Does the Covid-19 Pandemic Make People Unhappy? Evidence from a Six-Country Survey

Cuong Nguyen

Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics, 2023, vol. 64, issue 1, 18-41

Abstract: Does the COVID-19 pandemic cause people to be unhappy? In this study, we used a recent survey from China, Japan, South Korea, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States to explore this question. We find that a one permille point increase in the incidence of COVID-19 cases reduces the happiness level by 0.13% and increases the proportion of people reporting unhappiness by 0.54%. Possibly, the channels through which the COVID-19 pandemic causes unhappiness are negative effects on economic outcomes and social interactions of people. We also find that more disadvantaged people, including poor, rural, females, and older people, are more likely to be affected by the pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19; happiness; life satisfaction; income loss; job loss (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I30 J18 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://hermes-ir.lib.hit-u.ac.jp/hermes/ir/re/79848/HJeco0640100180.pdf

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:hit:hitjec:v:64:y:2023:i:1:p:18-41

DOI: 10.15057/hje.2023002

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics from Hitotsubashi University Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Digital Resources Section, Hitotsubashi University Library ().