The kids are alright? A note on parental satisfaction in Germany

Abstract

In social sciences, research of satisfaction presents mixed or negative effects of parental satisfaction (e.g. Powdthavee 2009, Hansen 2012), while recent findings show that socio-economic differences matter (e.g. Myrskylä/Margolis 2014, Pollmann-Schult, 2014). Here, we use long run German panel data with fixed effects regressions and interaction terms to analyze the effects of birth on parental satisfaction. At first, in contrast to other authors, we present a positive and significant effect of becoming parents. Second, we present gender-specific results of unemployed parents. While unemployed fathers perceive lower levels of satisfaction in general, unemployed mothers have higher levels of satisfaction in the Western part, but lower in the Eastern part of Germany. We conclude that different regional employment schemes drive these results.

Keywords

• satisfaction
• children
• (un-)employment