Happiness over the Life Coursebrings us to the more “distant” causes of human happiness
— in childhood.
Which aspects of childhood should receive the most
attention? There are broadly three main aspects of child
development— intellectual (or cognitive), behavioral, and
emotional. Intellectual development is about knowledge
and task- oriented skills. Behavioral development is primar-
ily about behavior to others. And emotional development
is about how the child feels. Which of these is the most im-
portant as a predictor of subsequent life- satisfaction?
In Figure 1.2, we estimate relationship (2) showing how
adult life- satisfaction is explained by life up to age 16, or
in the case of intellectual performance the highest qualifi-
cation obtained (including where relevant a university de-
gree).^10 Behavioral development is measured by 17 questions
answered by the mother, and emotional development by 22
questions answered by the child and 8 by the mother.^11 In
the table we show the coefficients on the three dimensions
of child development. As can be seen, the strongest child-
hood predictor of a satisfying adult life is emotional health
in childhood. Less powerful predictors are intellectual de-
velopment and behavior. These findings have obvious rele-
vance to educational policy.^12
Finally, we can look further back using relationship (3)—
to the effect of a person’s family working its way through ev-
erything that followed (see Figure 1.3). For parents we look at
economic status, labor- market activity, parenting style, fam-
ily stability, and the mother’s mental health. Parents’ educa-
tion is measured by their terminal age of full- time educa-
tion, and equivalized family income is averaged throughout
childhood. Father’s unemployment is averaged through-
out childhood, and so is mother’s work. Parenting style is