Stutzer & Frey (2006): study XZ Germany West 1984

Publication

Author(s):

Stutzer, A.; Frey, B.S.

Title:

Does Marriage Make People Happy, or do Happy People Get Married.

Source:

The Journal of Socio-Economics, 2006, Vol. 35, 326 - 347

Investigation

Public

15+ aged, general public West Germany, 1984-2000

Sample

Non-probability purposive sample

Respondents

N = 15268

Non Response

Assessment

Interview: face-to-face
Yearly

Happiness Measure(s) and Distributional Findings

Full text:

Self report on single question:

Taking all things together, how satisfied are you with your life these days? Please answer with the help of this scale. For instance, when you are totally satisfied with your life, please tick '10'. When you are totally unsatisfied with your life, please tick '0'. You may use all values in between to indicate that you are neither totally satisfied nor totally unsatisfied."
10 totally satisfied
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0  totally unsatisfied

Classification:

O-SLW-c-sq-n-11-d

Author's label:

Life satisfaction

Page in publication:

Table A.1

Observed distribution

Summary Statistics

On original range 0 - 10 On range 0-10

Mean:

7.08 -

SD:

1.83 -

Correlational Findings

Author's label Subject Description Finding Later marriage Later marriage
Later divorce/separation
Married state (compared to non-married states)
Married (vs separated)
Formally-married vs living-as-married
Change happiness following events Age Current age (in years) Gender Sex: male (vs female) Years of education Years schooling Position in household Non-biological child
Later household composition
Head of household Household income Household income Employment Pregnant
Current employment status
Unemployed involuntary
Current status: retired or not
Involved in schooling or not
Self employed
Being a soldier Eastern- western Germany Region in Germany Country of origin Ethnic status in Germany
Ever migrated or not
Earlier nationality (nation of origin) Number of household members Number of persons in household
Later household size Years before and after marriage Recent marriage
Time since marriage Age Current age (in years) married vs never married Married (vs never married) married vs divorced Married (vs divorced)
Change happiness following events difference with spouce Heterogeneity of marriage-partners
Similarity with spouse division of labor between spouces Shared household-tasks got children Birth of children
Current parental status
Time since first child