@techreport{Headey2010Choices,
abstract = {Using data from the long-running German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) 1984-2008, this paper analyses the effects of individual preferences and choices on subjective well-being (SWB). It is shown that preferences and choices relating to life goals/values, partner's personality, hours of work, social participation and healthy lifestyle all have substantial effects on life satisfaction. The results have negative implications for the still dominant theory of SWB, set-point theory. This theory holds that adult SWB does not change in the medium or long term, although temporary fluctuations occur due to specific life events. Set-point theory has come under increasing criticism in recent years, primarily due to unmistakable evidence in SOEP that, during the last 25 years, up to a third of the population has recorded substantial and apparently permanent changes in life satisfaction. It is becoming clear that the main challenge now for SWB researchers is to develop a new theory which can account for medium and long term change, and not merely stability in SWB. Set-point theory is limited precisely because it is purely a theory of stability. The paper is based on a specially constructed SOEP file in which data are divided into five 5-year periods in order to facilitate analysis of medium term change.},
address = {Berlin},
author = {Bruce Headey and Ruud Muffels and Gert G. Wagner},
copyright = {http://www.econstor.eu/dspace/Nutzungsbedingungen},
keywords = {I31; J1; Z13; 330; SWB; set-point theory; life goals; individual choice; panel regression analysis; SOEP; Lebenszufriedenheit; Lebensqualit\"{a}t; Entscheidung; Pr\"{a}ferenztheorie; Theorie; Deutschland},
language = {eng},
number = {1010},
publisher = {Deutsches Institut f\"{u}r Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW)},
title = {Choices which change life satisfaction: Revising SWB theory to account for change},
type = {Discussion papers // German Institute for Economic Research},
url = {http://hdl.handle.net/10419/36715},
year = {2010}
}
