Working Paper: NBER ID: w14720
Authors: John F. Helliwell; Christopher P. Barrington-Leigh; Anthony Harris; Haifang Huang
Abstract: This paper uses the first three waves of the Gallup World Poll to investigate differences across countries, cultures and regions in the factors linked to life satisfaction, paying special attention to the social context. Our principal findings are: First, using the larger pooled sample, we find that answers to the satisfaction with life and Cantril ladder questions provide consistent views of what constitutes a good life, with an average of the two measures providing a clearer picture than either measure on its own. Second, we find strong evidence for the importance of both income and social context variables in explaining within-country and international differences in well-being. For most specifications tested, the combined effects of a few measures of the social and institutional context are as large as those of income in explaining both international and intra-national differences in life satisfaction. Third, the very significant influences of both income and social factors permit the calculation of compensating differentials for social factors. We find very large income-equivalent values for key measures of the social context. Fourth, the international similarity of the estimated equations suggests that the large international differences in average life evaluations are not due to different approaches to the meaning of a good life, but to differing social, institutional, and economic life circumstances.
Keywords: wellbeing; life satisfaction; social context; income; Gallup World Poll
JEL Codes: D6; I3; J1; O10; P51; P52
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| income (E25) | life satisfaction (I31) |
| social context (Z13) | life satisfaction (I31) |
| having someone to count on (D14) | life satisfaction (I31) |
| social context has compensating differential values equivalent to income (J31) | life satisfaction (I31) |
| international differences in life evaluations (I31) | life satisfaction (I31) |