The two sources for our empirical analysis are the European Social Survey (ESS) and the European Statistics on Income and Living Conditions survey ("Eu-Silc") coordinated by Eurostat. The ESS is an international academic research programme, conducted in Europe every two years, recognised as a research infrastructure by the European Union and since 2013. The survey detects socio-demographic data and social and political preferences of citizens from more than 30 nations.
The EU-Silc database focuses mainly on the topics of income, poverty, social exclusion, and quality of life of families, with the aim of providing comparable data across countries over time. The ESS database is much richer in terms of social variables and therefore allows us to construct indicators of generativity that are not available in the Eu-Silc survey.
Testing our hypothesis on the value of relationships for Italians using both databases offers an interesting opportunity to verify whether our results are conditioned by the specific characteristics of a single survey.
4.1 Descriptive findings from the European Social Survey
We build the generativity variable in the ESS database as a combination of two factors: creativity and caring for the well-being of others, following the approach of Becchetti and Conzo (2022) who study its impact on subjective wellbeing of the European population. The rationale for using the product between the two variables is that creativity without passion for others does not produce actions with social and environmental impact and therefore generative effects, while passion for others without creativity does not produce impactful actions due to the lack of the second ingredient. As shown by Becchetti and Conzo (2022) generativity is something different from the two benchmarks of other-regarding preferences in the economic literature such as pure altruism and warm glow (Andreoni, 1989 ad 1990). With pure altruism individual satisfaction grows for positive changes in the utility of other human beings, even when the latter have not been caused by one’s own action. With warm glow individual satisfaction depends on one’s own amount of giving irrespective of the outcome of that action. With generativity satisfaction depends on the expected fruits of one’s own action in terms of present and future expected increase of utility of other human beings.
In more detail, the first component of our generativity indicator, the caring for the well-being of others variable, is based on the answer to the question "important to help people and care for the well-being of others", where the possible answers are related to the degree of identification of the respondent (a lot like me, like me, somewhat like me, a little like me, not like me, not at all like me). The second component represented by the creativity variable is based on the response to the question "important to think of new ideas and be creative", and again the possible responses are related to the degree of identification of the respondent and identical to those of the previous variable. By assigning decreasing values from one to six for each answer according to the degree of identification (6 = maximum, up to 1 = minimum) we construct the variable generativity as the average of the two answers. The distribution of the variable is asymmetric with generally high values and a mode around the value of 5 (Fig. 1).
The variable intensity of relational life in the ESS database is based on the question concerning frequency of meetings with friends, family and colleagues at social events (hence non-work related in the case of colleagues). More specifically, the question is "how often do you meet socially with friends, family or colleagues" and the possible answers are (never, less than once a month, once a month, several times a month, once a week, several times a week, every day).
Again, we observe an asymmetric distribution of the variable with modal point shifted to the right (Fig. 2). The best option is, as expected, many times a week, but a non-negligible part of the respondents indicate no more than once a month (around 20%) and around 40% indicate less than once a week.
In this first descriptive phase of our research, we compare these distributions with that of life satisfaction in Italy (Fig. 3) ("all things considered, how satisfied are you with your life?"). As is known, this is the most widespread measure of happiness, the cognitive measure where the respondent is asked to think about his or her satisfaction with life. The approach differs from that of positive and negative affect where the question asks how happy or, on the contrary, how depressed people have felt in recent times, and from the opposite of eudaimonic well-being captured by the question about the meaning of life. As is well known, the question on reported life satisfaction can have answers in a range of values between 0 and 10 and our descriptive findings indicate that the distribution of subjective well-being in our country has the traditional asymmetric conformation with mode around the value of 8 (Fig. 3).
In Fig. 4.1 we create two subsamples of individuals with high and low frequency of relationships and overlay the distributions of life satisfaction for the two subsamples. In more detail, the sample of respondents with low frequency of relationships includes those who report a frequency of less than once a week (i.e. never, less than once a month, several times a month), while the sample of respondents with high frequency of relationships includes relationships who report several times a week or every day. The brown areas in the figure correspond to areas present in both distributions, the green to areas present only in the distribution of individuals with high frequency of relationships, and the pink areas only in the distribution of individuals with low frequency of relationships. As is clear from the figure, the areas of non-overlap are pronounced and the subsample of individuals with a high frequency of relationships has a much higher percentage of individuals reporting very high levels of life satisfaction, and a much lower percentage of individuals reporting very low levels of life satisfaction, compared to the subsample of individuals with a low frequency of relationships. In more detail, among those with a high frequency of relationships there is an 18 percent higher sample with life satisfaction levels of 10 and about 10 percent of the sample with life satisfaction levels equal to nine compared to the subsample of those with a low frequency of relationships. The Epp-Singleton test obviously rejects the null hypothesis that the two distributions are equal (W2 227.39 well above the critical threshold of 7.779). Repeating the analysis over the entire sample of ESS countries, we find very similar dynamics and results (Fig. 4.2).
