The determinants of life satisfaction among Chilean workers

Abstract

This article puts forward evidence to identify the different domains that contribute to life satisfaction among a sample of Chilean workers, using the two-layer model developed by van Praag, Frijters and Ferrer-i-Carbonell (2003). The results show that satisfaction in the domains of money, privacy, leisure, family life, health and work have a positive (and statistically significant) effect on life satisfaction, when controlling for a variable that attempts to measure workers’ personality traits. The evidence reveals that the effects of family life, leisure, health and work outweigh those of money and privacy. Separate estimations were made by gender, age and educational level, to analyse heterogeneity in the relationship between degrees of satisfaction in the different life domains and overall life satisfaction. The results are robust to the different specifications used to explain satisfaction domains.