Drivers of Subjective Well-being in Spain: Are There Gender Differences?
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Drivers of Subjective Well-being in Spain: Are There Gender Differences? Rubén Arrondo 1
& Ana
Cárcaba 2
& Eduardo
González 1
Received: 3 February 2020 / Accepted: 19 August 2020/ # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract This paper explores the main drivers of subjective well-being(SWB) in Spain. Following current descriptions of SWB, the influence of a set of sociodemographic, material conditions and quality of life variables is empirically tested. The data come from a survey covering around 13,000 households and 35,000 individuals. The results show a very strong influence of material conditions on perceived SWB. Namely, the variable “income and wealth” is found to be the single major driver of satisfaction with life in the sample. Social connections, housing, and health status also emerge as very relevant drivers. Regarding the gender implications of SWB, our results show a paradoxical reality. On average, women score significantly lower than men in material conditions and quality of life variables, but they obtain significantly higher levels of SWB. Knowing the relevance of the different drivers of SWB may be helpful for the construction of composite indicators. We find that a SWB construct that includes only the most relevant drivers identified is a better predictor of actual SWB than the one that includes all the information available. Keywords Subjective well-being . Life satisfaction . Quality of life . Spain . Gender
Introduction Subjective well-being(SWB) is a “broad category of phenomena that includes people’s emotional responses, domain satisfactions, and global judgements of life satisfaction” (Diener et al. 1999: p. 277). As such, it relates to social indicators of quality of life, but it also includes a subjective personal component that determines how the individual perceives the experience of life. Dissatisfaction with conventional measures of income
* Eduardo González [email protected]
1
Department of Business Administration, University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain
2
Department of Accounting, University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain
R. Arrondo et al.
to measure social progress or individual well-being has promoted the interest of SWB analysis in the academic literature, extending to many different fields of research (wellbeing at work, health and well-being, gender gaps in well-being, etc.). This literature presents SWB as the most relevant goal for social development. John Lennon beautifully described the importance of the concept: “When I was five years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life”. Following this interest, many different measures of happiness and SWB have been developed worldwide, such as the OECD Better Life Index, the World Database of Happiness, or the Happy Planet Index. Even the 2019 World Economic Forum has dedicated a series of sessions to happiness and well-being. In 20
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