Hi all,

I am analyzing the effect of marital status on life satisfaction for a period of 32 years of balance panel data with missing observations. I am controlling for log income, sex, age, educational level, employment level, region, kids in the family. I am wondering if I should add or not squared age into the regression or not.

My arguments for are that age might me related to the dependent variable - life satisfaction. However, that is exactly the relationship I ant to analyze, how happiness changes with age for example. Life satisfaction is categorical variable running from 0 (not satisfied) to 10 (completely satisfied).

At first step I did transform the variable into dummy 1 if reported levels over 7 and 0 otherwise. Then I did a 'utest' which showed that I should not be adding ages squared.

xtlogit newlifesatis_ c.age age2, fe
utest age age2, prefix(newlifesatis_)

Further I did a 'vif' variance inflation factor test to check for multicollinearity and all variable came with coefficient smaller than 5. However, when running the regression with and without age squared I am getting a bit higher R-squared (0.26 compared to 0.2640) and the significance of the variables doesn't change.

Below is the sample of my dataset. Please, advise if I am wrong. I don't want to bias my regression.

Kind regards,
Gabriela


Code:
* Example generated by -dataex-. To install: ssc install dataex
clear
input byte(lifesatis marstatus newd11105) float(log_HH_income log_educ) int age float age2 byte(region sathealth empl_level) int syear
 8 1 1 10.289362   2.70805 54 2916 1  8 1 1984
 8 1 1  9.700759   2.70805 55 3025 1  8 1 1985
10 1 1 10.054663   2.70805 56 3136 1  7 1 1986
 8 1 1  8.497194   2.70805 57 3249 1  5 1 1987
 8 1 1  9.633514   2.70805 58 3364 1  8 1 1988
 8 1 1  9.845593   2.70805 59 3481 1  7 1 1989
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1990
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1991
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1992
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1993
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1994
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1995
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1996
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1997
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1998
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1999
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2000
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2001
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2002
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2003
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2004
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2005
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2006
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2007
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2008
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2009
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2010
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2011
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2012
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2013
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2014
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2015
 8 1 1 10.289362 2.1972246 44 1936 1  7 3 1984
 8 1 1  9.700759 2.1972246 45 2025 1  8 3 1985
 9 1 1 10.054663 2.1972246 46 2116 1  7 3 1986
 8 1 1  8.497194 2.1972246 47 2209 1  8 3 1987
 9 1 1  9.633514 2.1972246 48 2304 1  8 3 1988
10 1 1  9.845593 2.1972246 49 2401 1 10 3 1989
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1990
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1991
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1992
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1993
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1994
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1995
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1996
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1997
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1998
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1999
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2000
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2001
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2002
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2003
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2004
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2005
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2006
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2007
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2008
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2009
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2010
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2011
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2012
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2013
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2014
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2015
 8 2 3 10.289362  2.484907 21  441 1  8 1 1984
 8 2 1   9.89278  2.484907 22  484 1 10 1 1985
 7 2 1  9.326166  2.484907 23  529 1  9 1 1986
 7 2 1  10.35974  2.484907 24  576 1 10 1 1987
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1988
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1989
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1990
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1991
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1992
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1993
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1994
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1995
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1996
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1997
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1998
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 1999
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2000
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2001
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2002
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2003
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2004
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2005
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2006
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2007
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2008
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2009
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2010
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2011
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2012
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2013
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2014
 . . .         .         .  .    . .  . . 2015
10 . 1   7.90802  2.397895 58 3364 1 10 3 1984
10 . 1  7.805475  2.397895 59 3481 1  5 3 1985
 9 . 1  8.028781  2.397895 60 3600 1  9 3 1986
10 . 1         .  2.397895 61 3721 1 10 3 1987
end
label values lifesatis p11101
label def p11101 10 "[10] Completely satisfied    10", modify
label values marstatus d11104
label def d11104 1 "[1] Married        1", modify
label def d11104 2 "[2] Single         2", modify
label values region l11102
label def l11102 1 "[1] West-Germany   1", modify
label values sathealth m11125
label def m11125 10 "[10] Completely satisfied    10", modify
label values empl_level e11103
label def e11103 1 "[1] Full Time      1", modify
label def e11103 3 "[3] Not Working    3", modify