Children, Unhappiness and Family Finances

Andrew Clark and David Blanchflower

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Abstract: The common finding of a zero or negative correlation between the presence of children and parental well-being continues to generate research interest. We consider international data, including well over one million observations on Europeans from 11 years of Eurobarometer surveys. We first replicate this negative finding, both in the overall data and then for most different marital statuses. Children are expensive: controlling for financial difficulties turns our estimated child coefficients positive. We argue that difficulties paying the bills explain the pattern of existing results by parental education and income and by country income and social support. Last, we underline that not all children are the same, with stepchildren commonly having a more negative correlation with well-being than children from the current relationship.

Keywords: Children; Subjective well-being; Age; Financial difficulties; Eurobarometer (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Journal of Population Economics, 2021, 34, pp.625-653. ⟨10.1007/s00148-020-00798-y⟩

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Related works:
Journal Article: Children, unhappiness and family finances (2021)
Working Paper: Children, Unhappiness and Family Finances (2021)
Working Paper: Children, Unhappiness and Family Finances (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-02973082

DOI: 10.1007/s00148-020-00798-y

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