IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/geronb/v69y2014i6p920-929..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Revisiting the Paradox of Well-being: The Importance of National Context

Author

Listed:
  • Hannah J. Swift
  • Christin-Melanie Vauclair
  • Dominic Abrams
  • Christopher Bratt
  • Sibila Marques
  • Maria-Luisa Lima

Abstract

Objectives. Despite age-related changes or declines in circumstances, health or income, many older people are able to maintain subjective well-being (SWB) in later life. This is known as the paradox of well-being. To date, much research has focused on either individual- (e.g., age, health, and income) or country-level (e.g., national wealth, inequality) differences in SWB. The present research investigates how these levels combine, and whether the paradox of well-being persists across different economic contexts.

Suggested Citation

  • Hannah J. Swift & Christin-Melanie Vauclair & Dominic Abrams & Christopher Bratt & Sibila Marques & Maria-Luisa Lima, 2014. "Revisiting the Paradox of Well-being: The Importance of National Context," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 69(6), pages 920-929.
  • Handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:69:y:2014:i:6:p:920-929.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbu011
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    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. Ed Diener, 1994. "Assessing subjective well-being: Progress and opportunities," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 103-157, February.
    2. Blanchflower, David G. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2008. "Is well-being U-shaped over the life cycle?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(8), pages 1733-1749, April.
    3. Disney, Richard, 2000. "Crises in Public Pension Programmes in OECD: What Are the Reform Options?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(461), pages 1-23, February.
    4. Angus Deaton, 2008. "Income, Health, and Well-Being around the World: Evidence from the Gallup World Poll," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(2), pages 53-72, Spring.
    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. Thomas Hansen & Morten Blekesaune, 2022. "The age and well-being “paradox”: a longitudinal and multidimensional reconsideration," European Journal of Ageing, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 1277-1286, December.
    2. Brooke Massey & Alice Vo Edwards & Laura Musikanski, 2021. "Life Satisfaction, Affect, and Belonging in Older Adults," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 16(3), pages 1205-1219, June.
    3. Piotr Bialowolski & Dorota Weziak-Bialowolska, 2021. "Longitudinal Evidence for Reciprocal Effects Between Life Satisfaction and Job Satisfaction," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 1287-1312, March.
    4. Hudomiet, Péter & Hurd, Michael D. & Rohwedder, Susann, 2021. "The age profile of life satisfaction after age 65 in the U.S," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 431-442.
    5. Hsin-Yu An & Wei Chen & Cheng-Wei Wang & Hui-Fei Yang & Wan-Ting Huang & Sheng-Yu Fan, 2020. "The Relationships between Physical Activity and Life Satisfaction and Happiness among Young, Middle-Aged, and Older Adults," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(13), pages 1-10, July.

    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. 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.
    2. Stefano Bartolini & Francesco Sarracino, 2014. "It's not the economy, stupid! How social capital and GDP relate to happiness over time," Papers 1411.2138, arXiv.org.
    3. Papageorgiou, Athanasios, 2018. "The Effect of Immigration on the Well-Being of Native Populations: Evidence from the United Kingdom," MPRA Paper 93045, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Koen Decancq & Marc Fleurbaey & Erik Schokkaert, 2015. "Happiness, Equivalent Incomes and Respect for Individual Preferences," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 82, pages 1082-1106, December.
    5. Alexandra Nonnenmacher & Jürgen Friedrichs, 2013. "The Missing Link: Deficits of Country-Level Studies. A Review of 22 Articles Explaining Life Satisfaction," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 110(3), pages 1221-1244, February.
    6. Rogie Royce Carandang & Akira Shibanuma & Edward Asis & Dominga Carolina Chavez & Maria Teresa Tuliao & Masamine Jimba, 2020. "“Are Filipinos Aging Well?”: Determinants of Subjective Well-Being among Senior Citizens of the Community-Based ENGAGE Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(20), pages 1-13, October.
    7. Blanchflower, David G. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2011. "Antidepressants and Age," IZA Discussion Papers 5785, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Benjamin Schalembier, 2016. "The Impact of Exposure to Other Countries on Life Satisfaction: An International Application of the Relative Income Hypothesis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 128(1), pages 221-239, August.
    9. Deaton, Angus, 2018. "What do self-reports of wellbeing say about life-cycle theory and policy?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 18-25.
    10. Sarracino, Francesco, 2013. "Determinants of subjective well-being in high and low income countries: Do happiness equations differ across countries?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 51-66.
    11. Andrew J. Oswald & Stephen Wu, 2011. "Well-Being across America," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(4), pages 1118-1134, November.
    12. Ferreira, Susana & Akay, Alpaslan & Brereton, Finbarr & Cuñado, Juncal & Martinsson, Peter & Moro, Mirko & Ningal, Tine F., 2013. "Life satisfaction and air quality in Europe," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 1-10.
    13. Hudomiet, Péter & Hurd, Michael D. & Rohwedder, Susann, 2021. "The age profile of life satisfaction after age 65 in the U.S," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 431-442.
    14. Kamal Kasmaoui, 2020. "What makes Moroccans happy: A micro-data study," Working Papers hal-02956855, HAL.
    15. AMENDOLA, Adalgiso & DELL'ANNO, Roberto & PARISI, Lavinia, 2015. "Happiness, Inequality and Relative Concerns in European Countries," CELPE Discussion Papers 136, CELPE - CEnter for Labor and Political Economics, University of Salerno, Italy.
    16. Nie, Peng & Li, Qiaoge & Sousa-Poza, Alfonso, 2021. "Energy poverty and subjective well-being in China: New evidence from the China Family Panel Studies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    17. David Blanchflower & Andrew Oswald & Sarah Stewart-Brown, 2013. "Is Psychological Well-Being Linked to the Consumption of Fruit and Vegetables?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 114(3), pages 785-801, December.
    18. Blanchflower, David G & Oswald, Andrew, 2011. "International Happiness," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 39, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    19. Blanchflower, David G. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2016. "Antidepressants and age: A new form of evidence for U-shaped well-being through life," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 46-58.
    20. Luis Diaz‐Serrano & Andrés Rodríguez‐Pose, 2012. "Decentralization, Subjective Well‐Being, and the Perception of Institutions," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(2), pages 179-193, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:oup:geronb:v:69:y:2014:i:6:p:920-929.. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology .

    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.