%0 Report
        %A Bertermann, Alexander
%A Kamhöfer, Daniel A.
%A Schildberg-Hörisch, Hannah
        %T More Education Does Make You Happier – Unless You Are Unemployed
        %D 2023
        %8 2023 Sep
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 16454
        %U https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp16454
        %X This paper investigates the causal effect of education on life satisfaction, exploring effect heterogeneity along employment status. We use exogenous variation in compulsory schooling requirements and the build-up of new, academically more demanding schools, shifting educational attainment along the entire distribution of schooling. Leveraging plant closures and longitudinal information, we also address the endogeneity of employment status. We find a positive effect of education on life satisfaction for employed individuals, but a negative one for those without a job. We propose an aspiration-augmented utility function as a unifying explanation for the asymmetric effect of education on life satisfaction.

        %K education
%K life satisfaction
%K employment status
%K compulsory schooling reforms
%K school openings
%K instrumental variable estimation