IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jhappi/v23y2022i3d10.1007_s10902-021-00429-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the Measurement of Happiness and of its Inequality

Author

Listed:
  • Valérie Bérenger

    (University of Toulon, LEAD
    Université Côte d’Azur, CNRS, GREDEG)

  • Jacques Silber

    (Bar-Ilan University
    LISER (CEPS/INSTEAD)
    Tuscan Interuniversity Centre)

Abstract

Given that happiness or satisfaction with life is generally measured via an ordinal variable, the question arises as to how one should measure average happiness or satisfaction with life in a country, given that there is no arithmetic mean when dealing with ordinal variables. The same issue exists as far as deriving measures of inequality in happiness or in satisfaction with life is concerned, since traditional inequality indices cannot really be used with ordinal variables. The objective of this paper is to adopt recent suggestions made in the literature concerning the distribution of self-assessed health, an ordinal variable, and to propose new measures of the inequality in happiness or satisfaction with life and of the overall achievement in happiness or satisfaction with life. We apply the indices introduced in this literature and compare them with more traditional measures. Our empirical illustration is based on the World Values Surveys for the years 1995–98 (wave 3) and 2010–14 (wave 6), uses the data on satisfaction in life and covers 31 countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Valérie Bérenger & Jacques Silber, 2022. "On the Measurement of Happiness and of its Inequality," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 861-902, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jhappi:v:23:y:2022:i:3:d:10.1007_s10902-021-00429-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s10902-021-00429-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10902-021-00429-7
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10902-021-00429-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gaston Yalonetzky, 2016. "Robust ordinal inequality comparisons with Kolm-independent measures," Working Papers 401, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    2. Bernard Praag, 2011. "Well-being inequality and reference groups: an agenda for new research," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(1), pages 111-127, March.
    3. Ruut Veenhoven, 2005. "Inequality Of Happiness in Nations," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 6(4), pages 351-355, December.
    4. Benedicte Apouey, 2007. "Measuring health polarization with self‐assessed health data," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(9), pages 875-894, September.
    5. Umakrishnan Kollamparambil, 2020. "Happiness, Happiness Inequality and Income Dynamics in South Africa," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 201-222, January.
    6. Leonardo Becchetti & Riccardo Massari & Paolo Naticchioni, 2014. "The drivers of happiness inequality: suggestions for promoting social cohesion," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 66(2), pages 419-442.
    7. Abul Naga, Ramses H. & Stapenhurst, Christopher, 2015. "Estimation of inequality indices of the cumulative distribution function," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 109-112.
    8. Vanesa Jorda & Borja López-Noval & José María Sarabia, 2019. "Distributional Dynamics of Life Satisfaction in Europe," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 1015-1039, April.
    9. Nicolas Gravel & Brice Magdalou & Patrick Moyes, 2019. "Inequality measurement with an ordinal and continuous variable," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 52(3), pages 453-475, March.
    10. Schröder, Carsten & Yitzhaki, Shlomo, 2017. "Revisiting the evidence for cardinal treatment of ordinal variables," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 337-358.
    11. Nicolas Gravel & Brice Magdalou & Patrick Moyes, 2019. "Inequality measurement with an ordinal and continuous variable," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 52(3), pages 453-475, March.
    12. 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.
    13. Abul Naga, Ramses H. & Yalcin, Tarik, 2008. "Inequality measurement for ordered response health data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 1614-1625, December.
    14. Andrew E. Clark, 2018. "Four Decades of the Economics of Happiness: Where Next?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(2), pages 245-269, June.
    15. Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers, 2008. "Happiness Inequality in the United States," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(S2), pages 33-79, June.
    16. Kaiser, Caspar & Vendrik, Maarten C.M., 2020. "How threatening are transformations of happiness scales to subjective wellbeing research?," Research Memorandum 032, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).
    17. David Madden, 2010. "Ordinal and cardinal measures of health inequality: an empirical comparison," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(2), pages 243-250, February.
    18. Erreygers, Guido, 2009. "Correcting the Concentration Index: A reply to Wagstaff," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 521-524, March.
    19. Néstor Gandelman & Rafael Porzecanski, 2013. "Happiness Inequality: How Much is Reasonable?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 110(1), pages 257-269, January.
    20. Bénédicte Apouey & Jacques Silber, 2013. "Inequality and Bi-Polarization in Socioeconomic Status and Health: Ordinal Approaches," Research on Economic Inequality, in: Health and Inequality, volume 21, pages 77-109, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    21. Jan Ott, 2005. "Level and Inequality of Happiness in Nations: Does Greater Happiness of a Greater Number Imply Greater Inequality in Happiness?," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 6(4), pages 397-420, December.
    22. Nicolas Gravel & Brice Magdalou & Patrick Moyes, 2014. "Ranking Distributions of an Ordinal Attribute," AMSE Working Papers 1450, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    23. Frank A. Cowell & Emmanuel Flachaire, 2017. "Inequality with Ordinal Data," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 84(334), pages 290-321, April.
