Socioeconomic determinants of happiness: Empirical evidence from developed and developing countries

IF 1.6 3区经济学 Q2 ECONOMICS

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics Pub Date : 2024-02-25 DOI:10.1016/j.socec.2024.102187

Deepak Kumar Behera , Dil B Rahut , M Padmaja , Ajit Kumar Dash

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

This study aims to understand the factors that contribute to people's happiness or life satisfaction in 166 countries (51 developed, 115 developing) from 2005 to 2020. The study considers the effects of various socioeconomic factors, such as per capita income, social support, freedom to make life choices, perception of corruption, air pollution exposure, and gender inequality, on the level of happiness. We used panel two-way robust fixed effects and panel quantile regression for empirical analysis. The results show that per capita income, social support, and freedom to make life choices positively impact happiness, while air pollution exposure has a negative impact. However, gender inequality does not significantly affect happiness levels. These findings highlight the relevance of the Easterlin Paradox, which suggests that income can mediate happiness by promoting emotional well-being, gender equality, and a clean environment. Therefore, policymakers should focus on creating a more holistic approach to improving the well-being and happiness of its citizens.

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幸福的社会经济决定因素：发达国家和发展中国家的经验证据

本研究旨在了解 2005 至 2020 年间 166 个国家（51 个发达国家，115 个发展中国家）人民幸福感或生活满意度的促成因素。研究考虑了各种社会经济因素对幸福感水平的影响，如人均收入、社会支持、生活选择自由度、腐败感、空气污染程度和性别不平等。我们采用面板双向稳健固定效应和面板量化回归进行实证分析。结果显示，人均收入、社会支持和生活选择自由对幸福感有正面影响，而空气污染则有负面影响。然而，性别不平等对幸福水平的影响并不明显。这些发现凸显了伊斯特林悖论的相关性，即收入可以通过促进情感幸福、性别平等和清洁环境来调节幸福感。因此，政策制定者应专注于创造一种更全面的方法来提高公民的福祉和幸福感。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics ECONOMICS-

CiteScore

2.60

自引率

12.50%

发文量

113

审稿时长

83 days

期刊介绍： The Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly the Journal of Socio-Economics) welcomes submissions that deal with various economic topics but also involve issues that are related to other social sciences, especially psychology, or use experimental methods of inquiry. Thus, contributions in behavioral economics, experimental economics, economic psychology, and judgment and decision making are especially welcome. The journal is open to different research methodologies, as long as they are relevant to the topic and employed rigorously. Possible methodologies include, for example, experiments, surveys, empirical work, theoretical models, meta-analyses, case studies, and simulation-based analyses. Literature reviews that integrate findings from many studies are also welcome, but they should synthesize the literature in a useful manner and provide substantial contribution beyond what the reader could get by simply reading the abstracts of the cited papers. In empirical work, it is important that the results are not only statistically significant but also economically significant. A high contribution-to-length ratio is expected from published articles and therefore papers should not be unnecessarily long, and short articles are welcome. Articles should be written in a manner that is intelligible to our generalist readership. Book reviews are generally solicited but occasionally unsolicited reviews will also be published. Contact the Book Review Editor for related inquiries.