Income, Subjective Well‐Being, and Violence in Afghanistan: Evidence From a Nationwide Survey

Mohammad Haroon Asadi and Mohammad Reza Farzanegan ()

Review of Development Economics, 2026, vol. 30, issue 2, 894-928

Abstract: This study examines the relationship between household income and subjective well‐being (SWB) in Afghanistan, emphasizing how fear of insecurity and experiences of violence moderate this association. Drawing on a comprehensive nationwide survey conducted by the Asia Foundation from 2016 to 2021 across 34 provinces, we analyze repeated cross‐sectional survey data from over 62,000 respondents using ordered logit regressions. Our findings reveal a positive link between income and SWB, but this relationship weakens significantly in the presence of insecurity and violence, particularly for higher income individuals. These results highlight the complex interplay of economic resources and security threats in shaping well‐being in a conflict‐affected context. The study underscores the need for policies that address both economic and security challenges to enhance Afghan lives, contributing new insights to the literature on SWB in unstable environments. The main results are robust to a variety of sensitivity checks and alternative estimation methods.

Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/rode.70034

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:bla:rdevec:v:30:y:2026:i:2:p:894-928

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=1363-6669

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Development Economics is currently edited by E. Kwan Choi

More articles in Review of Development Economics from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().