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on Economics of Happiness |
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Issue of 2018‒02‒05
three papers chosen by |
| By: | Bryukhanov, Maksym; Fedotenkov, Igor |
| Abstract: | Does religiosity make you happy? Many studies document positive associations between religiosity and various forms of subjective wellbeing. This is also true for general life satisfaction in normal economic conditions and in the case of economic shocks. However, both life satisfaction and religiosity may be correlated with unobserved individual and household traits or unobserved life shocks which can relate to reverse causality. These facts result in endogeneity and make ordinary least square estimates biased. In our study, we employ two methods to avoid possible endogeneity issues – we use fixed effects and instrumental variable estimations. Using Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS-HSE) data and different econometric models, we document positive associations between religiosity and life satisfaction. In particular, fixed effect and instrumental variable regressions provide evidence for a positive effect of religiosity. |
| Keywords: | Life satisfaction; religiosity; RLMS-HSE; endogeneity; Russia. |
| JEL: | D10 Z12 |
| Date: | 2017–10–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:82750&r=hap |
| By: | Swantje Mueller; Jenny Wagner; Gert G. Wagner; Nilam Ram; Denis Gerstorf |
| Abstract: | Personality is a powerful predictor of central life outcomes, including subjective well-being. Yet, we still know little about how personality manifests in the very last years of life when well-being typically falls rapidly. Here, we investigate whether the Big Five personality traits buffer (or magnify) terminal decline in well-being beyond and in interaction with functioning in key physical and social domains. We applied growth models to up to 10-year longitudinal data from 629 now deceased participants in the nation-wide German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP; age at death: M = 76 years; SD = 11). Lower neuroticism and higher conscientiousness were each uniquely associated with higher late-life well-being one year prior to death. At the same time, participants low in neuroticism experienced steeper terminal well-being declines. Similarly, individuals high in agreeableness and women high in extraversion reported higher well-being far away from death, but experienced more severe terminal decline, such that personality-related differences in well-being were not discernible anymore at one year prior to death. Interaction effects further revealed that individuals suffering from disability benefit less from higher levels of conscientiousness, while openness to experience appeared particularly beneficial for the less educated. We conclude that in the context of often severe late-life health challenges that accompany the last years of life, adaptive personality-related differences continue to be evident and sizeable for some traits, but appear to diminish and even reverse in direction for other traits. We discuss possible underlying mechanisms and practical implications. |
| Keywords: | terminal decline, well-being, personality, late life, mortality |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp944&r=hap |
| By: | Lehmann, Hartmut (University of Bologna); Pignatti, Norberto (ISET, Tbilisi State University) |
| Abstract: | One of the most important factors that determine individuals' quality of life and wellbeing is their position in the labor market and the type of jobs that they hold. When workers are rationed out of the formal segment of the labor market against their will, i.e., the labor market is segmented, their quality of life is limited, and their wellbeing is reduced. When they can freely choose between a formal or informal employment relationship, i.e., the labor market is integrated, their wellbeing can reach high levels even in the presence of informal employment. We, therefore, test whether the Ukrainian labor market is segmented along the formal-informal divide, slicing the data by gender and age. The analysis that we perform consist in the analysis of short-term and medium-term transitions between five employment states, unemployment and inactivity. We also analyze wage gaps of mean hourly earnings and across the entire hourly earnings distribution, controlling for time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity. According to our results segmentation is present for dependent employees: for a large part of informal employees informal employment is used as a waiting stage to enter formal salaried employment and is not voluntarily chosen. As far as self-employment is concerned the evidence is mixed regarding in the Ukrainian labor market. This heterogeneity in outcomes implies that not all informal work is associated with a low quality of life and reduced wellbeing in post-transition economies. |
| Keywords: | informal employment, labor market segmentation, post-transition economies, Ukraine |
| JEL: | J31 J40 P23 |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11256&r=hap |