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Studies

Boyce & Wood (2011): study DE 2005

Publication

Author(s):
Boyce, C.J.; Wood, A.M.
Title:
Personality and the Marginal Utility of Income: Personality Interacts with Increases in Household Income to Determine Life Satisfaction.
Source:
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2011, Vol. 78, 183 - 191

Investigation

Public
17-96 aged, general public Germany, followed 4 years 2005-2008
Survey name
DE-SOEP combined waves
Sample
Probability multi-stage cluster sample
Respondents
N = 54460
Non Response
Assessment
Interview: Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI)

Happiness Measure(s) and Distributional Findings

Full text:
Self report on single question:

Taking all things together, how satisfied are you with your life these days? Please answer with the help of this scale. For instance, when you are totally satisfied with your life, please tick '10'. When you are totally unsatisfied with your life, please tick '0'. You may use all values in between to indicate that you are neither totally satisfied nor totally unsatisfied."
10 totally satisfied
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0  totally unsatisfied
Classification:
O-SLW-c-sq-n-11-d
Observed distribution
Summary Statistics
On original range 0 - 10 On range 0-10
Mean:
6.94 6.94
SD:
1.75 1.75

Correlational Findings

Author's label Subject Description Finding Montly household income (log) Change in income level
Household income
Household size (log) Number of persons in household Marital status Married state (compared to non-married states)
Married (vs never married)
Never married (vs widowed)
Never married (vs divorced)
Never married (vs separated)
Employment status Current employment status
Unemployed involuntary
Current status: retired or not
Disability status Disability Child dummy Children in the household Personality variables Agreeing, yea-saying
Conscientious
Extraverted
Neurotic
Open