The Impact of Democracy on Well-being

Can governance impact directly on well-being? In this paper we examine subjective well-being using data for a cross section of countries from the World Values data set. We find that regional democratic satisfaction impacts on both individual happiness and life satisfaction. However, the impact is less evident for women, rich people and for those in rich countries. The fact that the governance variable analysis is based on regional differences in democratic satisfaction reminds us that governance and indeed happiness often differs within countries as well as between them. The use of regional satisfaction in this manner helps overcome endogeneity problems which would be present if we were to use individual democratic satisfaction. Other significant determinants of happiness include settlement size, marital status, income, unemployment and being part of a linguistic minority/majority grouping.     

Subjective Well-Being, Income and Relative Concerns in the UK

We present an empirical model aimed at testing the relative income hypothesis and the effect of deprivation relative to mean income on subjective well-being. The main concern is to deal with subjective panel data in an ordered response model where error homoskedasticity is not assumed. A heteroskedastic pooled panel ordered probit model with unobserved individual-specific effects is applied to micro-data available in the British Household Panel Survey for 1996–2007. In this framework, absolute income impacts negatively on both completely satisfied and dissatisfied individuals, while relative income affects positively the most satisfied ones. Such an effect is asymmetric, impacting more severely on the relatively poor in the reference group. We argue that our results buttress the validity of the relative income hypothesis as an explanation of the happiness paradox.     

Gender Differences in Happiness and Life Satisfaction Among Adolescents in Hong Kong: Relationships and Self-Concept

This study uses survey data from adolescents (N = 1,428) in Hong Kong to test the association of gender with happiness and life satisfaction through relationship style and self-concept. While self-esteem and purpose in life are associated with higher happiness and life satisfaction, having more close friends is related to higher happiness, but not necessarily life satisfaction. On the other hand, boys with higher academic achievement are happier, but not more satisfied; the opposite holds true for girls. Our results provide a much-needed investigation of the differential effect of gender on the subjective well-being of adolescents. Contributing to the theoretical debate about the concepts of subjective well-being, we argue that happiness and life satisfaction are empirically and conceptually distinct. Life satisfaction might be characterized by more profound enjoyment and achievement in life than happiness.     

The relationship between income and subjective well-being: Relative or absolute?

Although it appears that income and subjective well-being correlate in within-country studies (Diener, 1984), a debate has focused on whether this relationship is relative (Easterlin, 1974) or absolute (Veenhoven, 1988, 1991). The absolute argument advanced by Veenhoven states that income helps individuals meet certain universal needs and therefore that income, at least at lower levels, is a cause of subjective well-being. The relativity argument is based on the idea that the impact of income or other resources depends on changeable standards such as those derived from expectancies, habituation levels, and social comparisons. Two studies which empirically examine these positions are presented: one based on 18 032 college studies in 39 countries, and one based on 10 year longitudinal data in a probability sample of 4 942 American adults. Modest but significant correlations were found in the U.S. between income and well-being, but the cross-country correlations were larger. No evidence for the influence of relative standards on income was found: (1) Incomechange did not produce effects beyond the effect of income level per se, (2) African-Americans and the poorly educated did not derive greater happiness from specific levels of income, (3) Income produced the same levels of happiness in poorer and richer areas of the U.S., and (4) Affluence correlated with subjective well-being both across countries and within the U.S. Income appeared to produce lesser increases in subjective well-being at higher income levels in the U.S., but this pattern was not evident across countries. Conceptual and empirical questions about the universal needs position are noted. Suggestions for further explorations of the relativistic position are offered.     

Regional Heterogeneity of Life Satisfaction in Urban China: Evidence from Hierarchical Ordered Logit Analysis

Given sheer geographic size and unequal regional development, common wisdom may attribute the heterogeneity of individual subjective wellbeing largely to regional disparity in China. Using a hierarchical ordered logit model and the Subjective Survey for Chinese Livelihood Index in 2012, this study however finds that regional factors only account for 3.7 % of total variance of individual subjective wellbeing in urban China. It implies that regional differences are not important for explaining individual happiness though some regional variables are statistically significant. Correspondingly, the Chinese governments should make policies down to individual level to promote people's life satisfaction. Other findings on income and social demographical variables are consistent with the current studies.     

Family Structure and Subjective Economic Well-Being: Some New Evidence

The paper investigates the main socio-demographic and economic determinants of subjective economic well-being in different typologies of households. Previous studies have used dummy variables to explore the effect of family structure. In this paper, however four different models—one for each family typology—have been estimated to test if each selected explanatory variable is significant and how it acts in determining the level of subjective economic well-being. To achieve this, we apply an under-used logit model—the partial proportional ordered model. Our analysis, based on data from the 2005 Italian Survey on Income and Living Conditions highlights the main variables affecting the subjective economic well-being of all household typologies. These main variables are related to income adequacy, such as being able to afford housing, clothes and holidays, and also include the work-status and level of education of the respondent. These variables produce notable differences in the level of subjective economic well-being. We find that couples with no children have the highest level of perceived economic well-being, while couples with two or more children and even more so one-person households are more economically insecure.     

