Chapter 2. Early Skills and Adult Life Satisfaction tests, we focus on early reading and math skills, controlled for intelligence. The paper closest to this chapter is Frijters et al. (2014), which analyzes the relationship between life satisfaction and various childhood skills, including reading and math test scores. Using the National Child Development Study (NCDS) and the British Cohort Study (BCS70), they examine the link between early skills and average life satisfaction in adulthood (ages 33-50 for the NCDS and ages 29-38 for the BCS70). They demonstrate a positive relationship between early math skills and average adult life satisfaction, and a negative relationship for reading. They explain that while there is a positive raw correlation between early reading skills and life satisfaction, this turns negative when controlling for other cognitive and non-cognitive measures. Unlike Frijters et al. (2014), who focus on an average measure of life satisfaction, we are specifically interested in the trajectory of this association across life. Life satisfaction likely varies over the years due to changes in life circumstances (e.g., career, relationships, health, finances), evolving personal values, and shifting perceptions and expectations. Thus, it is valuable to analyze how the association between early skills and adult life satisfaction develops over life. In sum, this chapter contributes to the literature by investigating how the relationship between early skills and life satisfaction evolves across adulthood. In addition, we contribute by analyzing which domains primarily drive this longitudinal relationship. This chapter continues as follows: Section 2.2 discusses the data, measures and descriptives. Section 2.3 explains the empirical strategy. Section 2.4 provides the results. Section 2.5 concludes. 18
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