IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/67371.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Revisiting the inactivity - (un) happiness relationship, a cross-country exploratory analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Tavares, Aida Isabel

Abstract

The relationship between happiness and physical activity is revisited using cross country data in an exploratory analysis. The estimated results show that the countries with lower values in the happiness index account for lower levels of physical activity, or, higher levels of inactivity/sedentarism. Moreover, it is found that the most recent data show that the more antidepressants people take in a country, the higher the happiness index. The main contribution of this note is providing important clues for future research about happiness, physical activity and antidepressants, a potential conditional factor of the measurement of happiness in a country.

Suggested Citation

  • Tavares, Aida Isabel, 2015. "Revisiting the inactivity - (un) happiness relationship, a cross-country exploratory analysis," MPRA Paper 67371, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:67371
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/67371/1/MPRA_paper_67371.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Simona Rasciute & Paul Downward, 2010. "Health or Happiness? What Is the Impact of Physical Activity on the Individual?," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(2), pages 256-270, May.
    2. 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.
    3. Huang, Haifang & Humphreys, Brad R., 2012. "Sports participation and happiness: Evidence from US microdata," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 776-793.
    4. Georgios Kavetsos & Marika Dimitriadou & Paul Dolan, 2014. "Measuring happiness: context matters," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(5), pages 308-311, March.
    5. Rafael Di Tella & Robert J. MacCulloch & Andrew J. Oswald, 2003. "The Macroeconomics of Happiness," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 809-827, November.
    6. Elia Kacapyr, 2008. "Cross‐country determinants of satisfaction with life," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 35(6), pages 400-416, May.
    7. Simone Borghesi & Alessandro Vercelli, 2012. "Happiness And Health: Two Paradoxes," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 203-233, April.
    8. Georgios Kavetsos, 2011. "Physical Activity and Subjective Well-being: An Empirical Analysis," Chapters, in: Plácido Rodríguez & Stefan Késenne & Brad R. Humphreys (ed.), The Economics of Sport, Health and Happiness, chapter 11, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Gregor Gonza & Anže Burger, 2017. "Subjective Well-Being During the 2008 Economic Crisis: Identification of Mediating and Moderating Factors," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 18(6), pages 1763-1797, December.
    2. Fernando Lera-López & Andrea Ollo-López & José Manuel Sánchez-Santos, 2017. "How Does Physical Activity Make You Feel Better? The Mediational Role of Perceived Health," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 12(3), pages 511-531, September.
    3. Bruno S. Frey & Anthony Gullo, 2021. "Does Sports Make People Happier, or Do Happy People More Sports?," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 22(4), pages 432-458, May.
    4. Iban Ortuzar & Gemma Renart & Angels Xabadia, 2021. "Effects of Public Healthcare Budget Cuts on Life Satisfaction in Spain," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 156(1), pages 311-337, July.
    5. Chris Hand, 2018. "Do the arts make you happy? A quantile regression approach," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 42(2), pages 271-286, May.
    6. Bruno Frey, 2011. "Tullock challenges: happiness, revolutions, and democracy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 148(3), pages 269-281, September.
    7. Marta Portela & Isabel Neira & Maria del Salinas-Jiménez, 2013. "Social Capital and Subjective Wellbeing in Europe: A New Approach on Social Capital," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 114(2), pages 493-511, November.
    8. Köke, Sonja & Perino, Grischa, 2017. "For "better" or "worse": a direct approach to elicit preference rankings from life-satisfaction data," WiSo-HH Working Paper Series 43, University of Hamburg, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences, WISO Research Laboratory.
    9. Sabatini, Fabio, 2014. "The relationship between happiness and health: Evidence from Italy," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 178-187.
    10. Kamal Kasmaoui, 2020. "What makes Moroccans happy: A micro-data study," Working Papers hal-02956855, HAL.
    11. Paul Dolan & Georgios Kavetsos, 2012. "Happy Talk: Mode of Administration Effects on Subjective Well-Being," CEP Discussion Papers dp1159, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    12. Baetschmann, Gregori & Staub, Kevin E. & Studer, Raphael, 2016. "Does the stork deliver happiness? Parenthood and life satisfaction," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 242-260.
    13. Zheng Fang, 2017. "Panel Quantile Regressions and the Subjective Well-Being in Urban China: Evidence from RUMiC Data," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 132(1), pages 11-24, May.
    14. Khadija Shams & Alexander Kadow, 2019. "The Relationship Between Subjective Well-Being and Work–Life Balance Among Labourers in Pakistan," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 40(4), pages 681-690, December.
    15. Cordero, José Manuel & Salinas-Jiménez, Javier & Salinas-Jiménez, M Mar, 2017. "Exploring factors affecting the level of happiness across countries: A conditional robust nonparametric frontier analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 256(2), pages 663-672.
    16. Dolan, Paul & Fujiwara, Daniel & Metcalfe, Robert, 2011. "A step towards valuing utility the marginal and cardinal way," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 121714, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. Bruno S. Frey & Alois Stutzer, 2010. "Happiness: A New Approach in Economics," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 8(4), pages 3-7, 01.
    18. Steffen Lohmann, 2015. "Information technologies and subjective well-being: does the Internet raise material aspirations?," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 67(3), pages 740-759.
    19. Flèche, Sarah, 2015. "Distaste for centralization: evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in Switzerland," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 64999, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. Huang, Haifang & Humphreys, Brad R., 2012. "Sports participation and happiness: Evidence from US microdata," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 776-793.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    happiness; physical activity; sedentarism; antidepressants; cross-country analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:pra:mprapa:67371. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    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.