Statistical quality of subjective wellbeing
Student name: Ms Sanya Sharma
Guide: Dr Shantanu De Roy
Year of completion: 2018
Host Organisation: TERI School of Advanced Studies
Abstract: This study aims at developing the understanding of objective and subjective aspect of human wellbeing. Recent researches on subjective wellbeing have started focussing on finding the correlates of subjective wellbeing so as to from better policies. Subjective wellbeing is measured in this study in the terms of happiness, which is measured on a scale of 0-5. It looks into the dynamic relationship between the objective measures of wellbeing and subjective measure of wellbeing at a particular point of time (using ordered logit model) as well as over the period of time (using logit model). Here, we do not construct the measure of happiness using objective measures of wellbeing but are used to explain variation in overall happiness. We found no significant impact of sociodemographic factors except household size on happiness but significant effect of current level of income, social connections, comparison of income with others and health. However, over the period of time only health was found to be a significant determinant of change in happiness, other significant determinants found in the empirical analyses by directly asking people for change in the level of happiness were positive & negative events, financial burden and social connections.
Key words: Subjective, objective, happiness, wellbeing, sociodemographic, logit.
