Satisfaction with Social Contacts of Older Europeans

This paper analyses the determinants of an important component of well-being among individuals aged 50 years or older in eleven European countries: satisfaction with social contacts. We use data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe and anchoring vignettes to correct for potential differences in responses scales across countries and socio-demographic groups. On average, older Europeans report being satisfied with their social contacts, but there exist substantial differences across countries: respondents from Northern countries tend to be more satisfied than individuals from Central or Mediterranean countries. Our analysis shows that correcting for response scale differentials alters the country ranking for of satisfaction with social contacts, while it has much less effect on the estimates of what drives within country determinants.     

The Danish Effect: Beginning to Explain High Well-Being in Denmark

Although income and happiness have been linked at both the individual and national levels of analysis, few studies have specifically examined the different relationships between these two variables in affluent nations. This study investigates various measures of well-being in both the United States and Denmark. Respondents in both countries reported high levels of well-being but Americans generally reported greater positive and negative affect while Danes reported higher levels of satisfaction and enjoyment. Interestingly, low income respondents in the United States reported higher negative affect and lower life satisfaction than their counterparts in Denmark. For positive affect, the major difference between the two countries was found among high income respondents. The key to understanding differences in the well-being of these two nations appears to lie in understanding the well-being of the poor. Suggestions for future directions in research are discussed.     

Gender differences in economic well-being among the elderly of java

With populations aging rapidly in many developing nations, issues of economic dependency among the elderly are of increasing importance. Using data from a 1986 survey of the elderly on Java, Indonesia, I describe gender differences in economic well-being and identify characteristics associated with economic disadvantage. At both the individual and the household level, older women have fewer resources than older men. Even within categories of support (work income and remittances), women have lower levels of well-being. Gender differences in household-level economic well-being are due primarily to differences in household structure and in levels of skills. Gender differences in individual receipts (from all sources) are more complicated, but can be understood more clearly with reference to gender differences in skills levels (literacy, language, job skills), current work status and authority, and domestic authority.     

Job Satisfaction in the “Big Four” of Europe: Reasoning Between Feeling and Uncertainty Through CUB Models

The paper offers a comparative investigation of objective and subjective driving forces behind the satisfaction that people feel in their job in four representative countries of Western Europe. The main element of this work’s novelty is its linking the research of cross-country similarities and differences in the leading determinants of global job satisfaction to methodological issues that arise when responses to survey questions are detected on a rating scale through self-evaluation. In particular, this paper is one of the first attempts to test the potentialities of CUB models on EWCS data in a broader conceptual framework in which the response on overall job satisfaction depends on some psychological dynamics of the evaluation process. Although overall job satisfaction is significantly higher for British and German employees, the subjective factors—the amount of socio-economic security embodied in a job, the working conditions and the aspects of work–life balance—are the most relevant in shaping job satisfaction, disregarding the myth that considers earnings as the dominant factor.     

Gender and Job Satisfaction in Urban China: The Role of Individual,Family, and Job Characteristics

This study examines gender differences in job satisfaction in urban Chinese, whether individual achieved status, family and household characteristics, and job characteristics explain these differences, and whether these factors are associated with men’s and women’s job satisfaction differently using a national representative sample of 1,641 men and 1,375 women from the 2006 Chinese General Social Survey. Urban Chinese women are less satisfied with their jobs than urban Chinese men. This gender difference is largely explained by women’s underrepresentation in the Chinese Communist Party and their inferior jobs. Family and household characteristics have stronger impact on women’s job satisfaction than on men’s, but achieved status and job characteristics have similar associations with job satisfaction for men and women. These findings suggest that persistent gender inequality is detrimental to women’s well-being at the workplace.     