In Fig. 5.1 we repeat the same exercise for the two subsamples of individuals with high and low generativity (high generativity if the value of the variable is above 5, low generativity if it is below 4.5). The areas of difference between the life satisfaction distributions for the two subsamples are also pronounced in this case and in favour of the sample of highly generative individuals who have a higher proportion (corresponding to around 15 percent of all respondents) reporting the highest level of life satisfaction (10). Again in this case the Epps Singleton test indicates that the null hypothesis of equality of life satisfaction distributions between individuals in the two (high and low generativity) samples is rejected (W2 132.85 well above the critical threshold of 7.779). Again, repeating the exercise for the broader set of respondents, including all European Social Survey countries, yields very similar results (Fig. 5.2).
The choice of the delimitation of the two sub-samples of high and low generativity (and high and low relationship intensity) is obviously arbitrary but the modifications of the threshold around those chosen do not change the essence of the finding (results omitted for reasons of space and available on request).
4.2 Econometric findings from the ESS sample
Descriptive findings on the comparison of conditional distributions provide relevant insights on the correlation among generativity, intensity of relational life and happiness.
The multivariate analysis that follows allows us to verify whether the relationships are significant after controlling for other relevant factors that typically affect subjective well-being such as, among others, age, educational level, marital status and employment status.
The estimated model is:
where the dependent variable (Life_Sat) is the standard cognitive measure of subjective wellbeing, with possible answers in the (0–10) discrete value range. Our main regressors of interest are generativity (the arithmetic mean of answers to the question on creativity and passion for others) and intensity of relational life, the latter variable being created from the question on how often the respondent meets with friends, family and colleagues in social life, where the possible answers are never, less than once a month, once a month, several times a month, once a week, several times a week, every day.
Control variables include a 0/1 dummy variable with a unit value for male gender dummy. Age is introduced in the estimation in a non-linear way (age level and age squared) to test the hypothesis of a U-shaped effect of age on life satisfaction (Blanchflower, 2012). Other controls in the estimation are dummies for ISCED education levels, dummies for income deciles, the number of members in the respondent’s household (NHMembers) and dummy variables measuring employment status (paid worker, retired, unemployed, inactive, disabled, in education) and marital status (married/civil union, separated, widowed, never married with divorced being the omitted benchmark). The set of regressors is completed by dummies capturing regional effects.
The legend of the ESS variables used in the econometric analysis is in Table 1, while descriptive statistics are presented in Table 2. The overall statistical base of around nine thousand observations is reduced in the estimates when we eliminate observations with missing data on variables relevant to us such as income, marital status and employment status (Table 2). The average level of life satisfaction in the sample is 6.8, the sample is gender-balanced (around 48 percent males) and the average age is around 50 years. Graduates are about 13 per cent.
Table 1: Variable legend
Relational life intensity
|
"how often do you meet socially with friends, family or colleagues" at social events (never=1, less than once a month=2, once a month=3, several times a month=4, once a week=5, several times a week=6, every day=7)
|
Generativity
|
Arithmetic mean of answers to the following two questions: i)"important to help people and care for the well-being of others" (a lot like me=6, like me, somewhat like me, a little like me, not like me, not at all like me=1) ; ii) "important to think of new ideas and be creative" (a lot like me=6, like me, somewhat like me, a little like me, not like me, not at all like me=1)
|
Female
|
(0/1) dummy taking value one if the respondent is female
|
Age
|
Respondent age
|
Life Satisfaction
|
Answer to the question “how satisfied with life as a whole” 0n a 0-10 scale
|
Income class
|
Placement of respondent household total net income in one of the income deciles of the country (1=lowest, 10=highest)
|
ISCED education dummies
|
ES-ISCED I , less than lower secondary, ES-ISCED II, lower secondary, ES-ISCED III, lower tier upper, ES-ISCED IV, upper tier upper secondary; ES-ISCED V, advanced vocational, ES-ISCED VI, lower tertiary education, ES-ISCED VII, higher tertiary education.
