I Can’t Smile Without You: Spousal Correlation in Life Satisfaction

Nattavudh Powdthavee

Discussion Papers from Department of Economics, University of York

Abstract: This paper studies how spouses' life satisfaction levels are correlated. Using the British Household Panel Survey, it tests whether the observed positive correlation in life satisfaction is due to assortative mating, shared social environment, or spillover effect of well-being between partners. There is evidence of a positive and statistically important correlation between partners' well-being, even after controlling for omitted individual fixed effects and allowing cross-equation residuals to be correlated. This is consistent with the idea of well-being spillovers within marriage. Moreover, consistent with the spillover effect model, marital dissolution at t+1 is negatively correlated with partners' life satisfaction at t.

Keywords: Life Satisfaction; Assortative Mating; Spillover; Marriage; Longitudinal (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D1 D62 D64 I0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap and nep-soc
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Journal Article: I can't smile without you: Spousal correlation in life satisfaction (2009)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:yor:yorken:08/16

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