The Role of Spousal Income in the Wife’s Happiness

Few studies have examined spousal income in the context of happiness. This paper analyzes the Indonesia family life survey and finds a positive relationship between the husband’s income and his wife’s happiness. Specifically, a 100 % increase in the husband’s income is related to a 0.72 % point increase in his wife expressing very happy, which is about 11 % of the proportion expressing that response. Surprisingly, among the husband’s characteristics, only his income (along with health) is statistically significantly related to his wife’s happiness. This positive relationship is particularly strong among old, educated, and poor (in absolute and relative terms) urban residents.     

The Association Between Perceived Income Inequality and Subjective Well-being: Evidence from a Social Survey in Japan

Previous studies have shown that income inequality in society is negatively associated with individuals subjective well-being (SWB), such as their perceived happiness and self-rated health (SRH). However, it is not realistic to assume that individuals have precise information about actual income distribution measured by the Gini coefficient or other statistical measures. In the current study, we examined how perceived income inequality, rather than actual inequality, was associated with SWB, using cross-sectional data collected from a nationwide, Internet survey conducted in Japan (N = 10,432). We also examined how this association was confounded by individuals’ objective and subjective income status, considering the possibility that individuals with lower income status are more inclined to both perceive income inequality and feel unhappy/unhealthy. In our analysis, we focused on the perception of widening income inequality (as perceived income inequality), perceived happiness and SRH (as SWB), and household income and living standards compared with 1 year ago and compared with others (as income status). We also controlled for personality traits. We obtained three key findings: (1) perceived income inequality was negatively associated with SWB; (2) both perceived income inequality and SWB were associated with income status; and (3) the association between perceived income inequality and SWB was attenuated after controlling for income status, but not fully for perceived happiness. These findings suggest that perceived income inequality, which links actual income inequality to SWB, should be further studied.     

Welfare Costs of Inflation: Evidence from China

In this paper, we use the China General Social Survey 2010 data to estimate the impact of inflation on the welfare of residents. By using the happiness research approach, we find that on average, a 0.1 % rise in inflation rate will cause a welfare loss of about 73.0–164.1 RMB, mainly from unexpected inflation. Furthermore, welfare costs to different income groups vary significantly: for those whose household income reaches 100,000 RMB, the welfare loss resulted from a 0.1 % rise in inflation only reduces about 0.057 % of their income, while for the below 10 thousand income group, the cost is as high as 0.739 %. It also shows that there are substantial differences in different income groups’ sensitivities to different kinds of commodities. Specifically, low-income residents are seriously harmed by an increase in food and residence prices, whereas their middle-income counterparts are mainly affected by price changes in healthcare, personal articles, transportation, communication, recreation, and education. Besides, we find that subjective well-being of debtors are significantly boosted by inflation.     

对社会保障经济增长效率和社会分配效率的思考

随着人口老龄化问题和一系列体制改革遗留问题的显现 ,我国社会保障问题被逐渐提上议程。现今 ,实际国情要求我国仍需坚持以经济建设为中心的发展战略 ,这就要求我们必须对社会保障的经济增长效率做一分析 ;与此同时 ,作为社会收入再分配的一种重要手段 ,社会保障担任着缩小我国较大的贫富差距的重任 ,所以就有必要分析将要实行的社会保障政策在社会收入再分配方面的效率。     

Satisfaction and happiness in a rural northern resource community

Satisfaction and happiness with life as a whole are analyzed in terms of satisfaction with health, finances, family, job, friends, housing, area, recreation, religion, self-esteem, transportation and government services for males and females. Patterns of influential variables differ for males and females. The perceived gap between what one has and wants is a better predictor of satisfaction than the gap between what one has and thinks similar others have, and the gap between what one has and the best one has had in the past. Domain-to-satisfaction and happiness explanations are combined with gap theoretic explanations to reveal the psychological dynamics of judgments of satisfaction for males and females for the 12 domains and global well-being.     

