A New Approach to Explaining Fertility Patterns: Preference Theory," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 29(3), pages 349-374. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Gordon B. Dahl & Enrico Moretti, 2004. "The Demand for Sons: Evidence from Divorce, Fertility, and Shotgun Marriage," NBER Working Papers 10281, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Kevin Milligan, 2005. "Subsidizing the Stork: New Evidence on Tax Incentives and Fertility," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(3), pages 539-555, 06. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Stephan Meier & Alois Stutzer, 2008. "Is Volunteering Rewarding in Itself?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 75(297), pages 39-59, 02. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Rafael Di Tella & Robert MacCulloch, 2006. "Some Uses of Happiness Data in Economics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(1), pages 25-46, Winter. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Rafael Di Tella & Robert J. MacCulloch & Andrew J. Oswald, 2003. "The Macroeconomics of Happiness," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 809-827, 09. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  14. Alesina, Alberto & Di Tella, Rafael & MacCulloch, Robert, 2004. "Inequality and happiness: are Europeans and Americans different?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 2009-2042, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. Stutzer, Alois & Frey, Bruno S., 2006. "Does marriage make people happy, or do happy people get married?," The Journal of Socio-Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 326-347, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  16. Rainer Winkelmann, 2005. "Subjective well-being and the family: Results from an ordered probit model with multiple random effects," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 749-761, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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