Université de Lausanne
Faculté des
HEC
Département d'économétrie
et d'économie politique
Cahier de recherches économiques du DEEP No. 13.13
Gabriela Flores, Michael Ingenhaag and Jürgen Maurer
September 2013
Abstract
In this paper, we address the relationship between age and several dimension
of subjective well-being. Whilst literature generally finds a U-shaped age-profile
in subjective well-being, this age-pattern might only hold after controlling
for objective life circumstances. The observed U-shaped age-profile might further
not generalize to other dimensions of well-being and might vary across countries
and cultures. Our study examines the relationship between age and several dimensions
of well-being as well as the effect of objective life circumstances using the
WHO Study on Global AGEing and Adult Health (SAGE). Our results suggest a decreasing
age profile in the raw data associated with evaluative well-being, while experienced
well-being shows a rather flat or slightly increasing pattern. However, age
per se is not a cause of a decline in evaluative well-being. The negative age-profile
in evaluative well-being is mainly explained by changes in life circumstances
associated with aging. Controlling for socio-demographic factors, we find higher
levels of well-being for older persons relative to their middle-aged counterparts.
In contrast, we find that changes in life circumstances have a much smaller
effect on experienced well-being.
Keywords: Aging; Subjective Well-being; Low and middle income countries
JEL classification: I31; J14