Trends in Child Poverty in Hong Kong Immigrant Families

In Hong Kong, child poverty is a serious social problem which may lead to intergenerational poverty, but nevertheless only a few studies have examined this issue, particularly for immigrant families. Using Census data (5 %) from 1981, 1991, 2001, and 2011, we assessed child poverty rates in the past three decades and identified key variables contributing to changes in the risk of child poverty for both immigrant and local families. Our results indicate that child poverty rates in Hong Kong-born families have fluctuated between 14.3 and 15.8 % over the past three decades, while for immigrant families they have increased steadily and substantially from 18.1 % in 1981 to 36.5 % in 2001 and then to 37.5 % in 2011. We show that the increase in immigrant child poverty is associated with changes in the Hong Kong economy that have made it more difficult for such families to adapt to the host society, especially in the 1990s and that this negative effect offset the positive influence of compositional changes among this group of immigrant families in terms of parental education levels and family size. The gap between immigrant and local families in terms of child poverty risk is mainly due to the fact that during the 1990s the negative effect of contextual changes in Hong Kong was cancelled out by the beneficial impact of compositional changes for local families, but not for immigrant families where the latter effect was minimal.     

Health Literacy and Happiness: A Community-based Study

The relationship between health literacy and happiness was explored using a cross-sectional survey of community-dwelling older primary-care patients. Health literacy status was estimated with the following previously validated question: “How confident are you in filling out medical forms by yourself?” Happiness was measured using an adapted Subjective Happiness Scale. Of all patients (n = 383), 62% were younger than 65, 28% were men, and 39% were African–American. In bivariate analysis, health literacy was positively correlated with happiness (Spearman’s ρ = 0.261; p < 0.001). Multivariable logistic regression revealed that lowest-quartile happiness was associated with poverty (OR: 2.25; 95% CI: 1.17–4.31), unfavorable self-rated health (OR: 4.16; 95% CI: 2.34–7.40), and lower health literacy (OR: 2.31; 95% CI: 1.23–4.32). The results suggest that inadequate health literacy may be an obstacle to happiness above and beyond its effect on poverty and health, and offers partial support for the inclusion of general and health literacy scores in composite quality-of-life and human development indices. Though alternative explanations are possible, we speculate that the association between health literacy and happiness might be mediated by a sense of personal control.     

Self-Other Agreement in Happiness and Life-Satisfaction: The Role of Personality Traits

The aim of the current study is to examine the role of personality traits in self-other agreement in happiness and life-satisfaction which are often seen as the essential components of subjective well-being (SWB). Self-reports on the SWB measure and the NEO Personality Inventory-3 were obtained from 1,251 Estonians aged between 18 and 86 years. Other-ratings on the same measures were provided by knowledgeable informants. The measure of SWB showed significant self-other agreement, r = .55 (p = .000). We found this agreement to be transmitted (i.e., mediated) through the self- and other-rated personality facet scores of N3 (Depression) and E6 (Positive Emotions), Z = 2.8001–11.7142. The findings suggest that when an informant evaluates someone’s happiness or life-satisfaction, his/her rating is inflated by the image held about the personality of this person. Furthermore, self-reported SWB reflects, to some extent, what other people think about one’s personality.     

