Environmental Quality and Life Satisfaction: Evidence Based on Micro-Data

Jérôme Silva (), Femke de Keulenaer and Nick Johnstone
Additional contact information
Femke de Keulenaer: Gallup Europe

No 44, OECD Environment Working Papers from OECD Publishing

Abstract: Environmental conditions are likely to have an effect on people’s sense of life satisfaction, both directly and indirectly. In recent years there has been a burgeoning literature assessing the relationship between measures of environmental quality and subjective well-being. This type of studies can be a useful input into the setting of policy priorities. In this paper, the effects of individual and contextual factors on satisfaction with environmental quality and life satisfaction are assessed, using micro-data from a broad cross-section of OECD and non-OECD countries collected in the framework of the Gallup World Poll. In the analysis it is found that actual and perceived environmental quality has a significant effect on life satisfaction, with the magnitude being approximately half that of self-reported health status. Les conditions environnementales peuvent affecter, directement et indirectement, la satisfaction individuelle. Durant les dernières années s’est développée une littérature économique explorant les relations entre mesures de la qualité de l’environnement et mesures du bien-être subjectif des populations. Les travaux de ce type peuvent être utiles dans l’élaboration des priorités politiques. Nous explorons dans cet article les effets des facteurs individuels et contextuels sur la satisfaction par rapport à la qualité de l’environnement et au bien être subjectif, en utilisant des données individuelles collectées par Gallup au sein d’un large panel de pays membres et non-membres de l’OCDE. L’analyse montre que la qualité de l’environnement a un effet significatif sur la satisfaction individuelle, dont la magnitude est d’environ la moitié de celle de l’effet de la santé subjective.

Keywords: air pollution; bien-être subjectif; life satisfaction; local environmental quality; pollution de l’air; qualité de l’environnement; satisfaction individuelle; subjective well-being (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D60 Q51 Q53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-03-20
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env, nep-hap and nep-res
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1787/5k9cw678dlr0-en (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oec:envaaa:44-en

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in OECD Environment Working Papers from OECD Publishing Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().