Dimensions of Subjective Well-Being

67 Pages Posted: 1 Oct 2013

See all articles by Arie Kapteyn

Arie Kapteyn

Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research - University of Southern California; IZA Institute of Labor Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Jinkook Lee

University of Southern California - Center for Economic & Social Research; Program on Global Aging, Health & Policy, Center for Economic & Social Research; RAND Corporation

Caroline Tassot

Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research - University of Southern California

Hana Vonkova

Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Education; Tilburg University

Gema Zamarro

University of Arkansas - Department of Education Reform; Center for Economic and Social Research (CESR)

Date Written: July 1, 2013

Abstract

Using the American Life Panel, we conduct an experiment to investigate the relations between various evaluative and experienced well-being measures based on the English Longitudinal Study of Aging, the Gallup Wellbeing Index, and a 12-item Hedonic Well-Being module. We find that all evaluative measures load on the same factor, but the positive and negative experienced affect measures load on different factors. We find evidence of an effect of response scales on both the estimated number of underlying factors and their relations with demographics. We conclude that finer scales allowing more nuanced answers offer more reliability

Keywords: Subjective Well-Being, Response Scales, Life Satisfaction

Suggested Citation

Kapteyn, Arie and Lee, Jinkook and Tassot, Caroline and Vonkova, Hana and Zamarro, Gema, Dimensions of Subjective Well-Being (July 1, 2013). CESR Working Paper No. 2013-005, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2333913 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2333913

Arie Kapteyn (Contact Author)

Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research - University of Southern California ( email )

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Jinkook Lee

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Caroline Tassot

Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research - University of Southern California ( email )

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Hana Vonkova

Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Education ( email )

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Gema Zamarro

University of Arkansas - Department of Education Reform ( email )

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