Does Good Governance Enhance Happiness: A Cross Nation Study

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the efficiency of the countries over the period of 10 years by applying data envelopment analysis (DEA). Based on rational and factual parameters such as freedom of press, freedom of religion, percentage of export in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), index of globalization, life expectancy at birth, gender ratio etc., this paper attempts to measure the efficiency of happiness. A combination of social and economic factors has been used to measure technical efficiency. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it measures the relative efficiency of all the countries included in the study. The nations have been ranked as per their relative efficiency and the peer group has been formed. Second a comparison between the rich and the poor countries have been done to test empirically whether the economic growth enhances the happiness among people. Presently, more than 3,000 studies have been published on happiness and Veenhoven in 2004 created a database called World Database of Happiness. The World Database of Happiness has attempted to present the available research findings on happiness. Part of the findings on happiness in nations is available in ‘States of nations’. For the research purpose, States of Nations and the data published by have been considered. Although happiness has been quantified and the existing literature has sufficient empirical evidences of the same, in the present context, the relative efficiency has been calculated for the countries on basis of objective and subjective happiness parameters. As per the literature, happiness has two aspects (1) objective and (2) subjective. Objective parameters are external to the individuals and covers material living parameters viz. GDP growth, income, nutrition, mortality rate, literacy etc. However, Subjective indicators measure the quality of life of the individuals. These are summarized as ‘‘subjective well-being’’. The various parameters considered in the study capture different aspects of happiness. The result shows how the government can increase the happiness of the people by analyzing the behavior and expectations. People express their preference explicitly about political parties, religion believes, law and order situation, trust in official institutions etc. Although, the behavior of people largely depends upon availability of goods and services in the market, the government can make budgets according to priority or preferences of people. Another way to increase happiness can be done by analyzing the peer group, which is an outcome of DEA. This shows the nations which are similar in terms of their economic and social conditions. The government can compare the prevailing conditions in different countries that improve the condition in their respective country. This could be an effective method as some of the parameters can be replicable in order to make people happier. The limitation of this study is lack of availability of data for many countries. As the number of countries increases, a change in the relative efficiency can be observed. Therefore, a future study can be conducted where the relevant data can be collected and a more global result can be obtained.     

Resolution of the Happiness–Income Paradox

It is widely believed that happiness is strongly correlated with wealth and income, but according to the happiness–income paradox, this is not always true. The paradox predicates that there is a strong positive correlation between income and happiness nationally, but the correlation is essentially absent in international comparisons, or in a long-term longitudinal comparison. This paradox has been widely debated among economists and the controversy has persisted for several decades. In this article, the happiness–income paradox is explained in terms of ecological correlation due to spatial aggregation or data-grouping, change of reference classes, and confounding variables. The controversy is resolved when ecological correlations and third-variable effects are accounted for. At the individual level, happiness and income are correlated positively, but not as strongly as many believe. In international comparisons, happiness and income are, in general, quite strongly correlated as well, contrary to what Easterlin (Nations and households in economic growth: essays in honor of Moses Abramovitz, Academic Press, New York, 1974) claimed and similar to what others have found, but for different reasons. Long-term comparison is also related to ecological correlation, but it is related to the change of reference classes as well.     

Contribution of forest provisioning ecosystem services to rural livelihoods in the Miombo woodlands of Zambia

This paper examines the contribution of forest provisioning ecosystem services (FPES) to rural households and assesses the contributions of forests to the annual incomes of households in Africa’s Miombo woodlands. The study employed focus group meetings, in-depth interviews, and interviews of households, as stratified by wealth class and head of household gender in Copperbelt, Zambia. The results show that FPES are vitally important in providing food, medicine, fodder, and construction materials to rural livelihoods. FPES provided 43.9 % of the average household’s income and contributed a 10 % income equalisation effect among households, as revealed by the Gini-coefficient analysis. Poorer households received a lower mean annual income from forests than did their intermediate and wealthy counterparts, but in relative terms, forest income made the greatest contribution to the total household incomes of poor households. When stratified by gender, forests contributed 44.4 and 41.8 % of the income of male- and female-headed households, respectively. The study indicates that wealth, rather than gender, was the key determinant of a household’s engagement in the sale of FPES. The inter- and intra-community differentiation in the use and sale of FPES, as revealed in this study, enables more effective targeting of forest management interventions and informs efforts to reconcile the goals of poverty reduction and forest conservation.     