Subjective Well-Being and Social Capital in Belgian Communities. The Impact of Community Characteristics on Subjective Well-Being Indicators in Belgium

In this article, we investigate the effect of individual and community level characteristics on subjective well-being in Belgium. Various indicators for subjective well-being are being used in a multilevel analysis of the 2009 SCIF survey (n = 2,080) and the 2006 Belgian ESS sample (n = 1,798). On the individual level, most hypotheses on the determinants of subjective well-being were confirmed. Living with a partner and age were shown to have strong effects, but also social capital indicators had a significant positive effect on subjective well-being. All these effects remained significant controlling for optimism. On the community level, especially unemployment rate had a negative impact on subjective well-being. The analysis further demonstrates that in homogeneous regions, community characteristics have a far weaker impact on subjective well-being indicators than in economically more heterogeneous regions.     

The Influence of Water Access in Subjective Well-Being: Some Evidence in Yucatan, Mexico

The literature on happiness or subjective well-being has explored the determinants of happiness without taking into consideration the role that water plays. In this paper we attempt to draw attention to water in subjective well-being studies. Approximately one hundred million people do not have access to water. A lack of clean water causes diseases such as diarrhea and cholera, responsible for around 5% of the total deaths in the world. Access to water should therefore be a necessary asset in life. In order to consider access to water, we estimate its influence on subjective well-being using data from rural Yucatan, Mexico. Residents in Yucatan suffer from low quality access to water and there are also imperfections in the management of the service, such as water cuts. We estimate the influence of water on subjective well-being, finding a positive and significant relationship. In a second stage of the research, we relate water access variables to subjective well-being, the health and the water domain of life, finding significant results. These results make it possible to formulate political measures concerning access to water and happiness maximization. We demonstrate that access to water is important for well-being in Yucatan and might be important in many other places; we therefore encourage future research to contemplate water satisfaction and water variables in their analysis.     

Gender, Unemployment and Subjective Well-Being: Why Being Unemployed Is Worse for Men than for Women

This paper tries to explain why unemployment has such a severe effect on the subjective well-being of people. It is already known that unemployed have among the lowest levels of subjective well-being of all people. This paper explains and tests why this is so. The explanation is based on the social production function theory. This theory states that ultimately people strive for physical well-being and social approval. Because unemployment affect both physical well-being and social approval its effect is so large. We elaborate this explanation to account for the differences between men and women. Because men and women have different ways of achieveing social approval unemployment is more detremental for men than for women. We further analyze differences between single men and women and married men and women to test the explanation that is put forward. Using the European Social Survey held in 2004 the hypotheses are tested. We do find that having a job is one of the main factors affecting subjective well-being, that this effect is bigger for men than for women and that women profit from the jobs of their partners whereas men do not.     

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.

     

Do Immigrants Suffer More From Job Loss? Unemployment and Subjective Well-being in Germany

This study asks whether immigrants suffer more from unemployment than German natives. Differences between these groups in pre-unemployment characteristics, the type of the transition into unemployment, and the consequences of this transition suggest that factors intensifying the negative impact of unemployment on subjective well-being are more concentrated in immigrants than in natives. Based on longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (1990–2014; N = 34,767 persons aged 20 to 64; N = 210,930 person-years), we used fixed-effects models to trace within-person change in subjective well-being across the transition from employment into unemployment and over several years of continued unemployment. Results showed that immigrants’ average declines in subjective well-being exceeded those of natives. Further analyses revealed gender interactions. Among women, declines were smaller and similar among immigrants and natives. Among men, declines were larger and differed between immigrants and natives. Immigrant men showed the largest declines, amounting to one standard deviation of within-person change over time in subjective well-being. Normative, social, and economic factors did not explain these disproportionate declines. We discuss alternative explanations for why immigrant men are most vulnerable to the adverse effects of unemployment in Germany.     

The Contextual Effects of Political Trust on Happiness: Evidence from China

Political trust is often considered as legitimacy enhancing, but whether political trust is well-being enhancing is still underexplored. Using micro data from the East Asian Social Survey 2012, this study investigates the association between province-level/aggregate political trust and individual happiness in China, and explores the role of economic development in influencing individual political trust after the period of rapid growth in 1990–2010. Results show a positive and significant contextual effect of political trust on individual happiness in China, with the endogeneity problem addressed by an instrument variables method. Currently in China, it is a higher provincial rate of GDP growth rather than GDP per capita that predicts a higher level of political trust. Economic growth still significantly reinforces the level of individual political trust and even helps to raise individual political trust among economically disadvantaged populations. The “critical citizens” phenomenon has not yet grown into a nationwide trend. Since the positive contextual effect of political trust on individual subjective well-being, policy makers are encouraged to maintain the stock of political trust through good governance.     

