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on Economics of Happiness |
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Issue of 2011‒04‒30
five papers chosen by |
| By: | Ruut Veenhoven |
| Abstract: | Social scientists are producing an ever growing stream of research findings, which is ever more difficult to oversee. As a result, capitalization on earlier investment declines and accumulation of knowledge stagnates. This situation calls for more research synthesis and interest in synthetic techniques is on the rise. To date attention has been focused on techniques for meta-analysis, with little attention paid to the preliminary step of bringing the available research findings together. What we need is 1) techniques for describing research findings in a comparable way, 2) a system for storing such descriptions in an easily accessible archive, 3) to which research findings can be added on a continuous basis. The World Database of Happiness is an example of such a tool. The archive is tailored to meet the requirements of assembling research findings on happiness; both distributional findings (how happy people are) and correlational findings (what things go together with happiness). With its focus on 'findings' the system differs from data-archives that store 'investigations' and from bibliographies that store 'publications'. As yet there is no established term to describe this tool for research synthesis. I call it a 'focused findings archive'. In this paper I describe how that works and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of this approach. |
| Keywords: | literature review, research synthesis, methodology, research archive, comparative analysis, happiness, life satisfaction, subjective wellbeing, quality of life |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rsw:rswwps:rswwps169&r=hap |
| By: | Bonsang Eric; Klein Tobias J. (METEOR) |
| Abstract: | We provide an explanation for the common finding that the effect of retirement on life satisfaction is negligible. For this we use subjective well-being measures for life and domains of life satisfaction that are available in the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) and show that the effect of voluntary retirement on satisfaction with current household income is negative, while the effect on satisfaction with leisure is positive. At the same time, the effect on health satisfaction is positive but small. Following the life domain approach we then argue that these effects offset each other for an average individual and that therefore the overall effect is negligible. Furthermore, we show that it is important to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary retirement. The effect of involuntary retirement is negative because the adverse effect on satisfaction with household income is bigger, the favorable effect on satisfaction with leisure is smaller, and the effect on satisfaction with health is not significantly different from zero. These results turn out to be robust to using different identification strategies such as fixed effects and first differences estimation, as well as instrumental variables estimation using eligibility ages and plant closures as instruments for voluntary and involuntary retirement. |
| Keywords: | labour economics ; |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:umamet:2011028&r=hap |
| By: | Selcuk Eren; Thomas Masterson; Edward Wolff; Ajit Zacharias |
| Abstract: | We construct estimates of the Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being for Great Britain for the years 1995 and 2005. We also produce estimates of the official British measures HBAI (from the Department for Work and Pensions annual report titled "Households below Average Income") and ROI (from the Office of National Statistics Redistribution of Income analysis). We analyze overall trends in the level and distribution of household well-being using all three measures for Great Britain as a whole and for subgroups of the British population. Gains in household economic well-being between 1995 and 2005 vary by the measure used, from 23 percent (HBAI) to 32 percent (LIMEW) and 35 percent (ROI). LIMEW shows that much of the middle class’s gain in well-being was as a result of increases in government expenditures. LIMEW also marks a greater increase in economic well-being among elderly households due to the increase in their net worth. The redistributive effect of net government expenditures decreased notably between 1995 and 2005 according to the official measures, primarily due to the change in the distributive impact of government expenditures. |
| Keywords: | Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-being (LIMEW); Great Britain; Economic Well-Being; Economic Inequality; Household Income Measures |
| JEL: | D31 D63 P17 |
| Date: | 2011–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_667&r=hap |
| By: | Torshizian, Eilya; Mehrara, Mohsen |
| Abstract: | Increasing happiness of population as the ultimate goal has engaged economist’s interest in identifying, measuring and theorizing based on the amount of influence of effective components on happiness. What makes this paper remarkable in contrast to similar studies is its Islamic ideological structure of society and being a free economic zone. Method used to estimating happiness is Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with latent variables. Results do not confirm presence of the Easterlin paradox in this society and moreover the religious variables are not significant. |
| Keywords: | Behavioral Economics; Economics of Happiness; Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with latent variables; Subjective Well-Being |
| JEL: | Z10 C30 D60 |
| Date: | 2011–03–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:30085&r=hap |
| By: | Robert Rudolf (Georg-August-University Göttingen); Seo-Young Cho (Georg-August-University Göttingen) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses detailed longitudinal data from the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study (KLIPS) stretching from 1998 to 2008 to analyze the relationship between working hours and family happiness in Korea. The Korean labor market is characterized by high levels of gender inequality which is partly due to long working hours, a significant gender gap in earnings, yet also to traditional gender roles maintained until today. Therefore, post-marriage labor force participation rates for men are still double as high as for women. However, significant changes took place over the period of our study. Working hours have been steadily reduced and female labor force participation slightly increased, partly due to the introduction of the 5-day working week in 2004. Hours, job, and life satisfaction have all increased hence. Running fixed-effects ordered logit models on married couples with children, we analyze hours, job, and life satisfaction separately for women and men. Our findings indicate that past working hours reductions increased family happiness in Korea. However, there are still strong gender-specific effects how working hours affect family happiness. Controlling for household income, wives report highest satisfaction when either not-working or working 31 to 40 hours per week. Both part-time and overtime work reduce women’s happiness. Korean husbands, in comparison, are best off when being full-time employed with weekly working hours between 31 and 50. Staying at home or being only part-time employed (1-30 hours) is strongly detrimental to their happiness. For both sexes, cross-partner effects are strongly significant. These findings are particularly interesting in comparison to other countries like Great Britain or Australia where similar studies were carried out (Booth and van Ours, 2008; 2009). Results confirm strong traditional gender roles in Korea until today. In order to further increase female labor force participation and family happiness, further reductions in working hours should be flanked by policies promoting equal chances at the work place, a rethinking of gender identities, and flexible job and child-care solutions. |
| Keywords: | Working hours; Happiness; Gender identity; Female labor force participation |
| JEL: | I31 J22 J16 J28 |
| Date: | 2011–04–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:got:gotcrc:077&r=hap |