Relationship between life satisfaction and education in Portugal

• Autor(a) principal: Gomes, Carlota Esteves Lopes de Sousa
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/31271
• topic: Life satisfaction; Education; Birth year cohort; Satisfação com a vida; Educação; Coorte do ano de nascimento; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

In this study, we analyze the impact of education on life satisfaction in Portugal. Our focus is 2018, and we compare it with 2013. We use individual-level data from the ICOR survey, a panel that was implemented to ensure the Portuguese participation in the European database called European Statistics on Income and Living conditions (EU-SILC). The main conclusions are: Firstly, the education level of each individual has a positive and significant effect on life satisfaction. Secondly, this effect of education on life satisfaction had a greater impact on the older generation (Baby Boomers cohort, individuals born between 1938-1970) than it has on more recent generations (Generation X cohort, individuals born between 1971-1979 and Millennials cohort, individuals born between 1980-2000). Thirdly, it is difficult to distinguish whether the effect comes from the year or cohort. The ideal exercise would be to compare individuals throughout their lives and see their satisfaction each year. However, we don’t have data for this. Despite that, comparing mutual ages caught in different generations (in different years) we can say that the effect comes from cohort. Furthermore, after controlling for income and working hours, and after disentangling the relationship between life satisfaction and education, considering gender, activity status, civil status, and region, we still find that education has a positive (and direct) impact on life satisfaction. We interpret this result as evidence of a ‘‘self-confidence’’ effect from acquiring knowledge or as proof of how education can strengthen relationships, which is the most important mechanism that keeps us happy.