We examine how family, money, and health explain variation in life satisfaction (“happiness”) over the life cycle …. Globally, these factors explain a substantial fraction of happiness, increasing from 12 percent in young adulthood to 15 … in the wealthier, and income in the poorer regions of the world. Family explains a substantial fraction of happiness only …

in fertility. However, most research on fertility and happiness uses cross-sectional data, hindering causal conclusions …. We study trajectories of parental happiness before and after the birth of a child using British and German panel data and … methods which control for unobserved parental characteristics. We find that happiness increases prior to and in the year of …