Abstract
The question that this paper addresses is whether or not parents are altruistic towards their children. A new approach will be introduced, where the life satisfaction data of parents will be regressed onto the living conditions of their children who now live independently. After controlling for unobserved household characteristics, no positive effect of children’s actual household income on parents’ satisfaction can be found. However, children’s health and education have a positive impact on parental well-being. Both can be interpreted as an approximation of children’s lifetime incomes. We also regress parental life satisfaction on the predicted life satisfaction of their children. A significant positive effect can be found, which can be interpreted as weak evidence for parental altruism. The paper uses data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP).
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
