Maternal Life Satisfaction, Marital Status, and Child Skill Formation

Dimitrios Nikolaou ()

Eastern Economic Journal, 2017, vol. 43, issue 4, No 4, 648 pages

Abstract: Abstract I examine if the documented positive relationship between marriage and child outcomes represents a maternal life satisfaction effect. By treating life satisfaction and marital status as endogenous in the skill production process, I show that there is a distinct happiness and a distinct marriage effect; marriage increases cognitive skills and decreases conduct problems, while maternal happiness increases social and self-regulation skills to an equivalent of up to £ 38,000 per year. Thus, promoting healthy and happy marriages can be more effective than policies that promote marriage, and life satisfaction is an avenue through which non-married mothers can produce high quality children.

Keywords: life satisfaction; marriage; child development; (non)cognitive skills; item response theory; J12; J13; C33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1057/eej.2015.48

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