The Paradox of Children and Life Satisfaction

Empirical analyses of the determinants of life satisfaction routinely include the number of children as one of the socio demographic controls, without explicitly considering that, for a given household income, more children imply a lower level of income per family member. The variable “number of children” then often attracts a negative or insignificant coefficient. Using data from the German Socio Economic Panel 1984–2007 we confirm that the sign of the coefficient for the variable “number of children in the household” is negative when introducing household income without correction for the number of members in a life satisfaction regression. On the contrary, when we equivalise income with the most commonly adopted equivalence scales, so eliminating the monetary cost of raising children, the impact of the variable is positive and significant when a high level of economies of scale is assumed. Our results however lead us to reject slope homogeneity as we find strong differences by gender and region. In particular, the positive effect of children on life satisfaction is stronger for males and East Germans. We interpret these subsample split results as driven by heterogeneous opportunity costs and cultural traits.     

Bringing Affect Back in: Measuring and Comparing Subjective Well-Being Across Countries

In recent years, researchers and policymakers have paid increasing attention to cross-country comparisons of subjective well-being. Whereas classical theories of quality of life emphasize the central role of affective well-being (i.e., whether a person feels good or bad), previous comparative studies have focused almost exclusively on life satisfaction (i.e., cognitive evaluations of life). This study brings affect into the comparative study of subjective well-being, constructing a new measurement instrument that captures both the affective and cognitive dimensions of subjective well-being. Using European Social Survey data and multi-group confirmatory factor analysis, we estimate latent country means for the two dimensions and compare country rankings across the two measures. The results reveal important differences in country rankings depending on whether one focuses on affective well-being or life satisfaction. We identify crucial differences among top-ranking countries and, perhaps even more importantly, considerable differences in rankings among more moderately ranking countries. In a second step, we compare and evaluate the single-item measures commonly used in previous research with the results based on our new measures. We conclude by discussing our results in relation to previous studies, and in terms of their possible implications for future research and for policymakers bent on improving national levels of subjective well-being.     

Do Household Heads Speak for the Household? A Research Note

Many recent household surveys include questions about respondents’ subjective well-being. Nearly all of them, however, pose these questions only to the household head. This paper addresses an issue with practical and methodological concerns. Can survey designers ask only household heads and expect them to accurately represent the living conditions of the entire household? Using South Africa’s 1998 October Household Survey (OHS) to estimate econometric models of subjective well-being, this paper finds that the response of household heads is determined largely by factors shared by the entire household – housing, for example – and not on those experienced primarily by the head – individual health status, for example. This suggests that South African household heads are truly reporting household well-being, rather than their individual level of satisfaction. While this result probably cannot be widely generalized, the testing methodology is replicable and could be applied to similarly structured data sets.     

Longitudinal Analysis of the Domains of Satisfaction Before and After Disability: Evidence from the German Socio-Economic Panel

The aim of this paper is to analyse the effect of the onset of disability on life satisfaction and five different domains of satisfaction (health, household income, housing, job, leisure) for German individuals. Particular attention is paid to examining whether individuals can adapt to disability over time before and after its onset in terms of satisfaction. Using longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) for the period 1984?C2008, we estimate an innovative fixed-effects model on life satisfaction and each domain of satisfaction for working-age males (aged 21?C58), which allows us to estimate lag and lead effects and thus to test the anticipation and adaptation hypotheses. Although individual obtain complete adaptation to disability in terms of global life satisfaction (5?years after the onset), this adaptation is not complete in all domains of satisfaction. For example, despite the fact that the levels of health satisfaction drop as the individual becomes disabled, after the onset it increases but the levels are lower than those reached before the onset. In contrast, the adaptation is especially faster in the terms of leisure satisfaction (3?years after the onset), household income and housing satisfaction (5?years after the onset in both cases). Our results support the findings obtained in other psychological studies that conclude that the domain of disability extends far beyond health related concerns to encompass the person??s well-being definition of self and social position. Finally, these findings may help policy makers and government to promote social and economic measures and actions lead to increase the scores of global well-being and specific domains of satisfaction of this collective.     

