Eudaimonic wellbeing and life expectancy

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between eudaimonic wellbeing (sense of life) and subjective survival probability (SSP), a proxy for self-assessed life expectancy. Our econometric analysis uses 220,601 observations of SHARE panel data from 2006 to 2015. We find evidence of a robust and strong positive relationship between eudaimonic wellbeing and subjective survival probability after controlling for self-assessed health, coupled with a negative effect of sense of life on mortality. The magnitude of the first effect is relevant, since the minimum difference (adjusted for fixed effects) between individuals declaring the highest versus the lowest sense of life is a 7-point higher self-assessed probability of being alive at the target age. Together, our two main findings imply that when respondents declare a high sense of life, they self-report a lower mortality risk and their predictions are correct.