The Rising Well-Being of the Young

David G. Blanchflower, Andrew J. Oswald

NBER Working Paper No. 6102
Issued in July 1997
NBER Program(s):   LS

Many observers believe that times are growing harder for young people in Western society. This paper looks at the evidence and finds that conventional wisdom appears to be wrong. Using the U.S. General Social Surveys and the Eurobarometer Surveys, the paper studies the reported happiness and life-satisfaction scores of random samples of young men and women. " The data cover the USA and thirteen European countries. Our main finding is that from the 1970s to the 1990s the well-being of the young increased quite markedly. A number of possible explanations are considered.

(595 K)

A non-technical summary of this paper is available in the May 1998 NBER digest.  You can sign up to receive the NBER Digest by email.

Published:

• Published as "A Longitudinal Analysis of the Young Self-Employed in Australia and the United States", SBE, Vol. 6, no. 1 (1994): 1-19. ,
• The Rising Well-Being of the Young, David G. Blanchflower, Andrew Oswald, in Youth Employment and Joblessness in Advanced Countries (2000), University of Chicago Press
  

This paper is available as PDF (595 K) or via email.

Machine-readable bibliographic record - MARC, RIS, BibTeX