Economic Theory and Subjective Well-being: Mexico

Several studies have been conducted on the topic of well-being. Most of them, however, have been done in industrialized countries where income is distributed relatively more equitatively and the population tends to be more homogeneous. This paper studies the relationship between subjective and economic well-being in Mexico, a country where the economic differences among the population are more clearly marked.

According to the economic definition of well-being, higher levels of income are associated with higher levels of well-being through greater levels of material consumption. Taking into consideration this definition, it is worth asking just how important income is for an individual's happiness?Existing studies in psychology have found a positive correlation between economic well-being (socioeconomic status) and subjective well-being (happiness). However, this positive relationship is weak and a large percentage of human happiness remains unexplained.

Although the mentioned studies make a good approximation of the existing relationship between income and happiness, the characteristics or specification of the function that generates the relationship between these two variables is often assumed to be linear and positive. The main objective of this paper is to investigate further the relationship between subjective and economic well-being. In this study different specifications and approaches are used to approximate the relationship between these variables.

An empirical analysis is made from the results of a survey conducted in two Mexican cities. The investigation studies the impact of demographic, social, and economic variables on subjective well-being in Mexico. Several hypotheses are tested to identify the relationship between household income and individual well-being. It is found that income does not have a strong influence on neither well-being nor on the probability of happiness. However, people tend to overstress the impact that additional income would have on their subjective well-being. This fact could explain the importance that people place on increasing their income level, and it could possibly explain the relative sense of dissatisfaction once a higher income level is achieved.

The relationship between income and the sense of basic need satisfaction is also explored. A main assumption in economic theory suggests the existence of a direct relationship between these variables; however, empirical results show this relationship to be extremely weak. Results indicate that subjective well-being is positively related to the sense of basic need satisfaction but not to income.

     

Workplace Well-being, Gender and Age: Examining the ‘Double Jeopardy’ Effect

This study examines the effects of age and gender on work-related subjective well-being, looking at job-related affective well-being and job satisfaction. Specifically, it investigates whether older women, who may be doubly disadvantaged in being old and being women, are victims of a “double jeopardy” effect. Self-reported survey-data were obtained from 446 adults employed full-time. The results of this study suggest that age seems to matter more than gender in the workplace, and that aging is associated with lower job-related well-being and higher job satisfaction. Although older women reported slightly lower job-related affective well-being than men, the decrease of subjective well-being with age impacts on both genders.     

Healthy,Wealthy, Wise,and Happy? Assessing Age Differences in Evaluative and Emotional Well-Being Among Mature Adults from Five Low- and Middle-Income Countries

This study assesses the relationship between age and two dimensions of subjective well-being—evaluative and emotional—among mature adults from five low-and middle-income countries. We use data from the World Health Organization’s Study on Global AGEing and Adult Health to contrast the associations of age with subjective well-being when controlling only for gender with the corresponding partial associations when including a richer set of covariates. Adjusting only for gender, we find negative associations of age with evaluative well-being, while the corresponding age gradients for emotional well-being are relatively flat. By contrast, adjusting for further socio-demographic factors results in positive associations of age with both evaluative and emotional well-being. Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions allow us to explore the roles of two factors to account for any unadjusted age differences in subjective well-being: age-group differences in individual characteristics and life circumstances, and age-specific associations of individual characteristics and life circumstances with subjective well-being. While adverse circumstances such as poor health and low income contribute to lower levels of evaluative well-being among older adults, age per se is—ceteris paribus—positively associated with subjective well-being. Even in poorer countries, older age does not need to be a time of low subjective well-being. Policies aimed at preserving income and limiting or compensating old-age disability appear to be key for maintaining subjective well-being among older adults.

