IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/war/wpaper/2024-06.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Why the Happiest Moments in Life are Sometimes Short? The Role of Psychological Traits and Socio-Economic Circumstances

Author

Listed:
  • Magdalena Grabowska

    (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences)

  • Agata Górny

    (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences)

  • Małgorzata Kalbarczyk

    (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences)

Abstract

This paper studies happiness’ variability in the course of life and examines how psychological and socio-economic factors influence the probability that an individual is capable of identifying the happiest period in life and its length. The study is based on SHARELIFE data and uses logistic regression and Cox proportional hazards models. Results show that the personality traits significantly, but differently, influence the probability of isolating the happiest life period and its length. Importantly, both positive and negative socio-economic circumstances augment the probability of identifying the happiest period and shorten its duration. These circumstances relate to familial events and socioeconomic status in the life course. The happiest moments of life are thus concentrated around not only positive but also negative changes in life. Our results contribute to the research on changes in the levels of happiness by identifying factors shaping occurrence and duration of the most happiest moments in life.

Suggested Citation

  • Magdalena Grabowska & Agata Górny & Małgorzata Kalbarczyk, 2024. "Why the Happiest Moments in Life are Sometimes Short? The Role of Psychological Traits and Socio-Economic Circumstances," Working Papers 2024-06, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    • Handle: RePEc:war:wpaper:2024-06
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.wne.uw.edu.pl/download_file/4030/0
    File Function: First version, 2024
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Clark, Andrew E & Oswald, Andrew J, 1994. "Unhappiness and Unemployment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(424), pages 648-659, May.
    2. Bruno S. Frey, 2018. "Economics of Happiness," SpringerBriefs in Economics, Springer, number 978-3-319-75807-7, June.
    3. Bruno S. Frey & Alois Stutzer, 2002. "What Can Economists Learn from Happiness Research?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(2), pages 402-435, June.
    4. Easterlin, Richard A., 2006. "Life cycle happiness and its sources: Intersections of psychology, economics, and demography," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 463-482, August.
    5. Ruut Veenhoven & Floris Vergunst, 2014. "The Easterlin illusion: economic growth does go with greater happiness," International Journal of Happiness and Development, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 1(4), pages 311-343.
    6. Gabriela Mihaela Muresan & Cristina Ciumas & Monica Violeta Achim, 2020. "Can Money Buy Happiness? Evidence for European Countries," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 15(4), pages 953-970, September.
    7. Christoph Becker & Isadora Kirchmaier & Stefan T Trautmann, 2019. "Marriage, parenthood and social network: Subjective well-being and mental health in old age," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(7), pages 1-20, July.
    8. Bruno S. Frey, 2018. "Happiness as a Goal of Human Beings," SpringerBriefs in Economics, in: Economics of Happiness, chapter 0, pages 1-4, Springer.
    9. Anna Baranowska & Anna Matysiak, 2011. "Does parenthood increase happiness? Evidence for Poland," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 9(1), pages 307-325.
    10. Kâzım Anıl Eren & Ahmet Atıl Aşıcı, 2017. "The Determinants of Happiness in Turkey: Evidence from City-Level Data," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 647-669, June.
    11. Gerdtham, Ulf-G & Johannesson, Magnus, 2001. "The relationship between happiness, health, and socio-economic factors: results based on Swedish microdata," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 553-557.
    12. Cavapozzi, Danilo & Fiore, Simona & Pasini, Giacomo, 2020. "Divorce and well-being. Disentangling the role of stress and socio economic status," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 16(C).
    13. Chris M. Herbst & John Ifcher, 2016. "The increasing happiness of US parents," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 529-551, September.
    14. Easterlin, Richard A., 1974. "Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? Some Empirical Evidence," MPRA Paper 111773, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Van Praag, Bernard M. S. & Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Ada, 2011. "Happiness Economics: A New Road to Measuring and Comparing Happiness," Foundations and Trends(R) in Microeconomics, now publishers, vol. 6(1), pages 1-97, April.
    16. Bruce Headey, 2010. "The Set Point Theory of Well-Being Has Serious Flaws: On the Eve of a Scientific Revolution?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 97(1), pages 7-21, May.
    17. Jeromy Anglim & Sharon Grant, 2016. "Predicting Psychological and Subjective Well-Being from Personality: Incremental Prediction from 30 Facets Over the Big 5," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 59-80, February.
    18. Easterlin, Richard A., 1995. "Will raising the incomes of all increase the happiness of all?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 35-47, June.