|
Household members
|
Number of household members
|
Marital status dummies
|
(0/1) dummies picking up the following marital status conditions: married/civil union, separated, divorced, widowed, never married
|
Employment status
|
(0/1) dummies picking up the following employment status conditions: student, unemployed, inactive, paid worker, houseworker, disabled.
|
Table 2: Descriptive Statistics – European Social Survey
Variable
|
Obs
|
Mean
|
Std.dev.
|
Min
|
Max
|
Life Satisfaction
|
8791
|
6.865
|
2.056
|
0
|
10
|
Generativity
|
6218
|
4.440
|
1.001
|
0
|
6
|
Male
|
8971
|
0.478
|
0.500
|
0
|
1
|
Age
|
8873
|
50.196
|
19.065
|
15
|
98
|
ISCED Education level
|
|
|
|
|
|
Less than lower secondary
|
6264
|
0.136
|
0.323
|
0
|
1
|
Lower secondary education
|
6264
|
0.311
|
0.463
|
0
|
1
|
Lower tier upper education
|
6264
|
0.069
|
0.253
|
0
|
1
|
Upper tier upper secondary
Education
|
6264
|
0.322
|
0.467
|
0
|
1
|
Advanced vocational
|
6264
|
0.026
|
0.158
|
0
|
1
|
Lower tertiary education
|
6264
|
0.039
|
0.193
|
0
|
1
|
Higher tertiary education
|
6264
|
0.098
|
0.297
|
0
|
1
|
Income class 1
|
5240
|
0.074
|
0.317
|
0
|
1
|
Income class 2
|
5240
|
0.139
|
0.346
|
0
|
1
|
Income class 3
|
5240
|
0.158
|
0.365
|
0
|
1
|
Income class 4
|
5240
|
0.134
|
0.340
|
0
|
1
|
Income class 5
|
5240
|
0.107
|
0.309
|
0
|
1
|
Income class 6
|
5240
|
0.109
|
0.311
|
0
|
1
|
Income class 7
|
5240
|
0.119
|
0.324
|
0
|
1
|
Income class 8
|
5240
|
0.076
|
0.265
|
0
|
1
|
Income class 9
|
5240
|
0.053
|
0.225
|
0
|
1
|
Income class 10
|
5240
|
0.031
|
0.172
|
0
|
1
|
Number of family members
|
8847
|
2.698
|
1.264
|
1
|
10
|
Retired
|
8971
|
0.227
|
0.419
|
0
|
1
|
Student
|
8971
|
0.096
|
0.294
|
0
|
1
|
Unemployed
|
08971
|
0.072
|
0.259
|
0
|
1
|
Out of Labour force
|
8971
|
0.025
|
0.157
|
0
|
1
|
Paid worker
|
8971
|
0.468
|
0.499
|
0
|
1
|
Housework
|
8971
|
0.100
|
0.301
|
0
|
1
|
Disabled
|
8971
|
0.008
|
0.089
|
0
|
1
|
Married/civil union
|
8971
|
0.501
|
0.500
|
0
|
1
|
Separated
|
8971
|
0.051
|
0.221
|
0
|
1
|
Widowed
|
8971
|
0.077
|
0.267
|
0
|
1
|
Divorced
|
8971
|
0.051
|
0.317
|
0
|
1
|
Never married
|
8971
|
0.319
|
0.466
|
0
|
1
|
Wave 6
|
8971
|
0.107
|
0.309
|
0
|
1
|
Wave 8
|
8971
|
0.293
|
0.455
|
0
|
1
|
Wave 9
|
8971
|
0.306
|
0.461
|
0
|
1
|
Wave 10
|
8971
|
0.294
|
0.456
|
0
|
1
|
Table 3 Econometric findings (ESS survey)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(1)
|
(2)
|
(3)
|
(4)
|
|
|
|
|
|
VARIABLES
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Intensity of relational life
|
|
|
0.244***
|
|
|
|
|
(0.0257)
|
|
Generativity
|
|
|
0.264***
|
|
|
|
|
(0.0428)
|
|
Meet friends, family, colleagues in social events
|
|
|
|
|
Less than once a month
|
|
|
|
0.783***
|
|
|
|
|
(0.296)
|
once a month
|
|
|
|
1.498***
|
|
|
|
|
(0.299)
|
Several times a month
|
|
|
|
1.538***
|
|
|
|
|
(0.279)
|
Once a week
|
|
|
|
1.541***
|
|
|
|
|
(0.281)
|
Several times a week
|
|
|
|
1.837***
|
|
|
|
|
(0.275)
|
Every day
|
|
|
|
2.101***
|
|
|
|
|
(0.288)
|
Generativity index 3.5-4.5
|
|
|
|
0.483***
|
|
|
|
|
(0.143)
|
Generativity index > 4.5
|
|
|
|
0.762***
|
|
|
|
|
(0.148)
|
Male
|
0.0986*
|
0.0725
|
0.0357
|
0.0152
|
|
(0.0564)
|
(0.0713)
|
(0.0704)
|
(0.0700)
|
Age
|
-0.0118
|
-0.0224*
|
-0.0513***
|
-0.0569***
|
|
(0.00797)
|
(0.0134)
|
(0.0146)
|
(0.0145)
|
[Age]2
