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on Economics of Happiness |
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Issue of 2025–03–17
eight papers chosen by Viviana Di Giovinazzo, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca |
| By: | Jean Twenge; David G. Blanchflower |
| Abstract: | We report eleven studies that show declines in life satisfaction and happiness among young adults in the last decade or so, with less uniform trends among older adults. We found consistent evidence for this for the U.S. in the recent sweeps of several micro data sets including the Behavioral Risk Factor Survey, the General Social Survey, and the American National Election Survey. In the U. S. life satisfaction rises with age. This is broadly confirmed in several other datasets including four from the European Commission across five other English-speaking countries: Australia, Canada, Ireland New Zealand and the UK. Declining wellbeing of the young was also found in the World Values Survey, the Global Flourishing Study and Global Minds. There is broad evidence across all of these English-speaking countries that happiness and life satisfaction since 2020 rise with age. In several of these surveys we also find that ill-being declines in age. The U-shape in wellbeing by age that used to exist in these countries is now gone, replaced by a crisis in wellbeing among the young. |
| JEL: | I31 J13 |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33490 |
| By: | Oparina, Ekaterina; Clark, Andrew E.; Layard, Richard |
| Abstract: | We use Gallup World Poll data from over 150 countries from 2009-2019 at both the individual and country levels to revisit the relationship between income and subjective wellbeing. Our inspiration is the paradox first proposed by Easterlin (1974), according to which higher incomes are associated with greater happiness in cross-sections yet increases in a country's GDP per head do not increase its average wellbeing. In our analysis subjective wellbeing (or happiness) is measured by the Cantril ladder on a 0-10 scale. Across individuals, other things equal, one unit of log income raises subjective wellbeing by 0.4 points. In other words, doubling income raises wellbeing by 0.3 points out of 10. Across countries, a crude regression of log income on per capita income gives a higher coefficient of 0.6. But, once social variables like health and social support are introduced, the picture changes. In rich countries, income no longer has a significant effect, either in country cross-sections or in time series: higher income only matters due to its correlation with the social variables. For low-income countries the result is also clear cut - income raises happiness in both cross-section and time series, whether the social variables are controlled for or not. For middle income countries the result is mixed. |
| Keywords: | subjective wellbeing; income; GDP; Easterlin paradox; public goods |
| JEL: | F15 R10 R12 |
| Date: | 2024–11–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:126798 |
| By: | Palm, Matthew; Allen, Jeff (University of Toronto); Farber, Steven |
| Abstract: | This study analyses shift work commuting. We ask: who works evening and night shifts, how do they commute, and how does working these shifts impact activity participation and wellbeing? We answer these questions using two national datasets. Our results offer four overarching findings. First, we find significant demographic differences along lines of race, poverty status, immigration, and household type, differences reflecting occupational segregation. Black, Filipino, South Asian, and Indigenous commuters are significantly overrepresented. Second, evening and night shift workers are more likely to commute as car passengers or by bus or walking. Third, we find limited evidence that shift workers make fewer overall trips throughout the day. Fourth, we find that while shift workers have significantly lower life satisfaction, auto ownership may ameliorate this impact. In light of these results, we conclude that improving the transport situation for shift-workers is essential to advancing both wellbeing and transportation justice. |
| Date: | 2023–03–14 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:uy96s_v1 |
| By: | David G. Blanchflower; Alex Bryson |
| Abstract: | We examine the age profile of subjective wellbeing and illbeing in nine Asian countries (Bangladesh, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka) and seven Middle Eastern countries (Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Yemen). We find the relationship between age and reported wellbeing differs according to the way the survey is conducted. In the Gallup World Poll, where the data are collected by interviewers face-to-face or by telephone (computer-aided telephone interviews, or CATI) the young are the happiest and the results are the same across the two survey modes. We find the same result in CATI surveys in the Global Flourishing Survey (GFS) of 2022-2024 in 7 Asian and Middle Eastern (AME) countries. However, when the GFS survey is conducted on the web (computer-aided web interview, or CAWI) wellbeing is u-shaped in age, and is highest among the oldest respondents. If we turn to negative affect measures (loneliness, anxiety, depression, worry) these rise with age using CATI but fall with age using CAWI. We look for survey mode switching in the age coefficient across 40 outcomes. In general, the switch is confined to subjective wellbeing and illbeing metrics. Switching does not occur when respondents are asked about their physical health, bodily pain, unemployment status, drinking and smoking, or personality-related questions. It appears that the mode effect is largely confined to how individuals rate their subjective wellbeing and illbeing. The results are suggestive of social desirability response bias which leads young people to under-report socially undesirable affective states to interviewers. |
