Younger and dissatisfied? Relative age and life-satisfaction in adolescence

Luca Fumarco, Stijn Baert

This is the first study to investigate whether age gaps between classmates (that is, relative age) affect life-satisfaction gaps in adolescence. To this end, we analyse data from the multi-country Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) survey. We find evidence that relative age negatively impacts adolescents’ lifesatisfaction. A twelve-month age gap decreases life-satisfaction, rated on a 0-10 scale, by 0.3 points. This negative effect is consistent across countries, although its magnitude varies; in particular, in Luxembourg, the life-satisfaction gap amounts to about 0.5 points. Finally, this negative effect does not decrease with the increase in absolute age

Suggested Citation

Fumarco, L. & Baert, S. (2018). Younger and dissatisfied? Relative age and life-satisfaction in adolescence (IZA Discussion Paper Nr. 11990). Bonn. IZA Institute of Labor Economics.

https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3301752

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