    24. W. Kalmijn & L. Arends, 2010. "Measures of Inequality: Application to Happiness in Nations," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 99(1), pages 147-162, October.
    25. Timothy N. Bond & Kevin Lang, 2019. "The Sad Truth about Happiness Scales," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(4), pages 1629-1640.
    26. Chen, Le-Yu & Oparina, Ekaterina & Powdthavee, Nattavudh & Srisuma, Sorawoot, 2019. "Have Econometric Analyses of Happiness Data Been Futile? A Simple Truth about Happiness Scales," IZA Discussion Papers 12152, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    27. Adi Lazar & Jacques Silber, 2013. "On The Cardinal Measurement Of Health Inequality When Only Ordinal Information Is Available On Individual Health Status," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(1), pages 106-113, January.
    28. Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell & Paul Frijters, 2004. "How Important is Methodology for the estimates of the determinants of Happiness?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(497), pages 641-659, July.
    29. Dolan, Paul & Peasgood, Tessa & White, Mathew, 2008. "Do we really know what makes us happy A review of the economic literature on the factors associated with subjective well-being," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 94-122, February.
    30. Lane, Tom, 2017. "How does happiness relate to economic behaviour? A review of the literature," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 62-78.
    31. Bruno S. Frey, 2018. "Economics of Happiness," SpringerBriefs in Economics, Springer, number 978-3-319-75807-7, October.
    32. Carlotta Balestra & Nicolas Ruiz, 2015. "Scale-Invariant Measurement of Inequality and Welfare in Ordinal Achievements: An Application to Subjective Well-Being and Education in OECD Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 123(2), pages 479-500, September.
    33. Pablo Gluzmann & Leonardo Gasparini, 2018. "International inequality in subjective well†being: An exploration with the Gallup World Poll," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(2), pages 610-631, May.
    34. Kobus, Martyna & Miłoś, Piotr, 2012. "Inequality decomposition by population subgroups for ordinal data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 15-21.
    35. Raphael Studer, 2011. "Does it matter how happiness is measured? Evidence from a randomized controlled experiment," ECON - Working Papers 049, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    36. Wim Kalmijn & Ruut Veenhoven, 2005. "Measuring Inequality of Happiness in Nations: In Search for Proper Statistics," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 6(4), pages 357-396, December.
    37. Martyna Kobus & Olga Półchłopek & Gaston Yalonetzky, 2019. "Inequality and Welfare in Quality of Life Among OECD Countries: Non-parametric Treatment of Ordinal Data," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 143(1), pages 201-232, May.
    38. Joan Costa Font & Frank Cowell, 2013. "Measuring Health Inequality with Categorical Data: Some Regional Patterns," Research on Economic Inequality, in: Health and Inequality, volume 21, pages 53-76, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    39. Naga, Ramses H. Abul & Yalcin, Tarik, 2010. "Median Independent Inequality Orderings," SIRE Discussion Papers 2010-118, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    40. Cees Van Der Eijk, 2001. "Measuring Agreement in Ordered Rating Scales," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 35(3), pages 325-341, August.
    41. Roberta La Haye & Petr Zizler, 2019. "The Gini mean difference and variance," METRON, Springer;Sapienza Università di Roma, vol. 77(1), pages 43-52, April.
    42. Doorslaer, Eddy van & Jones, Andrew M., 2003. "Inequalities in self-reported health: validation of a new approach to measurement," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 61-87, January.
    43. Yoko Niimi, 2018. "What Affects Happiness Inequality? Evidence from Japan," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 521-543, February.
    44. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
    45. Erreygers, Guido, 2009. "Correcting the Concentration Index," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 504-515, March.
    46. Allison, R. Andrew & Foster, James E., 2004. "Measuring health inequality using qualitative data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 505-524, May.
    47. Apolinaras Zaborskis & Monika Grincaite & Michela Lenzi & Riki Tesler & Concepción Moreno-Maldonado & Joanna Mazur, 2019. "Social Inequality in Adolescent Life Satisfaction: Comparison of Measure Approaches and Correlation with Macro-level Indices in 41 Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 141(3), pages 1055-1079, February.
    48. Gaston Yalonetzky, 2016. "Robust inequality comparisons based on ordinal attributes with Kolm-independent measures," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 36(4), pages 2203-2208.
    49. Ruut Veenhoven & Wim Kalmijn, 2005. "Inequality-Adjusted Happiness in Nations Egalitarianism and Utilitarianism Married in a New Index of Societal Performance," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 6(4), pages 421-455, December.
    50. Martyna Kobus, 2015. "Erratum to: Polarization measurement for ordinal data," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 13(3), pages 485-485, September.
    51. Allanson, Paul, 2017. "Monitoring income-related health differences between regions in Great Britain: A new measure for ordinal health data," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 72-80.
    52. Buhong Zheng, 2011. "A new approach to measure socioeconomic inequality in health," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(4), pages 555-577, December.
    53. Martyna Kobus, 2015. "Polarization measurement for ordinal data," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 13(2), pages 275-297, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Arthur Grimes & Stephen P. Jenkins & Florencia Tranquilli, 2023. "The Relationship Between Subjective Wellbeing and Subjective Wellbeing Inequality: An Important Role for Skewness," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 309-330, January.

