The Best Years of Older Europeans’ Lives

Begoña Álvarez

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 2022, vol. 160, issue 1, No 8, 227-260

Abstract: Abstract This paper offers new evidence on the life-cycle pattern of happiness. A novelty of the analysis is that it exploits information on the period individuals recall as the happiest in their lives. Data come from SHARELIFE 2008/09, a retrospective life survey conducted in 13 European countries among individuals aged 50 or more. Using this information, I build a longitudinal data set that extends across the whole lifespan of respondents. The probability of living a happiest year in life at each age is estimated through a conditional fixed effects logit model. Results show that the likelihood of living the happiest period in life exhibits a concave relationship with age, with a turning point at about 30–34 years and a decreasing trend from that point onward. Retrospectively, midlife is not perceived as the least likely happiest period in life. These patterns persist even after controlling for usual correlates of subjective well-being, and they are rather stable across cohorts and genders despite presenting certain variability across European countries.

Keywords: Subjective well-being; Retrospective data; Ageing; SHARELIFE (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C81 I31 J14 N44 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11205-021-02804-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:soinre:v:160:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s11205-021-02804-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11135

DOI: 10.1007/s11205-021-02804-6

Access Statistics for this article

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement is currently edited by Filomena Maggino

More articles in Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().