1. Well-Being over the Life Span: Semiparametric Evidence from British and German Longitudinal Data
- Author
-
Helmut Küchenhoff, Johannes Schwarze, Christoph Wunder, and Andrea Wiencierz
- Subjects
Economics and Econometrics ,Life span ,Longitudinal data ,subjective well-being, life satisfaction, semiparametric regression, penalized splines ,jel:C23 ,Life satisfaction ,jel:D10 ,British Household Panel Survey ,jel:C14 ,language.human_language ,jel:I31 ,German ,Well-being ,language ,Econometrics ,Semiparametric regression ,Subjective well-being ,Psychology ,Social Sciences (miscellaneous) - Abstract
This paper applies semiparametric regression models using penalized splines to investigate the profile of well-being over the life span. Using data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), the analysis shows a common, and quite similar, age-specific pattern of life satisfaction for both Britain and Germany that can be characterized by three age stages. The evidence suggests that the U-shaped profile is a good approximation of decreasing and increasing well-being in the first and second stage. After people reached their late 60s, however, a decline in well-being is found in the third stage. © 2013 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
- Published
- 2013
- Full Text
- View/download PDF