    19. Viola Angelini & Danilo Cavapozzi & Luca Corazzini & Omar Paccagnella, 2012. "Age, Health and Life Satisfaction Among Older Europeans," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 105(2), pages 293-308, January.
    20. Juncal Cuñado & Fernando Gracia, 2012. "Does Education Affect Happiness? Evidence for Spain," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 108(1), pages 185-196, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Yuta J. Masuda & Jason R. Williams & Heather Tallis, 2021. "Does Life Satisfaction Vary with Time and Income? Investigating the Relationship Among Free Time, Income, and Life Satisfaction," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 22(5), pages 2051-2073, June.
    2. Cordero, José Manuel & Salinas-Jiménez, Javier & Salinas-Jiménez, M Mar, 2017. "Exploring factors affecting the level of happiness across countries: A conditional robust nonparametric frontier analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 256(2), pages 663-672.
    3. Popova, Olga, 2014. "Can religion insure against aggregate shocks to happiness? The case of transition countries," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 804-818.
    4. Alpizar, Francisco & Carlsson, Fredrik & Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2005. "How much do we care about absolute versus relative income and consumption?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 405-421, March.
    5. Noelia Somarriba Arechavala & Pilar Zarzosa Espina & Ana Teresa López Pastor, 2022. "The Importance of the Neighbourhood Environment and Social Capital for Happiness in a Vulnerable District: The Case of the Pajarillos District in Spain," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 23(5), pages 1941-1965, June.
    6. Rubén Arrondo & Ana Cárcaba & Eduardo González, 2021. "Drivers of Subjective Well-being in Spain: Are There Gender Differences?," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 16(5), pages 2131-2154, October.
    7. Meltem Ucal & Simge Günay, 2022. "Household Happiness and Fuel Poverty: a Cross-Sectional Analysis on Turkey," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 17(1), pages 391-420, February.
    8. Konow, James & Earley, Joseph, 2008. "The Hedonistic Paradox: Is homo economicus happier," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1-2), pages 1-33, February.
    9. Yamamura, Eiji, 2013. "Trial experience, satisfaction and incentive to bring another lawsuit: Does aspiration level influence winners and losers?," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 125-131.
    10. David G. Blanchflower & Andrew J. Oswald, 2004. "Money, Sex and Happiness: An Empirical Study," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 106(3), pages 393-415, October.
    11. Montizaan, Raymond M. & Vendrik, Maarten C.M., 2014. "Misery Loves Company: Exogenous shocks in retirement expectations and social comparison effects on subjective well-being," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 1-26.
    12. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Viola Berlepsch, 2014. "Social Capital and Individual Happiness in Europe," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 357-386, April.
    13. Luis Diaz‐Serrano & Andrés Rodríguez‐Pose, 2012. "Decentralization, Subjective Well‐Being, and the Perception of Institutions," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(2), pages 179-193, May.
    14. Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés & Diaz-Serrano, Luis, 2011. "Decentralization, Happiness, and the Perception of Institutions," CEPR Discussion Papers 8356, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. David G. Blanchflower, 2009. "International Evidence on Well-Being," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring the Subjective Well-Being of Nations: National Accounts of Time Use and Well-Being, pages 155-226, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Byela Tibesigwa & Martine Visser & Brennan Hodkinson, 2016. "Effects of Objective and Subjective Income Comparisons on Subjective Wellbeing," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 128(1), pages 361-389, August.
    17. Christoph K. Becker & Stefan T. Trautmann, 2022. "Does Happiness Increase in Old Age? Longitudinal Evidence from 20 European Countries," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 23(7), pages 3625-3654, October.
    18. Sibylle Puntscher & Janette Walde & Gottfried Tappeiner, 2016. "Do methodical traps lead to wrong development strategies for welfare? A multilevel approach considering heterogeneity across industrialized and developing countries," Working Papers 2016-01, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    19. Tsui, Hsiao-Chien, 2014. "What affects happiness: Absolute income, relative income or expected income?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 994-1007.
    20. Dieudonne Mignamissi & Yselle Flora Malah Kuete, 2020. "What Makes Africans Happy?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(4), pages 2741-2754.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Subjective well-being; SHARELIFE; Retrospective data; Cox proportional hazards model; Big 5;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • J10 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:war:wpaper:2024-06. 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: Marcin Bąba (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fesuwpl.html .

    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.