IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wrk/warwec/937.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Are Happiness and Productivity Lower among University Students with Newly-Divorced Parents? An Experimental Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Sgroi, Daniel

    (Department of Economics, University of Warwick)

  • Proto, Eugenio

    (Department of Economics, University of Warwick)

  • Oswald, Andrew J.

    (Department of Economics, University of Warwick and and Warwick Business School)

Abstract

We live in a high-divorce age. Parents worry about the possibility of negative effects upon their children. This paper tests whether recent parental-divorce has deleterious consequences for grown children. Under controlled conditions, it measures students’ happiness with life, and their productivity in a standardized laboratory task. No negative effects from divorce can be detected. If anything, happiness and productivity are greater, particularly among males, if they have experienced parental divorce. Using longitudinal BHPS data -- to control for fixed effects -- we cross-check this result on happiness. Again, the evidence suggests that young people’s mental well-being improves after parental divorce.

Suggested Citation

  • Sgroi, Daniel & Proto, Eugenio & Oswald, Andrew J., 2010. "Are Happiness and Productivity Lower among University Students with Newly-Divorced Parents? An Experimental Approach," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 937, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:wrk:warwec:937
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/workingpapers/2010/twerp_937.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrew J. Oswald & Eugenio Proto & Daniel Sgroi, 2015. "Happiness and Productivity," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(4), pages 789-822.
    2. Jonathan Gardner & Andrew J. Oswald, 2006. "Do divorcing couples become happier by breaking up?," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 169(2), pages 319-336, March.
    3. Shirley H. Liu, 2007. "Is My Parents' Divorce to Blame for My Failure in Life? A joint Model of Child Educational Attainments and Parental Divorce," Working Papers 0610, University of Miami, Department of Economics.
    4. Libertad González Luna & Tarja Viitanen, 2008. "The long term effects of legalizing divorce on children," Economics Working Papers 1122, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    5. Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers, 2007. "Marriage and Divorce: Changes and their Driving Forces," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 27-52, Spring.
    6. Corak, Miles, 2001. "Death and Divorce: The Long-Term Consequences of Parental Loss on Adolescents," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(3), pages 682-715, July.
    7. Mark L. Hoekstra, 2007. "The Effects of Near and Actual Parental Divorce on Student Achievement and Misbehavior," Working Paper 305, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, revised Jan 2009.
    8. Anna Sanz‐de‐Galdeano & Daniela Vuri, 2007. "Parental Divorce and Students’ Performance: Evidence from Longitudinal Data," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 69(3), pages 321-338, June.
    9. Sgroi, Daniel & Proto, Eugenio & Oswald, Andrew J. & Dobson, Alexander, 2010. "Priming and the Reliability of Subjective Well-being Measures," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 935, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    10. Piketty, Thomas, 2003. "The Impact of Divorce on School Performance: Evidence from France, 1968-2002," CEPR Discussion Papers 4146, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers, 2006. "Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law: Divorce Laws and Family Distress," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(1), pages 267-288.
    12. Collishaw, Stephan & Goodman, Robert & Pickles, Andrew & Maughan, Barbara, 2007. "Modelling the contribution of changes in family life to time trends in adolescent conduct problems," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(12), pages 2576-2587, December.
    13. Jonathan Gruber, 2004. "Is Making Divorce Easier Bad for Children? The Long-Run Implications of Unilateral Divorce," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(4), pages 799-834, October.
    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. Charles Henri DiMaria & Chiara Peroni & Francesco Sarracino, 2014. "Happiness matters: the role of well-being in productivity," Department of Economics University of Siena 699, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    2. Sgroi, Daniel & Proto, Eugenio & Oswald, Andrew J. & Dobson, Alexander, 2010. "Priming and the Reliability of Subjective Well-being Measures," Economic Research Papers 271002, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    3. Bidisha Chakraborty & Souparna Maji & Anamika Sen & Isha Mallik & Sayantan Baidya & Esha Dwibedi, 2019. "A Study on Happiness and Related Factors Among Indian College Students," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 17(1), pages 215-236, March.
