Can questions about life satisfaction be used to measure parental preferences for daughters versus sons? Daughter preference has rarely been documented in the literature, even in matrilineal settings. One possible reason is that the commonly used measures of parental gender preference, such as...

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is increasingly recognized as a transformative technology that is reshaping organizational processes, individual work practices, and workplace interactions. While its benefits for efficiency and productivity are widely acknowledged, its impact on...

When refugees flee abroad, they carry the legacy of their traumatic experiences across borders. While there are over 43 million refugees worldwide, the long-term effects of conflict exposure on their well-being remain poorly understood. This paper examines how pre-displacement exposure to...

This article examines the impact of the Yemeni civil war on subjective well-being (SWB). Analyzing the relationship between regional war intensity and SWB for the period 2015-2023, while accounting for personal characteristics and regional fixed effects, we find a significant negative...

This paper examines the impact of energy poverty on subjective well-being in Germany using longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) over the period 2010-2023. Exploiting within-individual variation, we estimate fixed-effects models using objective, subjective, and composite...

I document a sudden, sharp and historically unprecedented decline in self-reported happiness in the US population. It occurred during 2020, the year of the Covid pandemic, and mainly persists through 2024. This happiness crash spread across nearly all typical demographics and geographies. The...

This paper investigates child poverty in Germany through a multidimensional lens, combining Sen’s Capability Approach and Bourdieu’s Capital Theory to develop a adapted Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) for children above 11 and youth aged 17. Drawing on data from the German...

We examine how functional-form assumptions affect conclusions about the existence of satiation in the relationship between income and emotional well-being. Previous studies have estimated a piecewise log-linear model with one structural break in both intercept and slope, which may lead to...

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has long been used as a proxy for human progress, despite growing recognition of its limitations. Recently, numerous "beyond GDP" initiatives have emerged, promoting multidimensional dashboards to assess quality of life. However, these often lack a clear headline...

International and Irish studies have indicated negative trends in the mental health and wellbeing of young people over recent years. Indeed, the most recent wave of the Health Behaviour of School-Aged Children study shows that Ireland ranked 24 out of 36 countries on overall adolescent mental...

This paper examines the dynamics of life satisfaction for a sample of young Irish adults before, during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. Using longitudinal data from the Child cohort of the Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) survey we analyse changes in the Cantril ladder measure of life satisfaction...

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has long been used as a proxy for human progress, despite growing recognition of its limitations. Recently, numerous "beyond GDP" initiatives have emerged, promoting multidimensional dashboards to assess quality of life. However, these often lack a clear headline...

Sick leave is a key indicator of labour market performance and public health, reflecting employee well-being and working conditions while creating a socioeconomic burden. Rates have increased in Europe due to ageing and shrinking workforces, yet research has focused mainly on medical risks, with...

Informal care is a cornerstone of long-term care for older adults but may entail substantial psychological costs for caregivers. Using seven waves (2004-2022) of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) for 27 countries, we estimate the causal effect of providing regular...

Lifelong learning is increasingly recognized as important for individual well-being, but causal evidence on this relationship remains scarce. This paper evaluates the effects of non-formal adult education on life satisfaction by exploiting the substantial expansion of courses at East German...

This article investigates how regions' ability to pursue sustainable development trajectories affects individual subjective well-being. In particular, it disentangles the social and environmental dimensions of sustainability by examining the relative role of social capital, public safety, and...

Lifelong learning is increasingly recognized as important for individual well-being, but causal evidence on this relationship remains scarce. This paper evaluates the effects of non-formal adult education on life satisfaction by exploiting the substantial expansion of courses at East German...

Using German survey data, we show conflicting influences of performance pay on overall life satisfaction. The overall influence reflects a strong positive influence through domains of life satisfaction associated with the job (job satisfaction, individual earnings satisfaction and household...

This study aims to examine the relationships between tourists' travel motivations, subjective well-being and revisit intentions in the context of self-determination theory. Igneada, with its unexplored tourism potential and natural richness, is the focus of this study and represents an area that...

How do gender identity and norms relate to happiness? This paper takes advantage of the 2024 European Social Survey, which asks respondents to report their feelings of femininity and masculinity, and studies the relationships between these self-assessments, (non-)conformity to gender norms, and...

We review the evolution of the concept of utility in economics, addressing the conceptual and terminological fragmentation that characterises the interdisciplinary debate. This study adopts the scoping review framework to systematically analyse the main theoretical approaches, ranging from...

Work happiness is commonly described as an umbrella concept encompassing job satisfaction, engagement, and emotional attachment to the workplace. However, few studies have explored its underlying sources and emotional experiences, raising questions about its conceptual clarity and measurement....

Numerous studies deal with the link between daily recovery experiences (DRE) and mental health for employees. Hardly any studies exist for small business owners. This is surprising given that their health is not just important for themselves but also for their environment (such as employees,...

Positive affect and life evaluation are positively correlated in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), but the relationship is much weaker than in Western countries, revealing a disconnect between how people feel and how they judge their lives. Using Gallup World Poll microdata (2013-2024) for 39 SSA and 27...