A Well-Being Snapshot in a Changing World

Abstract

Although technology-driven economic growth generates gains in consumption and employment opportunities, it may also negatively impact other dimensions of well-being, such as emotional well-being or sense of stability. We study 204 aspects of self-reported well-being among 1,576 US MTurk survey respondents, aggregated into seven themes: evaluative well-being, emotional well-being, positive perceptions of technology or economic growth, autonomy and flexibility, work environment, feelings of calmness and stability, and feelings of belonging and connection. Demographic associations with aspects of well-being vary somewhat across the themes. We highlight the value of a multidimensional approach when comparing well-being across different groups in the United States.

The Baby Year Parental Leave Reform in the GDR and its Impact on Children's Long-Term Life Satisfaction

“…First, child psychology literature suggests that spending more time with the mother within the first year of life has a positive impact on a child's personality development (Bowlby 1969). Second, well-being has become an important outcome variable in recent economic literature (e.g., Kahneman and Krueger, 2006;Clark et al, 2008;Deaton and Stone, 2013;Benjamin et al, 2019). Third, literature shows that subjective well-being is an important and more direct way to measure welfare.…”

“…Our paper contributes to the literature in at least three different ways. First and foremost, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study analyzing long-term effects of parental leave reforms on subjective well-being, although recent economic literature increasingly focuses on these measures (e.g., Kahneman and Krueger, 2006;Clark et al, 2008;Deaton and Stone, 2013;Benjamin et al, 2019). Specifically, we measure overall life satisfaction when individuals are 19 to 37 years old, that is, we investigate whether extending parental leave in the first year of life has a long-term impact.…”

The ethical debate about the gig economy: A review and critical analysis

“…Moreover, the same narrative presumes that flexibility is an end in itself-rather than a means to other ends, such as the ability to exercise one's own autonomy-and that it is useful and beneficial for all gig workers, even though for some it can be detrimental to their psychological well-being (Lewchuk 2017;Berger et al 2019;Benjamin et al 2019). Practically, flexibility of work is constrained, for example by timing of job posts, which affects particularly for workers in different time zones (De Stefano 2016b;Gupta et al 2014), or by the competition among workers to be assigned jobs.…”

Happiness in the Lab: What Can Be Learned About Subjective Well-Being from Experiments?

“…More recently, Benjamin, Cooper, Heffetz, and Kimball (2019) perform an internet survey that asks participants to rate 204 aspects of well-being within seven well-being "themes" -(i) satisfaction, (ii) affect, (iii) growth, (iv) autonomy, (v) job, (vi) calmness, and (vii) belonging. This work continues to highlight that the perceived importance of subsets of well-being differs across sociodemographic groups.…”