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http://hdl.handle.net/10419/36874
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| Title: | | Choices which change life satisfaction: Revising SWB theory to account for change  |
| Authors: | | Headey, Bruce Muffels, Ruud Wagner, Gert G. |
| Issue Date: | | 2010 |
| Series/Report no.: | | Discussion paper series // Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit 4953 |
| 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. |
| Subjects: | | SWB set-point theory life goals individual choice panel regression analysis SOEP |
| JEL: | | I31 J1 Z13 |
| Document Type: | | Working Paper |
| Appears in Collections: | | Publikationen von Forscherinnen und Forschern des DIW IZA Discussion Papers, Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit (IZA)
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