Three Ways to Be Happy: Pleasure,Engagement, and Meaning—Findings from Australian and US Samples

This study examined the contributions of orientations to happiness (pleasure, engagement and meaning) to subjective well-being. A sample of 12,622 adults from the United States completed on-line surveys measuring orientations to happiness, positive affect, negative affect, and life satisfaction. A sample of 332 adults from Australia also completed these surveys as well as a measure of the big five factor personality traits. Hierarchical regressions generally supported the hypothesis that the three orientations to happiness predict subjective well-being (satisfaction with life, positive affect and negative affect) beyond sociodemographic variables and personality. Meaning and engagement explained the greatest variance in all three components of subjective well-being. Overall, these findings support the importance of a eudaimonic approach in addition to the hedonic approach to achieving happiness. Moreover, findings were relatively consistent in both the Australian and US samples. Some of these data were presented at the 8th Australian Centre on Quality of Life Conference, Melbourne, Australia.     

The Impact of Economic Crisis on Happiness

There is a common belief that economic crisis will lead to a decrease in subjective wellbeing. Previous studies indicate that income is correlated with happiness and unemployment with unhappiness. The relationship between increased income and happiness is well documented while the impact of decreased income has been less explored. The aim of this paper is to study how the economic downfall in Iceland, followed by reduced income and increased unemployment, affects happiness as well as to explore which groups are most vulnerable to changes in happiness and which are most resilient. The study is a longitudinal, nationally representative postal survey which assessed 5,918 individual’s aged 18–79. A total of 4,092 (77.3%) answered again in 2009. The relationship between economic factors and happiness was explored using multiple linear regression to find out how much they explain of the happiness variance and the changes in happiness, together with demographic factors, health and social relationships. Results indicate that income and unemployment did not predict happiness but financial difficulties did. A decrease in happiness was detected after the collapse. The change in happiness from 2007 to 2009 was normally distributed, 40% had the same score in both years and an equal number increased as decreased. The explored factors did not explain the changes in happiness. The economic crisis had a limited affect on happiness. Those with financial difficulties were hardest hit. Changes in happiness need to be studied further since they are not well explained by the factors which influence cross-sectional levels of happiness.     

Roles,race and subjective well-being: A longitudinal analysis of elderly men

The basic contention of this paper is that research on subjective well-being would benefit from an integration of theory and research from other studies of subjective states, such as mental and physical health. Toward that end, we present results of an analysis of the impact of race and social roles on subjective well-being in a nationally representative sample of elderly men. The findings demonstrate that particular role configurations have an effect on happiness and that these effects are different for blacks and whites. Theoretical implications of these findings for subjective well-being research and role accumulation theory are discussed.     

Environment and Happiness: New Evidence for Spain

This paper explores the relationship between air pollution, climate and reported subjective well-being (or happiness) in Spanish regions. The results show that, after controlling for most of the socio-economic variables affecting happiness, there are still significant regional differences in subjective well-being. Evidence also suggests that climate and air pollution variables play a significant role in explaining these regional differences in happiness. The analysis also allows us to calculate the monetary value of air quality and climate, deriving the average marginal rate of substitution between income and air quality and climate for the Spanish regions.     

Can Governments Boost People’s Sense of Well-Being? The Impact of Selected Labour Market and Health Policies on Life Satisfaction

There is strong evidence that subjective well-being measures capture in a reliable way specific components of well-being that other non-subjective measures miss. The question of whether subjective well-being is policy amenable is however still largely unexplored in the research. This paper sheds some light on this issue, by looking at the impact of selected labour market and health policies on subjective well-being, using well-being data from the Gallup World Poll on the 34 OECD countries. The paper finds that the generosity of unemployment benefits and the strictness employment protection legislation affects positively life satisfaction, while out-of-pocket health expenses significantly reduce subjective well-being.     

The Effect of Income on General Life Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction

Increasing evidence from the empirical economic and psychological literature suggests that positive and negative well-being are more than opposite ends of the same phenomenon. Two separate measures of the dependent variable may therefore be needed when analyzing the determinants of subjective well-being. We investigate asymmetries in the effect of income on subjective well-being with a single-item measure of general life satisfaction. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel 1984–2004, and a flexible multiple-index ordered probit panel data model with varying thresholds, we find that income has only a minor effect on high satisfaction but significantly reduces dissatisfaction.     

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。     

Financial Situation and Its Consequences on the Quality of Life in the EU Countries

There is no agreement in social sciences on the relationship between the objective and subjective side of the quality of life. The survey of Eurobarometer 72.1 conducted in 2009 provided data on different subjective and objective indicators of financial situation. Correlation analyses revealed, that linkages between them were not strong. A great amount of study examined the connections between financial situation and overall feeling of happiness. This study found that the context of the questions influences the magnitude of the effects of material conditions on subjective well-being. The satisfaction with financial situation explained more than twice of the variance of happiness in the Euraboramoter sample—whose main topic was inequalities- than in the fifth wave of the World Values Surveys sample- whose questions were more diverse. Multiple regression analyses indicated that there are differences between countries in the magnitude of the effects of material conditions on subjective well-being. This effect is smaller in the more postmaterialist countries.