Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/33856 
Year of Publication: 
2006
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 2526
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We look for evidence of habituation in twenty waves of German panel data: do individuals, after life and labour market events, tend to return to some baseline level of wellbeing? Although the strongest life satisfaction effect is often at the time of the event, we find significant lag and lead effects. We conclude that there is complete adaptation to divorce, widowhood, birth of first child, and layoff. However, adaptation to marriage is only incomplete, and there is no adaptation to unemployment for men. In general, men are more affected by labour market events (unemployment and layoffs) than are women. Last, we find no consistent evidence that happiness provides insurance against hard knocks: those with high and low baseline satisfaction levels are broadly equally affected by labour market and life events.
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
351.84 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.