As Europe is growing together politically and economically, the international perspective is becoming more and more important in social reporting and welfare research. Are there strong differences in the objective living conditions and the subjective well-being between European nations? Do the...

Sorting of people on the labor market not only assures the most productive use of valuable skills but also generates individual utility gains if people experience an optimal match between job characteristics and their preferences. Based on individual data on subjective well-being it is possible...

Using data from the European Social Survey (ESS), we examine the link between income and subjective well-being. We find that, for the whole sample of nineteen European countries, although income is positively correlated with both happiness and life satisfaction, reference income exerts a...

Sorting of people on the labor market not only assures the most productive use of valuable skills but also generates individual utility gains if people experience an optimal match between job characteristics and their preferences. Based on individual data on reported satisfaction with life it is...

This paper asks how income distribution affects individual well-being and tries to explore the idea that this relation depends on the degree of mobility and uncertainty in the economy. It mostly concentrates on the relation between satisfaction and reference income (defined as the income of...

On almost all measures of physical health, Scots fare worse than residents of any other region of the UK and often worse than the rest of Europe. Deaths from chronic liver disease and lung cancer are particularly prevalent in Scotland. The self-assessed wellbeing of Scots is lower than that of...

This paper deals with explaining the sizable differences in the rate of self-employment (business ownership) across 15 European countries in the period 1978-2000, within a framework of occupational choice, focusing on the influence of dissatisfaction and of per capita income. Using two different...

By monitoring the latest developments in living and working conditions and providing timely, in-depth analysis and information in these areas to governments and social partners, Eurofound seeks to contribute to improving the lives of citizens in Europe. The working and living conditions of...

In diesem politischen Kurzbericht werden die Feststellungen zu einem bestimmten Thema der Europäischen Erhebung zur Lebensqualität (EQLS) beleuchtet, das aus politischer Sicht von besonderem Interesse ist. Es werden die Ergebnisse der Analyse dieser Daten und die Erkenntnisse aus anderen...

This article sheds light on the important differences in self-declared happiness across countries of equivalent affluence. It hinges on the different happiness statements of natives and immigrants in a set of European countries to disentangle the influence of objective circumstances versus...