A new paper published ONLINE FIRST in the Journal of Population Economics suggests that children may cause unhappiness because of challenging family finances.
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Children, unhappiness and family finances
David G. Blanchflower & Andrew E. Clark
Published ONLINE FIRST. Forthcoming: Journal of Population Economics (2021), volume 34. FREE READLINK: https://rdcu.be/b7Z4b
GLO Discussion Paper No. 561 – free Download PDF
GLO Fellows David G. Blanchflower & Andrew E. Clark
Danny Blanchflower 
Andrew Clark
Author Abstract: The common finding of a zero or negative correlation between the presence of children and parental well-being continues to generate research interest. We consider international data, including well over one million observations on Europeans from 11 years of Eurobarometer surveys. We first replicate this negative finding, both in the overall data and then for most different marital statuses. Children are expensive: controlling for financial difficulties turns our estimated child coefficients positive. We argue that difficulties paying the bills explain the pattern of existing results by parental education and income and by country income and social support. Last, we underline that not all children are the same, with stepchildren commonly having a more negative correlation with well-being than children from the current relationship.
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