IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jhappi/v21y2020i1d10.1007_s10902-019-00085-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Human Capital Endowments and Gender Differences in Subjective Well-Being in Chile

Author

Listed:
  • Javier G. Boncompte

    (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile)

  • Ricardo D. Paredes

    (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and Duoc UC)

Abstract

We study the gender life satisfaction gap by using a non-linear version of the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition to isolate the effect of human capital inequalities among men and women in Chile, a country with one of the lowest female labor force participation in the world. We test gender bias hypotheses through the way each individual values their own income in relation to their partner’s. We provide evidence the gender life satisfaction gap favoring men can be more than fully explained by the differences in endowments (e.g., income and education). Nonetheless, there are structural disparities in the way men and women value their endowments, especially their income and labor status. Regarding the partner’s income, we found personal income is always more valued than the partners, and that this difference is higher in the case of men. Finally, we find differences in the valuation of being out of the labor force. We interpret these findings as consequence of a high degree of sexism prevailing in Chile, which masks the full effect of material inequalities in people’s lives.

Suggested Citation

  • Javier G. Boncompte & Ricardo D. Paredes, 2020. "Human Capital Endowments and Gender Differences in Subjective Well-Being in Chile," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 241-269, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jhappi:v:21:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1007_s10902-019-00085-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s10902-019-00085-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10902-019-00085-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10902-019-00085-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Oswald, Andrew J., 2008. "On the curvature of the reporting function from objective reality to subjective feelings," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 100(3), pages 369-372, September.
    2. Daniel J. Benjamin & Ori Heffetz & Miles S. Kimball & Alex Rees-Jones, 2012. "What Do You Think Would Make You Happier? What Do You Think You Would Choose?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(5), pages 2083-2110, August.
    3. Bonke, Jens, 2008. "Income distribution and financial satisfaction between spouses in Europe," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 2291-2303, December.
    4. Robert Tanton & Itismita Mohanty & Anthony Hogan, 2012. "Reasons for homeostatic failure in subjective wellbeing," NATSEM Working Paper Series 12/18, University of Canberra, National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling.
    5. Carol Graham & Soumya Chattopadhyay, 2013. "Gender and well-being around the world," International Journal of Happiness and Development, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 1(2), pages 212-232.
    6. Wilson, Chris M. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2005. "How Does Marriage Affect Physical and Psychological Health? A Survey of the Longitudinal Evidence," Economic Research Papers 269622, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    7. Jacqueline Zweig, 2015. "Are Women Happier than Men? Evidence from the Gallup World Poll," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 515-541, April.
    8. Anna Hansson & Pernilla Hillerås & Yvonne Forsell, 2005. "Well-Being in an Adult Swedish Population," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 74(2), pages 313-325, November.
    9. Becker, Gary S, 1973. "A Theory of Marriage: Part I," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(4), pages 813-846, July-Aug..
    10. Becker, Gary S, 1974. "A Theory of Marriage: Part II," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(2), pages 11-26, Part II, .
    11. Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell & Paul Frijters, 2004. "How Important is Methodology for the estimates of the determinants of Happiness?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(497), pages 641-659, July.
    12. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "A Theory of Marriage," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of the Family: Marriage, Children, and Human Capital, pages 299-351, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Blanchflower, David G. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2004. "Well-being over time in Britain and the USA," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(7-8), pages 1359-1386, July.
    14. Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers, 2008. "Economic Growth and Subjective Well-Being: Reassessing the Easterlin Paradox," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 39(1 (Spring), pages 1-102.
    15. Robert Cummins, 2010. "Subjective Wellbeing, Homeostatically Protected Mood and Depression: A Synthesis," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 1-17, March.
    16. Ricardo Paredes & Luis Riveros, 1994. "Gender wage gaps in Chile. A long term view: 1958 - 1990," Estudios de Economia, University of Chile, Department of Economics, vol. 21(esp Year ), pages 209-230, November.
    17. Jed Blore & Mark Stokes & David Mellor & Lucy Firth & Robert Cummins, 2011. "Comparing Multiple Discrepancies Theory to Affective Models of Subjective Wellbeing," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 100(1), pages 1-16, January.
    18. Alan S. Blinder, 1973. "Wage Discrimination: Reduced Form and Structural Estimates," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 8(4), pages 436-455.
