Working time arrangements determine, to a large extent, the successful balancing of work and family life. This study investigates the role of working time preferences and hours mismatch for well-being among couples. The empirical evidence indicates that well-being is generally lower among those...

A continuous and a discrete rating scale were implemented for a single item happiness question in a representative survey. A randomized controlled experiment enables unique analyses on data quality and distributions, which suggest superiority of the continuous scale. Results raise doubts about...

People gain utility from occupying a higher ranked position in the income distribution of the reference group. This paper investigates whether these gains depend on an individual's set of non-cognitive skills. Using the 2000-2008 waves of the German Socioeconomic Panel dataset (SOEP), a...

This paper constructs an index that synthesizes the eight targets of the EU 2020 Strategy into a one-dimensional target –EU 2020 synthetic target- and the situation of each EU28 Member States (the current 27 Members plus Croatia) in 2011 with respect to them –2011 synthetic situation-. Hence...

Given the increasingly prominent role the Internet plays in people's daily life, understanding its influence on individual well-being is crucial. Internet use yields direct utility and economic returns that may increase life satisfaction. But the Internet might also have detrimental effects...

We propose a measure of life satisfaction, alternative to the standard synthetic cognitive wellbeing question, based on the specific contribution of eleven life satisfaction sub-components (including satisfaction about the past, life opportunities, hope for the future, vitality, control over...

This paper uses repeated cross-section data ISSP data from 1989, 1997 and 2005 to consider movements in job quality. It is first underlined that not having a job when you want one is a major source of low well-being. Second, job values have remained fairly stable over time, although workers seem...

We look for evidence of habituation in twenty waves of German panel data: do individuals, after life and labour market events, tend to return to some baseline level of wellbeing? Although the strongest life satisfaction effect is often at the time of the event, we find significant lag and lead...