Does Compulsory Education Really Increase Life Satisfaction?

Andrew Clark and SeEun Jung ()

No 2017-6, Inha University IBER Working Paper Series from Inha University, Institute of Business and Economic Research

Abstract: This paper examines the impact of the 1972 British education reform on life satisfaction using 1996-2008 British Household Panel Survey data. The education reform increased compulsory education by one year for those who were born after the 1st of September 1957, yielding an exogenous change in education for the treated group. Contrary to other work, we find no evidence that a one-year rise in compulsory education increased life satisfaction, even though it is often estimated to increase income. Many of our estimates suggest a negative relationship: the positive life-satisfaction effect found in research using earlier data does not then seem to have endured.

Keywords: Life Satisfaction; Education Reform; Compulsory Schooling; RDD; BHPS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 C82 I28 I31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 2 pages
Date: 2017-07, Revised 2017-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-edu, nep-eur and nep-hap
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

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