Does childbirth change the gender gap in well-being within family?

• Název práce v češtině: Změní porod genderový rozdíl v blahobytu v rodině?
• Název v anglickém jazyce: Does childbirth change the gender gap in well-being within family?
• Akademický rok vypsání: 2020/2021
• Typ práce: diplomová práce
• Jazyk práce: angličtina
• Ústav: Institut ekonomických studií (23-IES)
• Vedoucí / školitel: Mgr. Barbara Pertold-Gebicka, M.A., Ph.D.
• Řešitel: skrytý - zadáno vedoucím/školitelem
• Datum přihlášení: 02.06.2021
• Datum zadání: 02.06.2021
• Datum a čas obhajoby: 14.09.2022 09:00
• Místo konání obhajoby: Opletalova - Opletalova 26, O105, Opletalova - místn. č. 105
• Datum odevzdání elektronické podoby: 02.08.2022
• Datum proběhlé obhajoby: 14.09.2022
• Oponenti: PhDr. Mgr. Jana Votápková, Ph.D.

Seznam odborné literatury

Angelov, N., Johansson, P., & Lindahl, E. (2016). Parenthood and the gender gap in pay. Journal of Labor Economics, 34(3), 545-579.

Bjørnskov, C. (2008). Healthy and happy in Europe? On the association between happiness and life expectancy over time. Social Science & Medicine, 66(8), 1750-1759.

Clark, A. and Oswald, A.J. (1994), ‘Unhappiness and Unemployment’, The Economic Journal 104, May, 648-659.

Diener, E., Suh, E. M., Lucas, R. E., & Smith, H. L. (1999). Subjective well-being: Three decades of progress. Psychological bulletin, 125(2), 276-302.

Diener, E., Gohm, C. L., Suh, E., & Oishi, S. (2000). Similarity of the relations between marital status and subjective well-being across cultures. Journal of cross-cultural psychology, 31(4), 419-436.

Diener, E. (1984), ‘Subjective Well-being’, Psychological Bulletin 95, 542-575.

Easterlin, R. A. (1974). Does economic growth improve the human lot? Some empirical evidence. In Nations and households in economic growth (pp. 89-125). Academic Press.

Emmerling, J., Navarro, P., & Sisco, M. R. (2021). Subjective Well-Being at the Macro Level—Empirics and Future Scenarios. Social Indicators Research, 1-30.

Evans, M.D.R. and Kelley, J. (2002), ‘Effect of Family Structure on Life Satisfaction: Australian Evidence’, unpublished mimeo, University of Melbourne and Australian National University.

Kahneman, D., & Krueger, A. B. (2006). Developments in the measurement of subjective well-being. Journal of Economic perspectives, 20(1), 3-24.

Mikucka, M., Sarracino, F., & Dubrow, J. K. (2017). When does economic growth improve life satisfaction? Multilevel analysis of the roles of social trust and income inequality in 46 countries, 1981–2012. World Development, 93, 447-459.

Pertold-Gebicka, B., & Spolcova, D. (2019). Family size and subjective well-being in Europe: Do more children make us (un)happy? (No. 24/2019). IES Working Paper.

Shields, M., & Wooden, M. (2003, February). Marriage, children and subjective well-being. In 8th Australian Institute of Family Studies Conference.

Stack, S. and Eshleman, J.R. (1998), ‘Marital Status and Happiness: A 17-nation Study’, Journal of Marriage and the Family 60, May, 527-536.

Verme, P. (2011). Life satisfaction and income inequality. Review of Income and Wealth, 57(1), 111-127.

Předběžná náplň práce v anglickém jazyce

Motivation:
Subjective well-being (referred as SWB) is an area of research which has been the subject of many empirical studies, the vast majority of which have at least made some attempt to control for variations across individuals in socio-economic and demographic characteristics. Data on subjective well-being have been used by economists to examine both macro- and micro-oriented questions. Mikucka et al. (2017) found that economic growth does not correlate with life satisfaction in non-transition countries. Besides using subjective well-being to provide an external check on economic indicators, many papers are analysing a relationship between SWB and personal characteristics. In a classic paper, Easterlin (1974) examined the relationship between economic growth and happiness. Diener et al. (1999) found that married persons report being happier and more satisfied with their lives than unmarried persons. Verme (2011) finds that income inequality has a negative and significant effect on life satisfaction, and Bjørnskov et al. (2013) find that the magnitude of the negative effect of inequality on happiness is reduced by higher levels of perceived fairness.
One of life's biggest milestones is the birth of children. To the extent that they confer utility on parents, we would expect children to enhance personal well-being. However, children are costly and are frequently the source of possible anxiety and stress, both of which can result in reduced life satisfaction. On the other hand, it's possible that most people either attain the family size they wish or are pleased with the number of children they have, and so the presence of children does not affect SWB (Evans and Kelley 2002). Diener (1984) concluded that most studies report that the presence of children either has no or a negative effect on SWB. More recent research is consistent with this observation, with some studies finding that a negative effect dominates (Clark and Oswald 1994), while others have reported insignificant relationships (Stack and Eshleman 1998, Evans and Kelley 2002).
The research question is to find out how children affect subjective well-being of their parents. Specifically, I will compare reaction of SWB of mothers and fathers separately by conducting a within-family comparison. I will perform analyses of the year 2013 and additionally 2018, while using cross-sectional data from European Union – Statistics on Income and Living Conditions.

Hypotheses:
1. Hypothesis #1: Having a child has a significant effect (either positive or negative) on subjective well-being.
2. Hypothesis #2: The effect on SWB of a child is different for mothers and fathers.

Methodology:
European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) is a household survey that was launched in 2003, originally only between Eurostat and 6 Member States. Then, it was formally launched in 2004 in 15 countries and expanded in 2005 to cover all the EU-25 Member States (incl. the Czech Republic), together with Norway and Iceland. Specifically, in the years 2013 and 2018 well-being was modelled. The data contains
variable referred to as Subjective well-being on a scale, furthermore, it includes personal and Socioeconomic characteristics of the responder. There is also an index variable which we can use to classify respondents to their respective families. Therefore, we can analyse differences in subjective well-being of having a child between mothers and fathers within a family.
I will use ordinary least squares and multinomial models to model the effect of an additional child in the family.

Expected Contribution:
I will analyse how the effect of having a child changes the relative well-being of mothers and fathers and compare the years 2013 and 2018. I will slightly follow up a study performed by Pertold-Gebicka, B., & Spolcova, D. (2019): “Family size and subjective well-being in Europe: Do more children make us (un)happy?” while adding analysis of the year 2018 and comparing mothers’ and fathers’ perceptions.

Outline:
1. Introduction
- brief introduction
- why my topic is interesting
- how is the thesis organized
2. Literature review:
- overview of existing literature
- main results and what they mean
3. Subjective well-being determinants
- determinants of subjective well-being
- how is the subjective well-being modelled
4. Methodology
- description of the data
- data analysis
- baseline regression and robustness checks
5. Results
- rejecting / not rejecting hypotheses about the effect of the additional child on SWB
- interpretation of the results
6. Concluding remarks
- summarizing my findings
- implications for future research