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Measuring Subjective Wellbeing

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Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics

Abstract

There are two main different views on what subjective wellbeing is, reflected in two different types of measures: the idea that humans experience a flow of “utility” and the idea that individuals now and then evaluate how they are going in life. The first idea is associated with measures of how individuals experience moments or episodes, while the second is associated with evaluative questions about how an individual views their life or some aspect of life. It used to be thought that the two measures would lead to the same advice for individuals and policy makers as to what to do, but it now turns out that the correlation between them is low. In terms of external uses, major life decisions fit the found determinants of evaluations better, but the experience of moments is more useful for predicting immediate reactions. The chapter describes both principles and the measures they lead to, including the measurement of aggregate subjective wellbeing via the WELLBY.

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Acknowledgments

I’d like the thank the four referees and the editor Milena Nikolova for their patience and excellent suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Policy, London School of Economics, London, UK

    Paul Frijters

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  1. Paul Frijters
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Correspondence to Paul Frijters .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. UNU-MERIT & Princeton University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Klaus F. Zimmermann

Section Editor information

  1. Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Milena Nikolova

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Frijters, P. (2021). Measuring Subjective Wellbeing. In: Zimmermann, K.F. (eds) Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57365-6_189-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57365-6_189-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-57365-6

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