IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lue/wpaper/130.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Other-regarding preferences, spousal disability and happiness: Evidence from German couples

Author

Listed:
  • Nils Braakmann

    (Institute of Economics, University of Lüneburg)

Abstract

This paper considers the impact of adverse health shocks that hit an individual’s partner on subjective well-being. Using data on couples from the German Socio-Economic Panel for the years 1984 to 2006, I compare the losses in well-being caused by own and spousal disability using panel-regressions. I find that women and to a lesser extent men are harmed by spousal disability which is consistent with the existence of other-regarding preferences within couples. The magnitude of effects suggests that spousal disability is about one quarter to one half as harmful as individual disability with larger effects being found for women.

Suggested Citation

  • Nils Braakmann, 2009. "Other-regarding preferences, spousal disability and happiness: Evidence from German couples," Working Paper Series in Economics 130, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:lue:wpaper:130
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.leuphana.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Forschungseinrichtungen/ifvwl/WorkingPapers/lue/pdf/wp_130_Upload.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell & Bernard M.S. van Praag, 2002. "The Subjective Costs of Health Losses due to Chronic Diseases," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 02-023/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    2. Oswald, Andrew J. & Powdthavee, Nattavudh, 2008. "Does happiness adapt? A longitudinal study of disability with implications for economists and judges," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1061-1077, June.
    3. Sonja C. Kassenboehmer & John P. Haisken‐DeNew, 2009. "You're Fired! The Causal Negative Effect of Entry Unemployment on Life Satisfaction," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(536), pages 448-462, March.
    4. Andrew E. Clark & Nicolai Kristensen & Niels Westergård-Nielsen, 2009. "Economic Satisfaction and Income Rank in Small Neighbourhoods," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(2-3), pages 519-527, 04-05.
    5. Adrian Bruhin & Rainer Winkelmann, 2009. "Happiness functions with preference interdependence and heterogeneity: the case of altruism within the family," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 22(4), pages 1063-1080, October.
    6. Ville, I. & Ravaud, J. -F. & Group, Tetrafigap, 2001. "Subjective well-being and severe motor impairments: the Tetrafigap survey on the long-term outcome of tetraplegic spinal cord injured persons," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 369-384, February.
    7. Ada Ferrer‐i‐Carbonell & Bernard M.S. van Praag, 2002. "The subjective costs of health losses due to chronic diseases. An alternative model for monetary appraisal," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(8), pages 709-722, December.
    8. Gary Chamberlain, 1980. "Analysis of Covariance with Qualitative Data," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 47(1), pages 225-238.
    9. Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell & Paul Frijters, 2004. "How Important is Methodology for the estimates of the determinants of Happiness?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(497), pages 641-659, July.
    10. Gert G. Wagner & Joachim R. Frick & Jürgen Schupp, 2007. "The German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) – Scope, Evolution and Enhancements," Schmollers Jahrbuch : Journal of Applied Social Science Studies / Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 127(1), pages 139-169.
    11. Wim Groot & Henriëtte Maassen van den Brink & Erik Plug, 2004. "Money for health: the equivalent variation of cardiovascular diseases," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(9), pages 859-872, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. LEROUX, Marie - Louise & PONTHIERE, Grégory, 2009. "Wives, husbands and wheelchairs : Optimal tax policy under gender-specific health," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2009071, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    2. Matthias Schröter & Oliver Jakoby & Roland Olbrich & Marcus Eichhorn & Stefan Baumgärtner, 2009. "Remote sensing of bush encroachment on commercial cattle farms in semi-arid rangelands in Namibia," Working Paper Series in Economics 131, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nils Braakmann, 2014. "The consequences of own and spousal disability on labor market outcomes and subjective well-being: evidence from Germany," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 717-736, December.
    2. Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell, 2013. "Happiness economics," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 35-60, March.
    3. Ricardo Pagán-Rodríguez, 2012. "Longitudinal Analysis of the Domains of Satisfaction Before and After Disability: Evidence from the German Socio-Economic Panel," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 108(3), pages 365-385, September.
    4. Ricardo Pagán-Rodríguez, 2010. "Onset of disability and life satisfaction: evidence from the German Socio-Economic Panel," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 11(5), pages 471-485, October.
    5. Kunze, Lars & Suppa, Nicolai, 2017. "Bowling alone or bowling at all? The effect of unemployment on social participation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 213-235.
    6. Nattavudh Powdthavee, 2012. "Jobless, Friendless and Broke: What Happens to Different Areas of Life Before and After Unemployment?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 79(315), pages 557-575, July.
    7. Ólafsdóttir, Thorhildur & Ásgeirsdóttir, Tinna Laufey & Norton, Edward C., 2020. "Valuing pain using the subjective well-being method," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 37(C).
    8. Powdthavee, Nattavudh & van den Berg, Bernard, 2011. "Putting different price tags on the same health condition: Re-evaluating the well-being valuation approach," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 1032-1043.
    9. Wunder, Christoph & Heineck, Guido, 2013. "Working time preferences, hours mismatch and well-being of couples: Are there spillovers?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 244-252.
    10. Chowdhury, Shyamal & Krause-Pilatus, Annabelle & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 2015. "Arsenic Contamination of Drinking Water and Mental Health," IZA Discussion Papers 9400, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Andrew J. Oswald & Nattavudh Powdthavee, 2008. "Death, Happiness, and the Calculation of Compensatory Damages," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(S2), pages 217-251, June.
    12. Adrian Chadi & Clemens Hetschko, 2021. "How Job Changes Affect People's Lives — Evidence from Subjective Well‐Being Data," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 59(2), pages 279-306, June.
    13. Adrian Chadi & Clemens Hetschko, 2018. "The magic of the new: How job changes affect job satisfaction," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 23-39, March.
    14. Schmitz, Hendrik, 2011. "Why are the unemployed in worse health? The causal effect of unemployment on health," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 71-78, January.
    15. Johannes Orlowski & Pamela Wicker, 2018. "Putting a Price tag on Healthy Behavior: The Monetary Value of Sports Participation to Individuals," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 13(2), pages 479-499, June.
    16. Reto Odermatt & Alois Stutzer, 2019. "(Mis-)Predicted Subjective Well-Being Following Life Events," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 245-283.
    17. Christopher Boyce & Alex Wood & Nattavudh Powdthavee, 2013. "Is Personality Fixed? Personality Changes as Much as “Variable” Economic Factors and More Strongly Predicts Changes to Life Satisfaction," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 111(1), pages 287-305, March.
    18. McNamee, Paul & Mendolia, Silvia, 2014. "The effect of chronic pain on life satisfaction: Evidence from Australian data," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 65-73.
    19. André Hajek, 2013. "Life Satisfaction and Unemployment: The Role of Voluntariness and Job Prospects," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 601, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    20. Oswald, Andrew J. & Powdthavee, Nattavudh, 2008. "Does happiness adapt? A longitudinal study of disability with implications for economists and judges," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1061-1077, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    disability; subjective well-being; other-regarding preferences;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination

    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:lue:wpaper:130. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Joachim Wagner (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://leuphana.de/institute/ivwl.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.