     

The Importance of Freedom in the East and the West Over Time: A Meta-analytic Study of Predictors of Well-Being

We examined whether sense of freedom is an important predictor of well-being, as compared to other typical predictors, across different periods in modern times (1981–2011), and in the East and the West. We applied a meta-analytical approach to the results of a series of multiple regression analyses conducted on six individual waves of Japanese data sets and five individual waves of American data sets from the World Values Survey. The final sample comprised 6389 Japanese and 6176 American respondents during all study periods. The main findings were that sense of freedom was one of the strongest predictors of life satisfaction (a) among several predictors (i.e., health condition, household income, marital status), (b) consistently across waves, and (c) in both Japan and the United States, as typical collectivistic Eastern and individualistic Western countries. We conclude that the greater importance of sense of freedom in ensuring well-being than other typical predictors is applicable to individuals across time and cultures.     

Theory and Validity of Life Satisfaction Scales

National accounts of subjective well-being are being considered and adopted by nations. In order to be useful for policy deliberations, the measures of life satisfaction must be psychometrically sound. The reliability, validity, and sensitivity to change of life satisfaction measures are reviewed. The scales are stable under unchanging conditions, but are sensitive to changes in circumstances in people’s lives. Several types of data indicate that the scales validly reflect the quality of respondents’ lives: (1) Differences between nations in life satisfaction associated with differences in objective conditions, (2) Differences between groups who live in different circumstances, (3) Correlations with nonself-report measures of life satisfaction, (4) Genetic and physiological associations with life satisfaction, (5) Systematic patterns of change in the scales before, during, and after significant life events, and (6) Prediction by life satisfaction scores of future behaviors such as suicide. The life satisfaction scales can be influenced by factors such as question order, current mood, and mode of presentation, but in most cases these can be controlled. Our model of life satisfaction judgments points to the importance of attention, values, standards, and top-down effects. Although the scales are useful in research on individual well-being, there are policy questions that need more analysis and research, such as which types of subjective well-being measures are most relevant to which types of policies, how standards influence scores, and how best to associate the scores with current policy deliberations.     

Asset Impacts on Life Satisfaction in an Asset-Rich Country: Focusing on Older Adults in Singapore

Using a representative sample, this study examined the extent to which assets matter for life satisfaction among older adults in Singapore. Singapore is a particularly useful context to explore the relationship between life satisfaction and assets because almost all Singaporeans own their own house, regardless of income level. First, this study used a latent profile analysis to assess patterns of life satisfaction. Then, asset impacts on this pattern of life satisfaction were examined, while controlling for contextual and health factors. The study found that financial assets matter for life satisfaction of older adults in Singapore. In particular, older adults in both the moderate life satisfaction class (LSC) and the High LSC were likely to have higher financial assets. Comparatively, other economic indicators such as real assets, total debts, and monthly household income were not significantly related to life satisfaction of older adults in the Moderate and High LSC compared to the Low LSC. However, real assets and monthly household income were significant predictors distinguishing the Moderate LSC and the High LSC. Throughout the models, total debts were not considered as a significant predictor of life satisfaction differences. This paper concludes by providing several policy and practice implications.     

Perceived Social Policy Fairness and Subjective Wellbeing: Evidence from China

This study examined the relationship between perceived fairness of social policies and subjective well-being. Two types of policies examined were related to income distribution and social security. Subjective well-being was measured by work and life satisfaction. In addition, subjective well-beings between different income, age, and education groups in the context of perceived social justice were compared. With data from a random telephone survey conducted in Beijing, China among 2,113 respondents, findings from structural equation modeling indicate perceived fairness of social security and income distribution policies are positively associated with subjective well-being. After controlling for income, age, and education, the effect of income distribution fairness on work satisfaction was still positive and significant but had decreased in intensity, while the effect size on life satisfaction had changed little. Effects of social security fairness on both life and work satisfaction were still significant but had changed in different directions after adding demographic variables, in which the effect on life satisfaction had increased, while the effect on work satisfaction had decreased in size.     