|
2.28e-05
|
0.000107
|
0.000364**
|
0.000416***
|
|
(7.88e-05)
|
(0.000139)
|
(0.000146)
|
(0.000145)
|
_Ihighisced_2 (lower secondary)
|
|
0.308**
|
0.217
|
0.215
|
|
|
(0.148)
|
(0.142)
|
(0.142)
|
_Ihighisced_3 lower tier upper secondary
|
|
0.435**
|
0.387**
|
0.368**
|
|
|
(0.184)
|
(0.179)
|
(0.180)
|
_Ihighisced_4 upper tier upper secondary
|
|
0.487***
|
0.333**
|
0.342**
|
|
|
(0.152)
|
(0.148)
|
(0.148)
|
_Ihighisced_5(advanced vocational)
|
|
0.512*
|
0.364
|
0.412
|
|
|
(0.264)
|
(0.262)
|
(0.262)
|
_Ihighisced_6 (lower tertiary)
|
|
0.831***
|
0.647***
|
0.663***
|
|
|
(0.199)
|
(0.198)
|
(0.198)
|
_Ihighisced_7 (higher tertiary)
|
|
0.648***
|
0.484***
|
0.523***
|
|
|
(0.171)
|
(0.171)
|
(0.171)
|
Income decile 2
|
0.479***
|
0.130
|
-0.0286
|
-0.0557
|
|
(0.169)
|
(0.196)
|
(0.187)
|
(0.186)
|
Income decile 3
|
0.606***
|
0.122
|
-0.0582
|
-0.0958
|
|
(0.162)
|
(0.190)
|
(0.181)
|
(0.180)
|
Income decile 4
|
1.015***
|
0.497***
|
0.359**
|
0.312*
|
|
(0.163)
|
(0.192)
|
(0.183)
|
(0.182)
|
Income decile 5
|
1.160***
|
0.688***
|
0.489***
|
0.453**
|
|
(0.163)
|
(0.194)
|
(0.184)
|
(0.183)
|
Income decile 6
|
1.296***
|
0.727***
|
0.493***
|
0.442**
|
|
(0.164)
|
(0.196)
|
(0.188)
|
(0.187)
|
Income decile 7
|
1.432***
|
0.756***
|
0.450**
|
0.408**
|
|
(0.158)
|
(0.191)
|
(0.183)
|
(0.182)
|
Income decile 8
|
1.603***
|
1.002***
|
0.772***
|
0.726***
|
|
(0.166)
|
(0.197)
|
(0.191)
|
(0.189)
|
Income decile 9
|
1.793***
|
1.144***
|
0.866***
|
0.812***
|
|
(0.170)
|
(0.210)
|
(0.203)
|
(0.203)
|
Income decile 10
|
1.534***
|
0.977***
|
0.722***
|
0.670***
|
|
(0.202)
|
(0.245)
|
(0.241)
|
(0.240)
|
Number of household members
|
|
0.0998***
|
0.0166
|
0.0115
|
|
|
(0.0331)
|
(0.0351)
|
(0.0353)
|
Retired
|
|
0.165
|
0.0901
|
0.0833
|
|
|
(0.248)
|
(0.233)
|
(0.231)
|
In education
|
|
-0.0373
|
-0.113
|
-0.123
|
|
|
(0.241)
|
(0.233)
|
(0.232)
|
Unemployed
|
|
-1.128***
|
-1.134***
|
-1.135***
|
|
|
(0.261)
|
(0.249)
|
(0.246)
|
Inactive
|
|
-0.444
|
-0.343
|
-0.308
|
|
|
(0.320)
|
(0.301)
|
(0.300)
|
Paid worker
|
|
-0.0822
|
-0.0716
|
-0.0813
|
|
|
(0.222)
|
(0.209)
|
(0.208)
|
Huseworker
|
|
-0.0459
|
-0.171
|
-0.193
|
|
|
(0.230)
|
(0.215)
|
(0.214)
|
Disabled
|
|
-0.526
|
-0.541
|
-0.578
|
|
|
(0.484)
|
(0.440)
|
(0.444)
|
Married
|
|
|
0.609*
|
0.590*
|
|
|
|
(0.323)
|
(0.329)
|
Separated
|
|
|
-0.183
|
-0.188
|
|
|
|
(0.345)
|
(0.349)
|
Widowed
|
|
|
0.129
|
0.127
|
|
|
|
(0.359)
|
(0.363)
|
Never married
|
|
|
-0.195
|
-0.198
|
|
|
|
(0.318)
|
(0.323)
|
Wave 6
|
-0.140
|
-0.262**
|
-0.386***
|
-0.366***
|
|
(0.110)
|
(0.111)
|
(0.110)
|
(0.110)
|
Wave 8
|
-0.0641
|
-0.0712
|
-0.0912
|
-0.0962
|
|
(0.0744)
|
(0.0743)
|
(0.0717)
|
(0.0717)
|
Wave 10
|
0.0943
|
|
|
|
|
(0.0712)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Regional dummies
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
|
|
|
|
Constant
|
6.420***
|
6.674***
|
5.372***
|
5.794***
|
|
(0.233)
|
(0.415)
|
(0.567)
|
(0.580)
|
Observations
|
5,134
|
3,543
|
3,496
|
3,496
|
R-squared
|
0.070
|
0.096
|
0.160
|
0.165
|
Robust standard errors in parentheses
|
|
|
*** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1
|
|
|
|
Omitted benchmarks: Divorced, lowest income decile, never meets friends, family or social colleagues, less than lower secondary education (all columns). Wave 9, Generativity <3.5 (in column 4), never meet socially with friends, family or colleagues (in column 4)
