@article{ref1,
title="Does childhood predict adult life satisfaction? Evidence from British cohort surveys",
journal="Economic journal",
year="2014",
author="Frijters, Paul and Johnston, David W. and Shields, Michael A.",
volume="124",
number="580",
pages="F688-F719",
abstract="We investigate the extent to which childhood characteristics are predictive of adult life satisfaction using data from two British cohort studies. In total, variables observed up to age 16 predict around 7% of the variation in average adult life satisfaction. Adding contemporaneous adulthood variables increases the predictive power to 15.6%, while adding long lags of life satisfaction increases it to 35.5%. Overall, we estimate that around 30-45% of adult life satisfaction is fixed, suggesting that 55-70% is transitory in nature, and that a wide range of observed childhood circumstances capture about 15% of the fixed component.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0013-0133",
doi="10.1111/ecoj.12085",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12085"
}