Can Governments Boost People’s Sense of Well-Being? The Impact of Selected Labour Market and Health Policies on Life Satisfaction

Romina Boarini (), Margherita Comola (), Femke Keulenaer (), Robert Manchin () and Conal Smith ()

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 2013, vol. 114, issue 1, 105-120

Abstract: There is strong evidence that subjective well-being measures capture in a reliable way specific components of well-being that other non-subjective measures miss. The question of whether subjective well-being is policy amenable is however still largely unexplored in the research. This paper sheds some light on this issue, by looking at the impact of selected labour market and health policies on subjective well-being, using well-being data from the Gallup World Poll on the 34 OECD countries. The paper finds that the generosity of unemployment benefits and the strictness employment protection legislation affects positively life satisfaction, while out-of-pocket health expenses significantly reduce subjective well-being. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Keywords: Happiness; Life satisfaction; Labour market policy; Health policy; Subjective well-being (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Working Paper: Can Governments Boost People's Sense of Well-Being? The Impact of Selected Labour Market and Health Policies on Life Satisfaction (2013)
Working Paper: Can Governments Boost People's Sense of Well-Being? The Impact of Selected Labour Market and Health Policies on Life Satisfaction (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:soinre:v:114:y:2013:i:1:p:105-120

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DOI: 10.1007/s11205-013-0386-8

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