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Children, Spousal Love, and Happiness: An Economic Analysis

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  • Grossbard, Shoshana

    (San Diego State University)

  • Mukhopadhyay, Sankar

    (University of Nevada, Reno)

Abstract

In this paper we examine how children affect happiness and relationships within a family by analyzing two unique questions in the National Longitudinal Study of Youth's 1997 cohort. We find that (a) presence of children is associated with a loss of spousal love; (b) loss of spousal love is associated with loss of overall happiness; but (c) presence of children is not associated with significant loss of overall happiness. If children reduce feelings of being loved by the spouse but do not reduce reported happiness even though spousal love induces happiness, then it must be the case that children contribute to parental happiness by providing other benefits. After ruling out some competing compensation mechanisms we infer that loss of spousal love is compensated with altruistic feelings towards children.

Suggested Citation

  • Grossbard, Shoshana & Mukhopadhyay, Sankar, 2012. "Children, Spousal Love, and Happiness: An Economic Analysis," IZA Discussion Papers 7119, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7119
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    Cited by:

    1. Phillip Anthony O’Hara, 2014. "Political Economy of Love: Nurturance Gap, Disembedded Economy and Freedom Constraints within Neoliberal Capitalism," Panoeconomicus, Savez ekonomista Vojvodine, Novi Sad, Serbia, vol. 61(2), pages 161-192, March.
    2. Chris M. Herbst & John Ifcher, 2016. "The increasing happiness of US parents," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 529-551, September.
    3. Foster, Gigi & Pingle, Mark & Yang, Jingjing, 2019. "Are we addicted to love? A parsimonious economic model of love," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 70-81.
    4. Man Si, 2015. "Intrafamily bargaining and love," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 13(4), pages 771-789, December.
    5. Tao, Dongjie & He, Lingyun & Hamilton, Jonathan & Xu, Ding, 2021. "Children's marriage and parental subjective well-being: Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    6. Jan Priebe, 2020. "Quasi-experimental evidence for the causal link between fertility and subjective well-being," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(3), pages 839-882, July.
    7. Eiji Yamamura & Yoshiro Tsutsui, 2017. "Gap of height and education within couple and its effect on conflict and evaluation about partners: psychological cost of division of labor within household," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 17-35, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.
    8. Blanco, Laura Cristina, 2019. "Inertial reproduction: is the two-child psychology the rule in Costa Rica?," Revista de Ciencias Económicas, Instituto de Investigaciones en Ciencias Económicas, Universidad de Costa Rica, vol. 37(1), January.
    9. Caiquan Bai & Yuan Gong & Chen Feng, 2019. "Social Trust, Pattern of Difference, and Subjective Well-Being," SAGE Open, , vol. 9(3), pages 21582440198, July.
    10. Marco Le Moglie & Letizia Mencarini & Chiara Rapallini, 2019. "Does income moderate the satisfaction of becoming a parent? In Germany it does and depends on education," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 32(3), pages 915-952, July.
    11. Aistov, Andrey, 2019. "Happy together: A regression discontinuity approach," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 53, pages 73-99.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    religion; marriage; emotions; happiness; children;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • D10 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - General

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