Proto, Eugenio, Sgroi, Daniel and Oswald, Andrew J. (2010) Are happiness and productivity lower among university students with newly-divorced parents? : an experimental approach. Working Paper. University of Warwick. Dept. of Economics, Coventry.

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Abstract

We live in a high-divorce age. Parents worry about the possibility of negative effects upon their children. This paper tests whether recent parental-divorce has deleterious consequences for grown children. Under controlled conditions, it measures students’ happiness with life, and their productivity in a standardized laboratory task. No negative effects from divorce can be detected. If anything, happiness and productivity are greater, particularly among males, if they have experienced parental divorce. Using longitudinal BHPS data -- to control for fixed effects -- we cross-check this result on happiness. Again, the evidence suggests that young people’s mental well-being improves after parental divorce.

Item Type:	Working or Discussion Paper (Working Paper)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Adult children of divorced parents -- Mental health, Adult children of divorced parents -- Education, Educational productivity, Happiness -- Testing
Series Name:	Warwick economics research paper series (TWERPS)
Publisher:	University of Warwick. Dept. of Economics
Place of Publication:	Coventry
Date:	2010
Volume:	Vol.2010
Number:	No.937
Institution:	University of Warwick
Status:	Not Peer Reviewed
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access
Funder:	Economic and Social Research Council (Great Britain) (ESRC), Leverhulme Trust (LT)
References:	Amato, P.R. (2001). Children of divorce in the 1990s: An update of the Amato and Keith (1991) meta-analysis. Journal of Family Psychology, 15: 355–370. Collishaw, S., Goodman, R., Pickles, A., and Maughan, B. (2007). Modelling the contribution of changes in family life to time trends in adolescent conduct problems. Social Science & Medicine, 65: 2576-2587. Corak, M. (2001). Death and divorce: The long-term consequences of parental loss on adolescents. Journal of Labor Economics, 19: 682-715. González, L. and Viitanen, T. (2008). The long-term effects of legalizing divorce on children. Mimeo, Department of Economics, Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Gardner, J. and Oswald, A.J. (2006). Do divorcing couples become happier by breaking up? Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A (Statistics in Society), 169(2): 319–36. Gruber, J. (2004). Is making divorce easier bad for children? The long-run implications of unilateral divorce. Journal of Labor Economics, 22(4): 799-833. Hoekstra, M.L. (2009). The effects of near and actual parental divorce on student achievement and misbehaviour. Mimeo, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh. Lansford, J.E. (2009). Parental divorce and children’s adjustment. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4 (2): 140-152. Liu, S.H. (2007). Is my parent’s divorce to blame for my failure in life? A joint model of child educational attainments and parental divorce. Mimeo, Department of Economics, University of Miami. National Center for Health Statistics. (2008). Marriage and divorce. Retrieved March 3, 2008, from http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/divorce.htm Oswald, A.J., Proto, E. and Sgroi, D. (2009). Happiness and productivity. IZA Discussion Paper 4645. Piketty, T. (2003). The impact of divorce on school performance: Evidence from France, 1968-2002. CEPR Discussion Paper No. 4146. Sanz-de-Galdeano, A. and Vuri, D. (2007). Parental divorce and student performance: Evidence from longitudinal data. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 69(3): 321-338. Sgroi, D., Oswald, A.J., Proto, E. and Dobson, A. (2010). Priming and the reliability of subjective well-being measures, Warwick Economic Research Papers No. 935. Stevenson, B. and Wolfers, J. (2006). Bargaining in the shadow of the law: Divorce laws and family distress. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 121(1): 267–88. Stevenson, B. and Wolfers, J. (2007). Marriage and divorce: Changes and their driving forces, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 21(2): 27–52.
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/3518

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