Younger and Dissatisfied? Relative Age and Life-satisfaction in Adolescence

Luca Fumarco and Stijn Baert

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This is the first study to investigate whether age gaps between classmates (that is, relative age) affect life-satisfaction gaps in adolescence. To this end, we analyse data from the multi-country Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) survey. We find evidence that relative age negatively impacts adolescents’ life-satisfaction. A twelve-month age gap decreases life-satisfaction, rated on a 0-10 scale, by 0.3 points. This negative effect is consistent across countries. Finally, this negative effect does not decrease with the increase in absolute age.

Keywords: Relative age; adolescents; education; Europe; life-satisfaction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C26 I21 I31 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Younger and Dissatisfied? Relative Age and Life-Satisfaction in Adolescence (2018)
Working Paper: Younger and Dissatisfied? Relative Age and Life-satisfaction in Adolescence (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:89968

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