A new GLO Discussion Paper confirms that children cause unhappiness because of challenging family finances.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
GLO Discussion Paper No. 561, 2020
Children, Unhappiness and Family Finances – Download PDF
by Blanchflower, David G. & Clark, Andrew E.
GLO Fellows Danny Blanchflower & Andrew Clark
Danny Blanchflower 
Andrew Clark
Author Abstract: The common finding of a zero or negative correlation between the presence of children and parental well-being continues to generate research interest. We here consider international data, including well over one million observations on Europeans from eleven years of Eurobarometer surveys, and in the first instance replicate this negative finding, both in the overall data and then for most different marital statuses. Children are expensive: controlling for financial difficulties turns our estimated child coefficients positive. We argue that difficulties paying the bills explains the pattern of existing results by parental education and income, and country income and social support. Last, we underline that not all children are the same, with stepchildren commonly having a more negative correlation than children from the current relationship.
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