    19. Stutzer, Alois & Frey, Bruno S., 2006. "Does marriage make people happy, or do happy people get married?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 326-347, April.
    20. Adrian Tomyn & Robert Cummins, 2011. "Subjective Wellbeing and Homeostatically Protected Mood: Theory Validation With Adolescents," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 12(5), pages 897-914, October.
    21. Marc Fleurbaey & Erik Schokkaert & Koen Decancq, 2008. "What Good is Happiness?," OPHI Working Papers 20, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.
    22. J. Scott Long & Jeremy Freese, 2006. "Regression Models for Categorical Dependent Variables using Stata, 2nd Edition," Stata Press books, StataCorp LP, edition 2, number long2, March.
    23. Gary S. Becker, 1981. "A Treatise on the Family," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number beck81-1.
    24. Michael Eid & Ed Diener, 2004. "Global Judgments of Subjective Well-Being: Situational Variability and Long-Term Stability," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 65(3), pages 245-277, February.
    25. Dov Shmotkin, 1990. "Subjective well-being as a function of age and gender: A multivariate look for differentiated trends," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 201-230, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dilek Yıldız & Hilal Arslan & Alanur Çavlin, 2021. "Understanding women’s well-being in Turkey," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 19(1), pages 255-291.
    2. David G. Blanchflower & Carol L. Graham, 2022. "The Mid-Life Dip in Well-Being: a Critique," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 161(1), pages 287-344, May.
    3. Long Niu & Chuntian Lu & Rui Sun, 2023. "The Impact of Livelihood Capital on Subjective Well-Being of New Professional Farmers: Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(14), pages 1-17, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stutzer, Alois & Frey, Bruno S., 2006. "Does marriage make people happy, or do happy people get married?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 326-347, April.
    2. Shuai Chen & Jan C. Ours, 2018. "Subjective Well-being and Partnership Dynamics: Are Same-Sex Relationships Different?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(6), pages 2299-2320, December.
    3. Powdthavee, Nattavudh, 2009. "I can't smile without you: Spousal correlation in life satisfaction," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 675-689, August.
    4. P. Taylor, Mark & Bardasi, Elena, 2005. "Marriage and wages," ISER Working Paper Series 2005-01, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    5. Du, Qingyuan & Wei, Shang-Jin, 2013. "A theory of the competitive saving motive," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 275-289.
    6. Kaiser, Caspar, 2022. "Using memories to assess the intrapersonal comparability of wellbeing reports," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 410-442.
    7. Nattavudh Powdthavee, 2004. "Testing for Utility Interdependence in Marriage: Evidence from Panel Data," Labor and Demography 0403037, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 Apr 2004.
    8. Elena Bardasi & Mark Taylor, 2008. "Marriage and Wages: A Test of the Specialization Hypothesis," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 75(299), pages 569-591, August.
    9. Santi Budria & Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell, 2012. "Income Comparisons and Non-cognitive Skills," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 441, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    10. Greyling, Talita & Fisher, Bianca, 2020. "Women’s optimism, the gender happiness equaliser: a case of South Africa," GLO Discussion Paper Series 472, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    11. Mariano Rojas, 2010. "Intra-Household Arrangements and Economic Satisfaction," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 11(2), pages 225-241, April.
    12. Kota Ogasawara & Mizuki Komura, 2022. "Consequences of war: Japan’s demographic transition and the marriage market," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(3), pages 1037-1069, July.
    13. Guven, Cahit & Senik, Claudia & Stichnoth, Holger, 2012. "You can’t be happier than your wife. Happiness gaps and divorce," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 110-130.
    14. Lepinteur, Anthony & Flèche, Sarah & Powdthavee, Nattavudh, 2016. "My Baby Takes the Morning Train: Gender Identity, Fairness, and Relative Labor Supply Within Households," IZA Discussion Papers 10382, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Jara-Díaz, Sergio & Rosales-Salas, Jorge, 2017. "Beyond transport time: A review of time use modeling," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 209-230.
    16. Proto, Eugenio & Rustichini, Aldo, 2015. "Life satisfaction, income and personality," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 17-32.
    17. Du, Qingyuan & Wei, Shang-Jin, 2016. "A Darwinian perspective on “exchange rate undervaluation”," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 111-138.
    18. Man Si, 2015. "Intrafamily bargaining and love," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 13(4), pages 771-789, December.
    19. O'Donnell, Gus & Oswald, Andrew J., 2015. "National well-being policy and a weighted approach to human feelings," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 59-70.
    20. Matthew Gnagey & Therese Grijalva & Rong Rong, 2020. "Spousal influence and assortative mating on time preferences: a field experiment in the USA," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 461-512, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:jhappi:v:21:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1007_s10902-019-00085-y. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.