    4. Charles Henri DiMaria & Chiara Peroni & Francesco Sarracino, 2020. "Happiness Matters: Productivity Gains from Subjective Well-Being," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 139-160, January.
    5. Bert Van Landeghem, 2012. "Panel Conditioning and Self-Reported Satisfaction: Evidence from International Panel Data and Repeated Cross-Sections," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 484, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    6. Sarracino, Francesco & Riillo, Cesare Fabio Antonio, 2020. "Facing the challenge of globalization: the role of confidence in institutions," MPRA Paper 103692, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Eugenio Proto & Daniel Sgroi & Andrew Oswald, 2012. "Are happiness and productivity lower among young people with newly-divorced parents? An experimental and econometric approach," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 15(1), pages 1-23, March.
    2. González, Libertad & Viitanen, Tarja K., 2009. "The effect of divorce laws on divorce rates in Europe," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 127-138, February.
    3. Marco Francesconi & Stephen Jenkins & Thomas Siedler, 2010. "Childhood family structure and schooling outcomes: evidence for Germany," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 23(3), pages 1073-1103, June.
    4. Wolfgang Frimmel & Martin Halla & Rudolf Winter-Ebmer, 2016. "How Does Parental Divorce Affect Children's Long-term Outcomes?," Working Papers 2016-13, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    5. González, Libertad & Viitanen, Tarja, 2008. "The Long Term Effects of Legalizing Divorce on Children," IZA Discussion Papers 3789, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Lehrer, Evelyn L. & Son, Yeon Jeong, 2017. "Marital Instability in the United States: Trends, Driving Forces, and Implications for Children," IZA Discussion Papers 10503, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Natalie Obergruber, 2018. "Microeconometric Analysis of Individual and Institutional Determinants of Education and Occupational Choice," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 80.
    8. Guven, Cahit & Senik, Claudia & Stichnoth, Holger, 2012. "You can’t be happier than your wife. Happiness gaps and divorce," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 110-130.
    9. Li, Li & Mak, Eric, 2016. "Marriage, Divorce, Remarriage: The Catalyst Effect of Unilateral Divorce," MPRA Paper 83330, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Mark L. Hoekstra, 2007. "The Effects of Near and Actual Parental Divorce on Student Achievement and Misbehavior," Working Paper 305, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, revised Jan 2009.
    11. Bargain, Olivier & González, Libertad & Keane, Claire & Özcan, Berkay, 2012. "Female labor supply and divorce: New evidence from Ireland," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1675-1691.
    12. Bellido, Héctor & Marcén, Miriam, 2020. "On the relationship between body mass index and marital dissolution," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 326-340.
    13. Millemaci, Emanuele & Sciulli, Dario, 2011. "The causal effect of family difficulties during childhood on adult labour market outcomes," MPRA Paper 29026, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Emanuele Millemaci & Dario Sciulli, 2014. "The long-term impact of family difficulties during childhood on labor market outcomes," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 663-687, December.
    15. Helmut Rainer & Timo Hener & Thomas Siedler & Anita Fichtl & Anita Dietrich, 2013. "Political Socialisation in Changing Times? Connection Between Family Structures and Civic Engagement," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 66(17), pages 30-38, September.
    16. Angelini, Viola & Bertoni, Marco & Stella, Luca & Weiss, Christoph T., 2019. "The ant or the grasshopper? The long-term consequences of Unilateral Divorce Laws on savings of European households," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 97-113.
    17. Letizia Mencarini & Silvia Pasqua & Agnese Romiti, 2019. "Single-mother families and the gender gap in children’s time investment and non-cognitive skills," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 149-176, March.
    18. Bellido, Héctor & Marcén, Miriam, 2014. "Divorce laws and fertility," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 56-70.
    19. Bellido, Héctor & Marcén, Miriam, 2016. "On the relationship between BMI and marital dissolution," MPRA Paper 73868, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Leonard M. Lopoo & Kerri M. Raissian, 2014. "U.S. Social Policy and Family Complexity," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 654(1), pages 213-230, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Labor productivity ; divorce ; well-being ; happiness ; experimental economics JEL Codes: D03 ; J24 ; C91;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior

    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:wrk:warwec:937. 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: Margaret Nash (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dewaruk.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.