Econometric findings presented in Table 3 show that our main variables of interest (intensity of relational life and generativity) are strongly positive and significant. Estimates in columns 1 and 2 have standard controls and are without relational life and generativity variables that are introduced in column 3. The coefficients of the last two variables are positive and strongly significant and overall goodness of fit of the estimates jumps from 9 to 16 percent. In the last specification (column 4) we introduce different relational life dummies for any different declared relational life intensity and see that coefficient magnitude is higher as far as relational life intensity grows.
Findings on regression controls are consistent with consolidated evidence in the literature as shown by the significant and positive role of income (in our case all income deciles higher than the first one omitted in the estimation have positive and progressively increasing effects on life satisfaction compared to the first income class), the level of education (also in this case the association with life satisfaction is increasingly positive as the level of education increases) and the negative and significant effect of unemployment status. The significant coefficient of age levels and the negative coefficient of age squared confirm the non-linear relationship highlighted several times in the literature (Blanchflower, 2012). In terms of magnitude, it is interesting to note that the coefficients of the generativity variable and the quality of relationships are analogous to the effect of a transition from the last income decile to the fourth income decile. It should be noted that in the first case we use a discrete variable and therefore it is the impact of a one unit increase of the variable with respect to its average.
Re-estimating the model using a dummy variable for each different relationship intensity variable, we find that moving from the lowest to the highest level is associated with a difference of two happiness points, three times the effect of moving from the lowest to the highest level in income and corresponding to slightly less than one standard variation of the life satisfaction variable (column 4). Dividing generativity into three categories, we also observe that the transition from the lowest to the highest level of generativity has an impact equivalent to that of the transition from the lowest to the highest level of income.
4.3 Descriptive findings from the Eu-Silc survey
We perform the same empirical analyses on the Eu-Silc survey. The distribution on reported life satisfaction (the question is identical to that in the ESS questionnaire) is very similar with modal values around 7 and 8 and an asymmetric distribution (Fig. 6). Conversely, the question about relational life is quite different from the ESS. More specifically, we use here two main questions: i) the frequency of social encounters with friends, family and colleagues as in ESS, but collected in Eu-silc as a strict dichotomous variable (yes or no); ii) a question about loneliness, whose distribution of responses reveal that a very significant part of the respondents (more than 50 per cent) have never felt lonely during the last four weeks (Fig. 7).
