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Does it Really Feel the Same? Changes in Life Satisfaction Following Repeated Life Events

Unemployment, divorce, and marriage are common life events for most people in Western societies. In a longitudinal study, the authors investigated how these life events affect life satisfaction when they occur repeatedly. Data came from the German Socio-Economic Panel, a large-scale representative panel study, and were analyzed using multilevel modeling. Results showed that, in general, life satisfaction ...

Age Differences in Loneliness From Late Adolescence to Oldest Old Age

Contrary to common stereotypes, loneliness is not restricted to old age but can occur at any life stage. In this study, we used data from a large, nationally representative German study (N = 16,132) to describe and explain age differences in loneliness from late adolescence to oldest old age. The age distribution of loneliness followed a complex nonlinear trajectory, with elevated loneliness levels ...

Subjective well-being and adaptation to life events: A meta-analysis

Previous research has shown that major life events can have short- and long-term effects on subjective well-being (SWB). The present meta-analysis examines (a) whether life events have different effects on affective and cognitive well-being and (b) how the rate of adaptation varies across different life events. Longitudinal data from 188 publications (313 samples, N = 65,911) were integrated to describe ...

The Prospective Effect of Life Satisfaction on Life Events

Life satisfaction (LS) is prospectively associated with the occurrence of several major events in work and family life. Analyzing longitudinal data from three nationally representative panel studies (Ns between 2,321 and 18,692), the authors found that higher LS is associated with a higher likelihood of marriage and childbirth, and with a lower likelihood of marital separation, job loss, starting a ...

Studying Changes in Life Circumstances and Personality: It's About Time

Most theories of personality development posit that changes in life circumstances (e.g. due to major life events) can lead to changes in personality, but few studies have examined the exact time course of these changes. In this article, we argue that time needs to be considered explicitly in theories and empirical studies on personality development. We discuss six notions on the role of time in personality ...

Stability and variability in the relationship between subjective well-being and income

Empirical studies typically find a moderate positive correlation between subjective well- being (SWB) and income. In the present paper, we examined stable and transient determinants of the relation between affective well-being and income in the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS; N = 37,041) and the relation between cognitive well-being and income in the BHPS (N = 31,871) and the Socio-Economic Panel ...

Honey, I got fired! A longitudinal dyadic analysis of the effect of unemployment on life satisfaction in couples

Previous research on unemployment and life satisfaction has focused on the effects of unemployment on individuals but neglected the effects on their partners. In the present study, we used dyadic multilevel models to analyze longitudinal data from 2,973 couples selected from a German representative panel study to examine the effects of unemployment on life satisfaction in couples over several years. ...

Men and islands: Dealing with the family in empirical labor economics

Sons, Daughters, and Parental Behaviour

Psychology and Family Economics

A substantial increase in the availability of data on psychosocial traits in large representative longitudinal samples has opened up new areas of research for economists and new opportunities for collaborations with psychologists. As an example, I incorporate personality into alternative economic models of marriage, with individual traits associated with either productivity in home or market sectors, ...