| JEL: | I31 J13 |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33475 |
| By: | Christophe Haag (EM - EMLyon Business School); Lisa Bellinghausen; Clément Poirier (LaPEA - UMR_T 7708 - Laboratoire de Psychologie et d’Ergonomie Appliquées - UPCité - Université Paris Cité - Université Gustave Eiffel) |
| Abstract: | Few studies have examined emotional intelligence (EI) following a person-centered approach to identify different types of EI profiles and their relationship to everyday life outcomes. Even rarer are those using an "ability" approach of EI (AEI) and related "performance-based" tests, which are considered promising. This study fills this gap by identifying AEI profiles and linking them to everyday outcomes such as health, wellbeing, and decision-making. The QEg ("QE" for Emotional Quotient - Quotient Emotional in French - and "g" for the general population), an ability-based measure of EI, along with other measures, was administered to 2, 877 French adults. We then ran latent profile analysis (LPA) and identified three latent profiles within a heterogeneous population. The full emotion processing (FEP) profile outperforms the two others on key domains of life such as stress perception, home-work interaction, gratitude and satisfaction with life, emotional burnout prevention, and decision-making. Our research reveals the need for individualized AEI training programs tailored to three distinct profiles, addressing foundational skills for those with minimal or partial emotional processing while refining existing strengths for those with full emotional processing. Targeting interventions to specific profile characteristics could enhance the effectiveness of AEI training and promote improved wellbeing and life outcomes. |
| Keywords: | ability emotional intelligence (AEI), LPA, life outcomes, well-being, decision-making, health, gratitude, emotional intelligence assessment |
| Date: | 2025–02–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04964897 |
| By: | Xavier Gine; Meritxell Martinez Ruiz; Melo, Virginia |
| Abstract: | This paper exploits unexpected delays in the implementation of a home upgrading government program for low-income households in the Dominican Republic to quantify the adverse impact of delays on subjective measures of well-being. The findings show that failure to account for delays in program implementation leads to serious underestimation of program impacts on well-being. |
| Date: | 2023–08–25 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:10554 |
| By: | Adhikari, Samik; Seetahul, Suneha |
| Abstract: | This paper takes stock of the insights and learnings from a COVID-19 emergency cash transfer program that was administered to vulnerable informal sector workers in Sierra Leone. It starts by reviewing relevant examples of cash transfer programs that were instituted in response to the COVID-19 crisis. It then describes the context, intervention, and data of the emergency cash transfer program, before presenting a quasi-experimental analysis of the emergency cash transfer’s potential impacts on various measures of economic security and subjective well-being of households with urban informal sector workers. The analysis is conducted by matching administrative data to survey data and using program eligibility criteria and inverse probability weights to identify the short- and medium-term relationship between a one-off US$135 cash transfer and various labor market, food security, human capital, and subjective well-being outcomes for recipient and nonrecipient households of the emergency cash transfer. The analysis finds a positive potential impact of the transfer and the number of hours worked as well as employment in the medium term. It also finds that program beneficiaries report higher chances of their main income increasing or staying the same compared to nonbeneficiaries. The positive correlation between the transfer and income disappears over the medium term, perhaps suggesting that one-off transfers work best to cushion vulnerable self-employed households and informal wage workers in the short term but do not impact medium-term employment or income. |
| Date: | 2023–04–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:10395 |
| By: | Decerf, Benoit Marie A; Fonton, Kike Yra |
| Abstract: | Multidimensional poverty measures can in theory make well-being comparisons that are less biased than those solely based on monetary poverty. However, multidimensional poverty measures suffer in practice from limitations that have led to criticisms. This paper presents the case for multidimensional poverty measures, two criticisms against their current implementations, as well as recently proposed solutions to improve on these criticisms. The paper develops a method for implementing these solutions in practice. The resulting well-being indicator is used to compare well-being across Nigerian states in 2019. This empirical illustration suggests that these solutions may substantially affect well-being comparisons. The paper also quantifies the potential bias inherent to comparing well-being solely based on monetary poverty. The results find substantially different well-being comparisons between the proposed well-being indicator and monetary poverty even though monetary poverty was (i) high in Nigeria in 2019 and (ii) very heterogeneously distributed across Nigerian states; and (iii) is integrated as one component of the proposed well-being indicator. |
| Date: | 2023–10–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:10577 |