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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
| 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: | 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: | 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: | Bengali, Leila (Yale University); Valletta, Robert G. (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco); Zhao, Cindy (Princeton University) |
| Abstract: | After growing substantially during the 1980s through the early 2000s, the college wage premium more recently has been largely unchanged, or stagnant. We extend the canonical production-function model of skill premiums to assess supply and demand contributions to the slowdown in the college wage premium, using annual CPS ASEC data from the early 1960s through 2023. To account for the rising importance of women in the college educated workforce, we estimate a hybrid model that incorporates components that are disaggregated by age and gender. We also allow for non-linearities and changes over time in the parameters of the aggregate production function. Our results suggest that the recent stagnation of the college wage premium primarily reflects demand factors, specifically a slowdown in the pace of skill-biased technological change. |
| Keywords: | college wage premium, educational attainment, labor supply, technological change, worker substitutability |
| JEL: | I2 J2 J3 |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17717 |