    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. Frank A Cowell & Martyna Kobus & Radoslaw Kurek, 2017. "Welfare and Inequality Comparisons for Uni- and Multi-dimensional Distributions of Ordinal Data," STICERD - Public Economics Programme Discussion Papers 31, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    2. Sandip Sarkar & Sattwik Santra, 2020. "Extending the approaches to polarization ordering of ordinal variables," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 18(3), pages 421-440, September.
    3. Vanesa Jorda & Borja López-Noval & José María Sarabia, 2019. "Distributional Dynamics of Life Satisfaction in Europe," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 1015-1039, April.
    4. I. Josa & A. Aguado, 2020. "Measuring Unidimensional Inequality: Practical Framework for the Choice of an Appropriate Measure," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 149(2), pages 541-570, June.
    5. Martyna Kobus & Radosław Kurek, 2019. "Multidimensional polarization for ordinal data," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 17(3), pages 301-317, September.
    6. Martyna Kobus & Olga Półchłopek & Gaston Yalonetzky, 2019. "Inequality and Welfare in Quality of Life Among OECD Countries: Non-parametric Treatment of Ordinal Data," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 143(1), pages 201-232, May.
    7. Nicolas Gravel & Brice Magdalou & Patrick Moyes, 2021. "Ranking distributions of an ordinal variable," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 71(1), pages 33-80, February.
    8. Niimi, Yoko, 2015. "Can Happiness Provide New Insights into Social Inequality? Evidence from Japan," AGI Working Paper Series 2015-12, Asian Growth Research Institute.
    9. Umakrishnan Kollamparambil, 2021. "Socio-Economic Inequality of Wellbeing: A Comparison of Switzerland and South Africa," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 555-574, February.
    10. Pascarn R. Dickinson & Philip S. Morrison, 2022. "Aversion to Local Wellbeing Inequality is Moderated by Social Engagement and Sense of Community," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 159(3), pages 907-926, February.
    11. Suman Seth & Gaston Yalonetzky, 2021. "Assessing Deprivation with an Ordinal Variable: Theory and Application to Sanitation Deprivation in Bangladesh," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 35(3), pages 793-811.
    12. Silber, Jacques & Yalonetzky, Gaston, 2021. "Measuring welfare, inequality and poverty with ordinal variables," GLO Discussion Paper Series 962, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    13. Arthur Grimes & Stephen P. Jenkins & Florencia Tranquilli, 2023. "The Relationship Between Subjective Wellbeing and Subjective Wellbeing Inequality: An Important Role for Skewness," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 309-330, January.
    14. Stephen P. Jenkins, 2020. "Better off? Distributional comparisons for ordinal data about personal well-being," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(3), pages 211-238, September.
    15. Umakrishnan Kollamparambil, 2020. "Happiness, Happiness Inequality and Income Dynamics in South Africa," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 201-222, January.
    16. Suman Seth and Gaston Yalonetzky, 2018. "Assessing Deprivation with Ordinal Variables: Depth Sensitivity and Poverty Aversion," OPHI Working Papers ophiwp123.pdf, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.
    17. Debasmita Basu & Sandip Sarkar, 2023. "Polarization in Indian Education: An Ordinal Variable Approach," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 21(3), pages 569-591, September.
    18. Kobus, Martyna & Kurek, Radosław, 2023. "Measuring inequality in the joint distribution of socioeconomic status and health," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 226(C).
    19. Jidong Yang & Kai Liu & Yiran Zhang, 2019. "Happiness Inequality in China," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 20(8), pages 2747-2771, December.
    20. Johan Graafland & Bjorn Lous, 2019. "Income Inequality, Life Satisfaction Inequality and Trust: A Cross Country Panel Analysis," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 20(6), pages 1717-1737, August.

    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:spr:jhappi:v:23:y:2022:i:3:d:10.1007_s10902-021-00429-7. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.