As in the previous section, in Fig. 8 we compare the distributions of those who report very low values of loneliness (never felt lonely in the last four weeks), and those who report higher values of loneliness (i.e. those who report feeling lonely some time in the last four weeks), as well as the distribution of those who report to meet family and friends at least once a month and those who don’t (Fig. 9). The difference between the two distributions shows again a quite clear cut, confirming the results obtained with the European Social Survey. Again, the subsample of individuals with a high intensity of relationships or never feeling alone has a much higher percentage of individuals reporting very high levels of life satisfaction, and a much lower percentage of individuals reporting very low levels of life satisfaction, compared to the subsample of individuals with a lower intensity of relationships.
4.4 Econometric findings from the Eu-Silc survey
The econometric analysis on the Eu-Silc data is carried out with a specification as similar as possible to that of the ESS, but taking into account the differences in some variables between the two surveys. The specification adopted in this case is:
where the dependent variable is identical to that of the ESS sample (the life satisfaction question with values from 0 to 10).
The main regressors of interest measuring relational life differ from ESS because the questions relating to this area are different in the two surveys. Namely, these are relationship intensity and a dichotomous variable on whether one meet friends and relatives at least once a month.
Regression controls exactly match those of the ESS when considering the gender dummy, age and age squared, number of household members, dummy variables for educational level and family status, income deciles and dummy variables capturing regional effects (Table 4).
Table 4
Legend of EU SILC variables
Variable
|
Definition
|
life satisfaction
|
answer to the question “how satisfied with life as a whole” 0n a 0–10 scale
|
Female
|
(0/1) dummy taking value one if the respondent is female
|
Age
|
Respondent age
|
Household members
|
Number of household members
|
education level
|
no education; primary; lower secondary; lower tier upper secondary ; upper tier upper secondary; tertiary education; higher tertiary education; post graduate
|
marital status
|
never married; married; separated /divorced; widowed
|
people to rely on
|
excluding those who are living with you, currently do you have relatives or friend to rely on?
|
relationship intensity
|
in the last 4 weeks, for how long did you feel alone? Always/ almost always/ sometimes/ almost never/ never
|
social exclusion
|
generally speaking, how much do you feel socially excluded? Give a rate from 1 to 10
|
meet friends and relatives
|
Do you meet with family and/or friends to drink or eat together at least once a month? Yes/no
|
employment status
|
employed; retired; unemployed; inactive; housework; inable to work
|
household disposable income
|
decile of household disposable income
|
The descriptive table of variables used in the econometric analysis (Table 5) indicates that in the EU silc survey average life satisfaction is slightly higher 7.04, also average age is slightly higher (around 55 years) and gender is balanced as in ESS (54 per cent female). Graduates are around 14 per cent. The sample size is more than three times wider than ESS.
Table 5
