Predicting the Trend of Well-Being in Germany: How Much Do Comparisons, Adaptation and Sociability Matter?

Stefano Bartolini, Ennio Bilancini and Francesco Sarracino

No 2010-07, LISER Working Paper Series from Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER)

Abstract: Using longitudinal data on households living in Germany, we quantify what part of the change in subjective well-being observed over the last two decades is predicted by changes in variables which typically show strong cross-sectional correlation with subjective well-being. We especially focus on absolute income, income comparisons, income adaptation, and sociability, ?nding that all have some predictive power. The increase in sociability indicators predicts the largest positive change in subjective well-being. Absolute income, income comparisons and income adaptation also predict substantial changes in subjective well-being, if taken separately. However, if considered together their net prediction is quite small: the positive change predicted by income growth is compensated for about three fourths by the joint negative predictions due to income comparison and income adaptation. Finally, we ?nd that aging of the population predicts the largest negative change in subjective well-being. This result appears to hinge on the large loss of satisfaction experienced by individuals in old age.

Keywords: Subjective well-being; Life satisfaction; Social capital; Sociability; Relational goods; Relative income; Social comparisons; Income adaptation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I30 O10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 44 pages
Date: 2010-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.liser.lu/publi_viewer.cfm?tmp=2890 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found

Related works:
Journal Article: Predicting the Trend of Well-Being in Germany: How Much Do Comparisons, Adaptation and Sociability Matter? (2013)
Working Paper: Predicting the Trend of Well-Being in Germany: How Much Do Comparisons, Adaptation and Sociability Matter? (2011)
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:irs:cepswp:2010-07

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LISER Working Paper Series from Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) 11, Porte des Sciences, L-4366 Esch-sur-Alzette, G.-D. Luxembourg. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Library and Documentation ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).