2.4 Results 2.4.1 The relationship between early skills and adult life satisfaction We first investigate whether ten-years-olds’ reading and math skills relate to their assessment of how life has turned out so far in adulthood. Table 2.2 shows the regression estimates of the relationship between early reading and math skills at age 10, and life satisfaction of individuals at ages 29, 34, 42, and 46 without controls and when controlling for intelligence and sex. Table 2.2 demonstrates that reading skills significantly relate to adult life satisfaction. Beyond age 42, the strength of this relationship and its statistical significance decline noticeably. At age 46, a 1 SD increase in reading skills at age 10 is associated with a 0.04 SD increase in adult life satisfaction. The significant positive relationship between early math skills and adult life satisfaction remains relatively stable across different ages, with values ranging from approximately 0.07 to 0.10 SD. The magnitude of this relationship is substantial when comparing it to other relations, such as the relationship between standardized take-home income and life satisfaction at age 46, which is 0.09 (without controls). Controlling for intelligence and sex reduces the estimates for reading skills but not for math. In Table A.10 of the appendix, we extend the analysis by controlling for the social class of the cohort members’ father’s occupation (or mother’s occupation, if paternal information is missing) to proxy the cohort members’ economic situation. The father’s occupation proxies 27
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