Descriptive statistics – EUSILC
Variable
|
Obs
|
Mean
|
Std. Dev.
|
Min
|
Max
|
life satisfaction
|
29,183
|
7.042
|
1.824
|
0
|
10
|
age
|
29,183
|
55.687
|
18.086
|
16
|
103
|
% female
|
29,183
|
0.548
|
0.498
|
0
|
1
|
Household members
|
29,183
|
2.422
|
1.230
|
1
|
9
|
education level
|
|
|
|
|
|
no education
|
29,183
|
0.028
|
0.165
|
0
|
1
|
primary
|
29,183
|
0.153
|
0.360
|
0
|
1
|
lower secondary
|
29,183
|
0.277
|
0.448
|
0
|
1
|
lower tier upper secondary
|
29,183
|
0.074
|
0.261
|
0
|
1
|
upper tier upper secondary
|
29,183
|
0.322
|
0.467
|
0
|
1
|
higher tertiary education;
|
29,183
|
0.122
|
0.328
|
0
|
1
|
post graduate
|
29,183
|
0.024
|
0.153
|
0
|
1
|
marital status
|
|
|
|
|
|
never married
|
29,183
|
0.279
|
0.449
|
0
|
1
|
married
|
29,183
|
0.506
|
0.500
|
0
|
1
|
separated /divorced
|
29,183
|
0.090
|
0.286
|
0
|
1
|
widowed
|
29,183
|
0.125
|
0.330
|
0
|
1
|
people to rely on
|
29,081
|
0.842
|
0.365
|
0
|
1
|
relationship intensity
|
28,179
|
4.215
|
0.966
|
1
|
5
|
social exclusion
|
28,839
|
1.893
|
2.430
|
0
|
10
|
employment status
|
|
|
|
|
employed
|
28,209
|
0.484
|
0.500
|
0
|
1
|
retired
|
28,209
|
0.329
|
0.470
|
0
|
1
|
unemployed
|
28,209
|
0.049
|
0.215
|
0
|
1
|
inactive
|
28,209
|
0.026
|
0.159
|
0
|
1
|
housework
|
28,209
|
0.105
|
0.307
|
0
|
1
|
unable to work
|
28,209
|
0.007
|
0.081
|
0
|
1
|
decile of household
disposable income
|
|
|
|
1
|
29,183
|
0.121
|
0.326
|
0
|
1
|
2
|
29,183
|
0.117
|
0.322
|
0
|
1
|
3
|
29,183
|
0.115
|
0.318
|
0
|
1
|
4
|
29,183
|
0.104
|
0.305
|
0
|
1
|
5
|
29,183
|
0.101
|
0.301
|
0
|
1
|
6
|
29,183
|
0.091
|
0.288
|
0
|
1
|
7
|
29,183
|
0.090
|
0.286
|
0
|
1
|
8
|
29,183
|
0.089
|
0.284
|
0
|
1
|
9
|
29,183
|
0.086
|
0.280
|
0
|
1
|
10
|
29,183
|
0.087
|
0.282
|
0
|
1
|
Results of our econometric findings (Table 6) show a striking similarity in the effect of our main variables of interest (intensity of relational life and loneliness) on life satisfaction and the same relationship tested in the ESS sample. Namely, relational life has an effect three times larger than that of the transition from the bottom to the top income decile, exactly as in the case of the estimation based on ESS data. Indeed, column 1 and 2 test the effects of meet friends and relatives on life satisfaction, which is between 1.5 and 1.6, three times higher than being in the top decile (0.5). The latter result holds in column 3 and 4 where the effect of relationship intensity (never feeling alone) on life satisfaction is tested; again coefficients of never felt lonely vary between 1.2 and 1.7, three times higher than the transition between the bottom and the top decile (0.5).
Table 6
Econometric findings (EU-Silc survey)
|
(1)
|
(2)
|
(3)
|
(4)
|
VARIABLES
|
life sat
|
life sat
|
life sat
|
life sat
|
age
|
-0.028***
|
-0.018***
|
-0.012
|
-0.020***
|
|
(0.004)
|
(0.006)
|
(0.008)
|
(0.006)
|
age squared
|
0.000***
|
0.000**
|
0.000
|
0.000**
|
|
(0.000)
|
(0.000)
|
(0.000)
|
(0.000)
|
female
|
0.012
|
0.023
|
0.011
|
0.001
|
|
(0.030)
|
(0.032)
|
(0.023)
|
(0.020)
|
households members
|
-0.028**
|
-0.009
|
-0.077***
|
-0.067***
|
|
(0.013)
|
(0.013)
|
(0.013)
|
(0.012)
|
primary education
|
0.063
|
0.031
|
0.026
|
-0.016
|
|
(0.073)
|
(0.071)
|
(0.095)
|
(0.082)
|
lower secondary
|
0.255***
|
0.218***
|
0.215**
|
0.126
|
|
(0.071)
|
(0.071)
|
(0.097)
|
(0.085)
|
lower tier upper secondary
|
0.363***
|
0.346***
|
0.412***
|
0.280***
|
|
