Open AccessWhat Predicts a Successful Life? A Life‐course Model of Well‐being
Author(s) -
Layard Richard,
Clark Andrew E.,
Cornaglia Francesca,
Powdthavee Nattavudh,
Vernoit James
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
the economic journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.683
H-Index - 160
eISSN - 1468-0297
pISSN - 0013-0133
DOI - 10.1111/ecoj.12170
Subject(s) - life course approach , life satisfaction , national child development study , psychology , mental health , cohort , variance (accounting) , developmental psychology , cohort study , medicine , social psychology , economics , psychiatry , millennium cohort study (united states) , accounting , pathology
Policy makers who care about well‐being need a recursive model of how adult life‐satisfaction is predicted by childhood influences, acting both directly and (indirectly) through adult circumstances. We estimate such a model using the British Cohort Study (1970). We show that the most powerful childhood predictor of adult life‐satisfaction is the child's emotional health, followed by the child's conduct. The least powerful predictor is the child's intellectual development. This may have implications for educational policy. Among adult circumstances, family income accounts for only 0.5% of the variance of life‐satisfaction. Mental and physical health are much more important.