IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/germec/v15y2014i3p393-410.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Heterogeneity in the Relationship between Happiness and Age: Evidence from the German Socio-Economic Panel

Author

Listed:
  • Gregori Baetschmann

Abstract

type="main" xml:id="geer12015-abs-0001"> This paper studies the evolution of life satisfaction over the life course in Germany. It clarifies the causal interpretation of the econometric model by discussing the choice of control variables and the underidentification between age, cohort and time effects. The empirical part analyzes the distribution of life satisfaction over the life course at the aggregated, subgroup and individual level. To the findings: On average, life satisfaction is mildly decreasing up to age 55 followed by a hump shape with a maximum at 70. The analysis at the lower levels suggests that people differ in their life satisfaction trends, whereas the hump shape after age 55 is robust. No important differences between men and women are found. In contrast, education groups differ in their trends: highly educated people become happier over the life cycle, where life satisfaction decreases for less-educated people.

Suggested Citation

  • Gregori Baetschmann, 2014. "Heterogeneity in the Relationship between Happiness and Age: Evidence from the German Socio-Economic Panel," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 15(3), pages 393-410, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:germec:v:15:y:2014:i:3:p:393-410
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/geer.2014.15.issue-3
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hermien Dijk & Jochen Mierau, 2023. "Mental health over the life course: Evidence for a U‐shape?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(1), pages 155-174, January.
    2. Adrian Chadi, 2019. "Dissatisfied with life or with being interviewed? Happiness and the motivation to participate in a survey," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 53(3), pages 519-553, October.
    3. Julia M. Rohrer & Martin Bruemmer & Jürgen Schupp & Gert G. Wagner, 2017. "Worries across Time and Age in Germany: Bringing Together Open- and Close-Ended Questions," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1671, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    4. Su, Yu-Sung & Lien, Donald & Yao, Yuling, 2022. "Economic growth and happiness in China: A Bayesian multilevel age-period-cohort analysis based on the CGSS data 2005–2015," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 191-205.
    5. Bauer,Jan Michael & Levin,Victoria & Munoz Boudet,Ana Maria & Nie,Peng & Sousa-Poza,Alfonso, 2015. "Subjective well-being across the lifespan in Europe and Central Asia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7378, The World Bank.
    6. Jürgen Bitzer & Erkan Gören & Heinz Welsch, 2024. "How the wellbeing function varies with age: the importance of income, health and social relations over the lifecycle," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 91(363), pages 809-836, July.
    7. Rohrer, Julia M. & Brümmer, Martin & Schupp, Jürgen & Wagner, Gert G., 2021. "Worries across time and age in the German Socio-Economic Panel study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 332-343.
    8. Comi Simona Lorena & Cottini Elena & Lucifora Claudio, 2022. "The effect of retirement on social relationships," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 23(2), pages 275-299, May.
    9. Biermann, Philipp & Bitzer, Jürgen & Gören, Erkan, 2022. "The relationship between age and subjective well-being: Estimating within and between effects simultaneously," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 21(C).
    10. Gregor Gonza & Anže Burger, 2017. "Subjective Well-Being During the 2008 Economic Crisis: Identification of Mediating and Moderating Factors," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 18(6), pages 1763-1797, December.
    11. Mark Wooden & Ning Li, 2016. "Ageing, Death and Life Satisfaction: Evidence from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 49(4), pages 474-482, December.
    12. Setareh Ranjbar & Stefan Sperlich, 2020. "A Note on Empirical Studies of Life-Satisfaction: Unhappy with Semiparametrics?," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 21(6), pages 2193-2212, August.
    13. Janina Nemitz, 2022. "Increasing longevity and life satisfaction: is there a catch to living longer?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(2), pages 557-589, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:germec:v:15:y:2014:i:3:p:393-410. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfsocea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.