Refining Population Health Comparisons: A Multidimensional First Order Dominance Approach

Protest parties are on the rise in several European countries. This development is commonly attributed to a growing dissatisfaction with life and associated with declining quality of life in modern society of the lowest social strata. This explanation is tested in a cross-sectional analysis of voting and life-satisfaction in 63 districts of the city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, where the share of protest voters increased from 10 % in 1994 to 31 % in 2009. Contrary to this explanation protest voting appeared not to be the most frequent in the least happy districts of Rotterdam, but in the medium happy segment. Also divergent from this explanation was that average happiness in city districts is largely independent of local living conditions, but is rather a matter of personal vulnerability in terms of education, income and health. These results fit alternative explanations in terms of middle class status anxiety.     

影响牧区牧民幸福感因素的实证研究——天祝藏族自治县调查报告

改革开放以来。我国经济建设取得了辉煌成就,目前,部分地区甚至一些大城市的人均收入已赶上发达国家．但其总体幸福水平不尽人意。相反,有调查显示收入水平明显大幅度低于城市居民的农民。其生活满意感超过了城市居民。出现了“幸福悼论”现象。本文依据贫困牧区县的调查资料,运用ordered logit model对牧民幸福感同收入及若干非经济因素之间关系的维度和强度进行了考量。在假定牧区宗教及文化习俗对牧民的幸福感均有恒定影响的前提下,分析结果显示．牲畜数量是牧民的主要幸福源泉;牧区女性的幸福感要明显低于男性;牧民收入水平尚较低的情况下。人均年收入同幸福感显著正相关;牧民自身的教育投入对幸福感的提高起抑制作用：以30岁为拐点．牧区成年人和老年人的幸福感相对低于青年人;遇到资金周转困难时,银行对牧民家庭的贷款有助于改善幸福状况：物质条件对幸福感不具有明显的影响。     

Did the Decline in Social Connections Depress Americans’ Happiness?

During the last 30 years US citizens experienced, on average, a decline in reported happiness, social connections, and confidence in institutions. We show that a remarkable portion of the decrease in happiness is predicted by the decline in social connections and confidence in institutions. We carry out our investigation in three steps. First, we run a happiness regression that includes various indicators of social connections and confidence in institutions, alongside with own income, reference income, and the usual socio-demographic controls. We find that indicators of social connections and confidence in institutions are positively and significantly correlated with happiness. Second, we investigate the evolution of social connections and confidence in institutions over time, finding that they generally show a declining trend. Third, we calculate the variation in happiness over time as predicted by each of its statistically significant correlates, finding that the decrease in happiness is mainly predicted by the decline in social connections and by the growth in reference income. More precisely, the sum of the negative changes in happiness predicted by the reduction in social connections and the increase in reference income more than offsets the positive change predicted by the growth of household income. Also, the reduction in happiness predicted by the decline in confidence in institutions is non-negligible, although substantially smaller than the one predicted by either social connections or reference income.     

Basic Needs and Wealth as Independent Determinants of Happiness: An Illustration from Thailand

Thailand has been a global economic success story, transforming from one of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia in the 1960s, to a modern and dynamic nation, and all within the lifetime of the current generation. However, growth has been accompanied by marked increases in economic inequality both at the regional and individual levels. In this context studying how relatively poor people appraise their situation (‘subjective wellbeing’) and how this relates to traditional ‘objective’ measures of wellbeing such as wealth and basic needs is particularly relevant. This paper investigates the relationship between basic needs as defined by the Theory of Human needs (THN, Doyal and Gough 1991), material wealth and happiness. Specifically, we intend to answer the following research question: Are wealth and basic needs indicators always interchangeable when analyzing happiness determinants in low income settings? The paper focuses on seven communities in the South and North-east of Thailand with contrasting levels of access to markets and services. It challenges the common assumption that at low economic levels, wealth or income matter for people’s happiness because they increase satisfaction of basic needs, arguing instead that wealth might contribute to happiness for personal or symbolic reasons, which are not related to the use of goods as basic needs satisfiers. Thus, it suggests that indicators of wealth and basic needs should not be used interchangeably when studying happiness determinants in low income settings.     