Religion and Mental Health Among Israeli Jews: Findings from the SHARE-Israel Study

This study investigates the impact of religiousness on mental health indicators in a population sample of Israeli Jews aged 50 or older. Data are from the Israel sample of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE-Israel), collected from 2005 to 2006. Of the 1,287 Jewish respondents, 473 (36.8 %) were native-born Israelis and 814 (63.2 %) were diaspora-born. Religious measures included past-month synagogue activities, current prayer, and having received a religious education. Mental health outcomes included single-item measures of lifetime depression and life satisfaction, along with the CES-D and EURO-D depression scales, the CASP-12 quality of life scale, and the LOT-R optimism scale. Participation in synagogue activities was found to be significantly associated with less depression, better quality of life, and more optimism, even after adjusting for effects of the other religious measures, for sociodemographic covariates, for the possibly confounding effect of age-related activity limitation, and for nativity. Findings for prayer were less consistent, including inverse associations with mental health, perhaps reflecting prayer’s use as a coping response. Finally, religious education was associated with greater optimism. These results underscore a modest contribution of religious participation to well-being among middle-aged and older adults, extending this research to the Israeli and Jewish populations.     

The Geography of Economics and Happiness: Spatial Patterns in the Effects of Economic Conditions on Well-Being

This paper investigates the cross-country distribution of the relationship between economic conditions and well-being. Using a large sample of individuals from 94 countries worldwide, we find that the effect of income on well-being is larger in countries with lower GDP per capita, while the negative effect of being unemployed is stronger in countries with higher unemployment rate or higher GDP per capita. Interestingly, the effect of being unemployed displays positive spatial dependence across countries that is not accounted for by aggregate socio-economic conditions. Overall, the results indicate that geography, culture and institutions must be explicitly taken into account in order to understand the relationship between economic conditions and well-being.     

Variability of Quality of Life at Small Scales: Addis Ababa,Kirkos Sub-City

Urban quality of life (QoL) is becoming a subject of urban research mainly for western and Asian countries. Such attention is due to an increasing awareness of the contribution of QoL studies in identifying intervention areas and in monitoring urban planning policies. However, most studies are carried out at city or country level that can average out details at small scales. In this paper we present a case study where the urban QoL at small scale is measured and its variability is evaluated for Kirkos sub-city of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The study is based on data from a household survey and some secondary data. Geographic information system (GIS) is applied to extract proximity information (e.g., distance to school facilities) and visualize the spatial distribution of QoL. Statistical methods such as factor analysis are applied to establish an index of objective QoL while coefficient of variation is applied to evaluate spatial variability of subjective QoL. The results of this study reveal that the subjective quality of life (QoL) scores show large variation in the sub-city. The mean QoL score also indicates that the respondents in the sub-city, on average, are dissatisfied with the quality of their life. Respondents with higher education level and income are on average, however, more satisfied with their QoL in the sub-city. The results reveal that the lower the QoL in the Kebele, the larger the variability of QoL within the Kebele. Such indicates how aggregation at large scale can average out the variation of QoL at small scales. The results reveal the presence of QoL variability at small scales. The comparison between the subjective and the objective QoL at Kebele level indicated a state of dissonance, adaptation, deprivation or well-being. Such results suggest that the two measures do not always indicate the same level of QoL.     

Religious domains and general well-being

With only a few notable exceptions, studies on quality of life or general well-being have failed to deal with religiosity in general, and the development of more refined measures of religious meaning and belonging in particular. Data measuring subjective perceptions of well-being for various domains of life, including neighborhood, employment, work at home, education, friends, household members, marital status, standard of living, health and religion were used to form a number of domain scales. Relationships between the multidimensional concepts of well-being and religiosity are explored and the importance of religiosity in defining well-being is tested. Religious satisfaction was found to be important for general life satisfaction and existential well-being. Among the eight indicators and scales of religiosity, various combinations of religious satisfaction, frequency of prayer, prayer experience, and relationship with God, were important predictors of general life satisfaction, existential well-being, and overall happiness. Under no circumstance did any measure of religosity contribute to negative affect.