IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/soinre/v178y2025i1d10.1007_s11205-025-03574-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Value of Pets: The Quantifiable Impact of Pets on Life Satisfaction

Author

Listed:
  • Michael W. Gmeiner

    (London School of Economics)

  • Adelina Gschwandtner

    (University of Kent, Sibson Building)

Abstract

There is substantial evidence from psychology and medicine that pets are associated with better health and higher life satisfaction of their human companions. Yet whether this relationship is causal or purely a correlation remains largely unknown. We use an instrumental variable approach to overcome this, specifically exploiting relationships in which neighbours ask individuals to look over their property when traveling, which is correlated with pet companionship. We control for baseline relationships with neighbours as well as various other potential sources of bias. Using the Innovation Panel as part of the UK Household Longitudinal Survey, we find that a pet companion increases life satisfaction by 3 to 4 points on a scale of 1 to 7. Moreover, we estimate the size of the impact of pets on human life satisfaction and wellbeing in monetary units. We find that having a pet companion is worth up to £70,000 a year in terms of life satisfaction, similar to values obtained in the literature for meeting with friends and relatives on a regular basis.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael W. Gmeiner & Adelina Gschwandtner, 2025. "The Value of Pets: The Quantifiable Impact of Pets on Life Satisfaction," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 178(1), pages 185-223, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:178:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s11205-025-03574-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s11205-025-03574-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11205-025-03574-1
    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/s11205-025-03574-1?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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Life Satisfaction; Human-animal interaction; Pet effect; Health Promotion; Interspecies Interaction; Wellbeing;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I30 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General
    • C18 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Methodolical Issues: General
    • C26 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    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:spr:soinre:v:178:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s11205-025-03574-1. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.