Reasons for homeostatic failure in subjective wellbeing

Robert Tanton (), Itismita Mohanty () and Anthony Hogan ()
Additional contact information
Anthony Hogan: Australian National University

No 12/18, NATSEM Working Paper Series from University of Canberra, National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling

Abstract: This paper presents initial results from work being done on the reasons that people experience homeostatic defeat in subjective wellbeing. Subjective wellbeing shows signs of homeostasis, meaning it always gravitates to one number (on average 75 on a scale of 1 to 100). The range around this average is also very small, suggesting that homeostasis is acting as a protective factor for wellbeing. Homeostatic defeat is when homeostasis stops operating as a protective factor in subjective wellbeing. Homeostatic defeat occurs after challenges to subjective wellbeing become too much for the homeostatic system to deal with. This paper derives a point of homeostatic failure using data from the HILDA survey, and then identifies the group of people who have experienced homeostatic failure from one wave to the next of HILDA. Changes in social capital and life events experienced by these people over these two waves are calculated. A logistic regression model is then used to identify which of these changes have a significant effect on homeostatic failure. We find that, after controlling for changes in social capital and health, only two major life events (birth of a child and separation) have an effect on homeostatic failure. The birth of a child is associated with a lower probability of homeostatic failure; and separation is associated with a higher probability. Worsening of health and a reduction in leisure time are also associated with a higher probability of homeostatic failure. Income was significantly associated with a lower probability of homeostatic failure, so it is a protective factor.

Keywords: Wellbeing; homeostasis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 18 pages
Date: 2012-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published as a NATSEM Working Paper series

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.natsem.canberra.edu.au/files/download?id=944 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 500 Can't connect to www.natsem.canberra.edu.au:80 (A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond.)

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:cba:wpaper:wp1118

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NATSEM Working Paper Series from University of Canberra, National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Trueman ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).