Happiness at Different Ages: The Social Context Matters

John Helliwell, Max Norton, Haifang Huang () and Shun Wang ()

No 25121, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper uses a variety of individual-level survey data from several countries to test for interactions between subjective well-being at different ages and variables measuring the nature and quality of the social context at work, at home, and in the community. While earlier studies have found important age patterns (often U-shaped) and social context effects, these two sets of variables have generally been treated as mutually independent. We test for and find several large and highly significant interactions. Results are presented for life evaluations and (in some surveys) for happiness yesterday, in models with and without other control variables. The U-shape in age is found to be significantly flatter, and well-being in the middle of the age range higher, for those who are in workplaces with partner-like superiors, for those living as couples, and for those who have lived for longer in their communities. A strong sense of community belonging is associated with greater life satisfaction at all ages, but especially so at ages 60 and above, in some samples deepening the U-shape in age by increasing the size of the life satisfaction gains following the mid-life low.

JEL-codes: I31 J12 J32 R13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-hap, nep-hea, nep-lma and nep-ltv
Note: AG EH LS PE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w25121.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Chapter: Happiness at Different Ages: The Social Context Matters (2019)
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:nbr:nberwo:25121

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w25121

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().