How do we measure happiness? Focusing on subjective measures as a proxy for welfare and well-being, this book finds ways to do that. Subjective measures have been used by psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, and, more recently, economists to answer a variety of scientifically and politically relevant questions. Van Praag, a pioneer in this field since 1971, and Ferrer-i-Carbonell present in this book a generally applicable methodology for the analysis of subjective
satisfaction.
Drawing on a range of surveys on people's satisfaction with their jobs, income, housing, marriages, and government policy, among other areas of life, this book shows how satisfaction with life "as a whole" is an aggregate of these domain satisfactions. Using German, British, Dutch, and Russian data, the authors cover a wide range of topics. This groundbreaking book presents a new and fruitful methodology that constitutes a welcome addition to the social sciences. The paperback edition has been
revised to bring the literature review up-to-date and the chapter on poverty has been revised and extended to take account of new research.
Introduction; The Analysis of Income Satisfaction with an Application to Family Equivalence Scales; Domain Satisfactions; The Aggregation of Satisfactions: General Satisfaction as an Aggregate; Political Satisfaction; Males, Females, and Households; The Impact on Past and Future on Present Satisfaction; The Influence of the Reference Group on our Norms; Health and Subjective Well-being; The Effects of Climate on Welfare and Well-being: External Effects; How to Find Compensations for
Aircraft Noise Nuisance; Taxation and Well-being; Subjective Income Inequalities; A generalized approach to subjective inequalities; Poverty; Epilogue; References