社会安全阀机制与贫富差距调适

当前,我国贫富差距较大已是一客观不争的社会事实。社会安全阀机制则起着调适贫富差距的作用,从而缓解了贫富差距所可能导致的利益和社会冲突,维持和促进了社会的稳定与发展。研究立足于贫富差距较大的客观现实,着重对现有社会安全阀机制进行分析,并指出在健全和完善相应社会安全阀机制的基础上消除较大的贫富差距。     

Relative Income and Happiness in Asia: Evidence from Nationwide Surveys in China, Japan, and Korea

This study attempts to examine relative income effects on perceived happiness in three major Asian countries—China, Japan, and Korea—in comparison with the United Sates, on the basis of largely comparable nationwide surveys in these countries. Consistent with the results from previous studies in Western countries, comparisons with an individual’s own income and average income of the reference group are significantly associated with the individual’s perceived happiness in Asia. The associations between relative income and happiness are stronger for individual income than family income in China, while the opposite is true in Japan and Korea. Even after controlling for the subjective assessment of family income or personal class identification within the society as a whole, income comparisons within the reference group matter for assessing happiness, especially when using family income for comparisons. Moreover, relative deprivation within the reference group, which is measured by the Yitzhaki index, is negatively related to happiness, providing more evidence for the validity of the relative income hypothesis.     

Agent-Based Simulations of Subjective Well-Being

There has been extensive empirical research in recent years pointing to a weak correlation between economic growth and subjective well-being (happiness), at least for developed economies (i.e. the so-called ‘Easterlin paradox’). Recent findings from the behavioural sciences and happiness literature link this paradoxical relationship to negative externalities on utility imposed by social comparison (i.e. relative income with respect to others) and adaptation (habituation to own income in the past). We believe that the type of economic growth (pro-poor, pro-middle, pro-rich, neutral), in combination with sensitivity to social comparison and past income, is a key determinant of happiness trajectories and future utility levels. With the use of agent-based simulations we examine the long-term dynamics of subjective-well-being by focusing attention on the type of growth process rather than the mere size of income growth. We generally find that pro-middle (and balanced) growth corresponds to much higher levels of long-term happiness in comparison to pro-rich growth.     

Greater Happiness for a Greater Number: Did the Promise of Enlightenment Come True?

In the eighteenth century ‘Enlightened’ thinkers challenged the belief that happiness exists only in Heaven. They claimed that happiness is possible in earthly life and foresaw that greater happiness would be achieved using reason. Did this promise of greater happiness come true? Several scholars doubt that we have become any happier and some claim that happiness has declined. These critical claims are tested using the time trend data available in the World Database of Happiness, which cover the period 1950–2010 and involve 1531 data points in 67 nations yielding 199 time-series ranging for 10 to more than 40 years. The analysis reveals that happiness has risen in most nations. The average yearly rise in the 67 nations was +0.012 on scale 0–10, which equals a rise of one full point every 83 years. At this rate happiness must have improved by more than two points over the past two centuries and, together with increasing longevity, this denotes an unprecedented rise in happy life years.     

Panel Quantile Regressions and the Subjective Well-Being in Urban China: Evidence from RUMiC Data

Using RUMiC data and a simple panel quantile regression method, this paper accounts for the time-invariant individual specific characteristics and investigates the heterogeneous effects of factors on the distribution of subjective well-being (SWB, measured by GHQ-12) in urban China. Comparing results from the pooled regression and fixed effect regression, we find that most results from pooled regressions are likely overestimated. Panel quantile regression results show that income affects the least happy 10 % group twice as much as the happiest 10 % people. Being unemployed brings down the happiness level by 0.97 points on average, but individuals with high SWB seem to be not significantly affected. The complete picture of the relationship between SWB and various factors would have been veiled without using quantile techniques. This paper therefore not only contributes to the happiness literature in China, but also adds evidence to stylized findings going beyond the average.