Initial Predictors of Life Satisfaction in Early Adulthood

In this article, we examine the patterns of association among a number of different factors that may contribute to differences in the initial baseline level of subjective well-being among young people in transition to adulthood. Although we know that life satisfaction is relatively stable throughout adulthood with few factors leading to long term increases or decreases in the baseline of life satisfaction over time, we do not know very much about the determinants of baseline life satisfaction. Our own study addresses this question by using data from the adult and youth questionnaires of the German Socio-economic Panel to examine how these factors are related to the initial assessment of life satisfaction by the individual in late adolescence.