 An empirical investigation into the determinants of life satisfaction in New ZealandDenise Brown, Julie Woolf and Conal Smith New Zealand Economic Papers, 2012, vol. 46, issue 3, 239-251 Abstract: The past decade has seen an increasing body of evidence emerge that subjective wellbeing can be empirically measured through relatively straightforward questions on self-reported happiness or life satisfaction carried in sample surveys. This paper analyses the determinants of subjective wellbeing using data from the 2008 New Zealand General Social Survey. The paper first provides a brief summary of what is known about the determinants of subjective wellbeing from the international literature. A simple model of the determinants of subjective wellbeing in New Zealand is described, and coefficients for the model are estimated using ordinary least squares. The model is re-estimated using an ordered Probit to confirm that the results are not biased due to the ordinal nature of the data. The paper finds that demographic factors are largely not significant drivers of wellbeing in New Zealand and conforms to the international literature in identifying income, unemployment, health status, and social contact as the four main factors affecting subjective wellbeing. Date: 2012 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:nzecpp:v:46:y:2012:i:3:p:239-251 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/00779954.2012.657896 Access Statistics for this article New Zealand Economic Papers is currently edited by Dennis Wesselbaum More articles in New Zealand Economic Papers from Taylor & Francis Journals |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.