Subjective well-being across the lifespan in Europe and Central Asia

Publication Type

Journal contribution (peer reviewed)

Authors

Bauer, JM/Levin, V/Munoz Boudet, AM/Nie, P/Sousa-Poza, A

Year of publication

2017

Published in

Journal of Population Ageing

Band/Volume

10(2)/

DOI

10.1007/s12062-016-9148-0

Page (from - to)

125-158

This paper uses data from the Integrated Values Survey, the Life in Transition Survey, and the Russia Longitudi-nal Monitoring Survey to analyze the relation between age and subjective well-being in the Europe and Central Asia region. Although the results generally confirm the find-ings of previous studies of a U-shaped relation between subjective well-being and age for most of the lifecycle, the paper also finds that well-being declines again after people reach their 60s and 70s, giving rise to an S-shaped relation across the entire lifespan. This pattern generally remains robust for most of the cross-sectional and panel analyses. Hence, despite significant heterogeneity in the pattern of well-being across the lifespan in the Europe and Central Asia region, the paper does not observe high levels of cross-country or cross-cohort variation.