Transforming lives: the impact of compulsory schooling on hope and happiness

Bahadır Dursun () and Resul Cesur ()
Additional contact information
Bahadır Dursun: Louisiana State University

Journal of Population Economics, 2016, vol. 29, issue 3, No 9, 956 pages

Abstract: Abstract This is the first article examining the causal impact of mandatory extended primary schooling on happiness (sense of well-being) of young adults. We rely on a law change that raised compulsory schooling from 5 to 8 years in Turkey to address the endogeneity of education to happiness. Our study shows that, for females, earning at least a middle school diploma increases the likelihood of being happy and the probability of being satisfied with various life domains. Descriptive tests suggest that being hopeful about one’s own future well-being partly explains the relationship between women’s schooling and happiness. For males, although relatively imprecisely estimated, we find evidence that earning at least a middle school degree results in a decline in subjective well-being. Supplemental analysis develops evidence consistent with the view that an imbalance between aspirations and attainments, flowing from extended primary schooling, may be the reason behind this counterintuitive finding among men.

Keywords: Happiness; Subjective well-being; Education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 I28 I31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (34)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00148-016-0592-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:jopoec:v:29:y:2016:i:3:d:10.1007_s00148-016-0592-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... tion/journal/148/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s00148-016-0592-1

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Population Economics is currently edited by K.F. Zimmermann

More articles in Journal of Population Economics from Springer, European Society for Population Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().