(0.074)
|
(0.074)
|
(0.106)
|
(0.091)
|
upper tier upper secondary
|
0.524***
|
0.511***
|
0.547***
|
0.369***
|
|
(0.073)
|
(0.072)
|
(0.098)
|
(0.094)
|
higher tertiary education
|
0.738***
|
0.726***
|
0.778***
|
0.570***
|
|
(0.092)
|
(0.090)
|
(0.134)
|
(0.122)
|
post graduate
|
0.715***
|
0.697***
|
0.724***
|
0.549***
|
|
(0.093)
|
(0.096)
|
(0.130)
|
(0.119)
|
married
|
0.239***
|
0.189***
|
0.096***
|
0.128***
|
|
(0.040)
|
(0.038)
|
(0.028)
|
(0.028)
|
separated/divroced
|
-0.155***
|
-0.179***
|
-0.124**
|
-0.109*
|
|
(0.042)
|
(0.041)
|
(0.051)
|
(0.056)
|
widowed
|
-0.139***
|
-0.179***
|
0.071*
|
0.042
|
|
(0.039)
|
(0.036)
|
(0.040)
|
(0.044)
|
people to rely on
|
0.572***
|
0.582***
|
0.502***
|
0.246
|
|
(0.110)
|
(0.110)
|
(0.139)
|
(0.148)
|
meet friends and relatives
|
1.612***
|
1.495***
|
|
|
|
(0.134)
|
(0.129)
|
|
|
relationship intensity:
|
|
|
|
|
felt lonely almost always
|
|
|
0.327**
|
0.282*
|
|
|
|
(0.151)
|
(0.145)
|
felt lonely some of the time
|
|
|
0.790***
|
0.651***
|
|
|
|
(0.196)
|
(0.181)
|
felt lonely almost never
|
|
|
1.383***
|
1.019***
|
|
|
|
(0.241)
|
(0.225)
|
felt lonely never
|
|
|
1.771***
|
1.283***
|
|
|
|
(0.220)
|
(0.214)
|
social exclusion
|
|
|
|
-0.207***
|
|
|
|
|
(0.032)
|
retired
|
|
0.135***
|
0.057*
|
0.046
|
|
|
(0.040)
|
(0.030)
|
(0.030)
|
unemployed
|
|
-0.792***
|
-0.896***
|
-0.787***
|
|
|
(0.085)
|
(0.086)
|
(0.085)
|
inactive
|
|
0.158
|
0.124
|
0.033
|
|
|
(0.131)
|
(0.099)
|
(0.087)
|
housework
|
|
0.017
|
-0.078
|
-0.048
|
|
|
(0.057)
|
(0.060)
|
(0.059)
|
unable to work
|
|
-1.073***
|
-1.211***
|
-0.986***
|
|
|
(0.198)
|
(0.197)
|
(0.173)
|
2 decile
|
0.167***
|
0.123**
|
0.119**
|
0.100**
|
|
(0.051)
|
(0.045)
|
(0.049)
|
(0.046)
|
3 decile
|
0.306***
|
0.253***
|
0.240***
|
0.187***
|
|
(0.058)
|
(0.055)
|
(0.058)
|
(0.057)
|
4 decile
|
0.354***
|
0.291***
|
0.278***
|
0.202***
|
|
(0.044)
|
(0.041)
|
(0.051)
|
(0.051)
|
5 decile
|
0.409***
|
0.346***
|
0.320***
|
0.243***
|
|
(0.033)
|
(0.031)
|
(0.048)
|
(0.047)
|
6 decile
|
0.410***
|
0.356***
|
0.343***
|
0.246***
|
|
(0.047)
|
(0.043)
|
(0.046)
|
(0.052)
|
7 decile
|
0.423***
|
0.339***
|
0.358***
|
0.258***
|
|
(0.039)
|
(0.036)
|
(0.042)
|
(0.036)
|
8 decile
|
0.518***
|
0.463***
|
0.453***
|
0.333***
|
|
(0.066)
|
(0.060)
|
(0.072)
|
(0.066)
|
9 decile
|
0.596***
|
0.499***
|
0.498***
|
0.398***
|
|
(0.043)
|
(0.034)
|
(0.044)
|
(0.048)
|
10 decile
|
0.584***
|
0.505***
|
0.533***
|
0.423***
|
|
(0.060)
|
(0.057)
|
(0.056)
|
(0.056)
|
Regional dummies
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Constant
|
5.410***
|
5.406***
|
5.403***
|
6.706***
|
|
(0.127)
|
(0.169)
|
(0.289)
|
(0.247)
|
Observations
|
24,214
|
23,274
|
27,166
|
27,026
|
R-squared
|
0.176
|
0.189
|
0.219
|
0.276
|
Robust standard errors in parentheses
*** p < 0.01, ** p < 0.05, * p < 0.1
|
|
|
|
|
Omitted benchmarks: never married, employed, lowest income decile, Piedmont. |
Econometric findings on regression controls are consistent with those of the previous ESS estimates with a significant and increasing positive effect of the education level on life satisfaction, the non-linear effect of age, the negative and significant effect of unemployment status and the positive impact of marital relationship, marriage or cohabitation status compared to the omitted benchmark of never married. The overall goodness of fit is higher than in ESS, and the estimates jumps from 17 to 27 percent.