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

Eugenio Proto, Daniel Sgroi and Andrew Oswald

No 4755, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We live in a high-divorce age. It is now common for university faculty to have students who are touched by a recent divorce. It is likely that parents themselves worry about effects on their children. Yet there has been almost no formal research into the important issue of how recent parental-divorce affects students at university. This paper designs such a study. In it, to avoid 'priming', we measure students' happiness with life before we inquire into their family background. We also measure student achievement in a randomized-trial productivity task. Our results seem both of scientific interest and of potential interest to parents. This study finds no evidence that students suffer after parental divorce

Keywords: divorce; experimental economics; happiness; well-being; labor productivity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D03 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2010-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-eff, nep-exp, nep-hap, nep-lab and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Published - published in: Experimental Economics, 2012, 15 (1), 1-23

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Related works:
Working Paper: Are Happiness and Productivity Lower among University Students with Newly-Divorced Parents? An Experimental Approach (2010)
Working Paper: Are Happiness and Productivity Lower among University Students with Newly-Divorced Parents? An Experimental Approach (2010)
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