Eudaimonic wellbeing and life expectancy

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between eudaimonic wellbeing (sense of life) and subjective survival probability (SSP), a proxy for self-assessed life expectancy. Our econometric analysis uses 220,601 observations of SHARE panel data from 2006 to 2015. We find evidence of a robust and strong positive relationship between eudaimonic wellbeing and subjective survival probability after controlling for selfassessed health, coupled with a negative effect of sense of life on mortality. The magnitude of the first effect is relevant, since the minimum difference (adjusted for fixed effects) between individuals declaring the highest versus the lowest sense of life is a 7-point higher self-assessed probability of being alive at the target age. Together, our two main findings imply that when respondents declare a high sense of life, they self-report a lower mortality risk and their predictions are correct. | INTRODUCTIONWe live an era of dramatic progress in medical treatments that are not uniformly spread across individuals due to their uneven access to health services. This process inevitably leads to increased heterogeneity in life expectancy. 1 The economic literature has shown that life expectancy is a crucial driver of economic choices with strong and significant effects on health and retirement expenditures, and timing of retirement and savings decisions through life-cycle effects (

On subjective well‐being and excess strategy to cope with financial‐scarcity problem

“…In contrast, older adults would experience the same consumption as joyful and satisfying. Besides hedonic happiness, active aging policies lead to subjective survival probabilities through improved eudaimonic well-being (Becchetti et al, 2023).…”

Does food import contribute to rising obesity in low‐ and middle‐income countries?

“…Obesity turned out to be one of the leading causes of morbidity and premature mortality worldwide, and during the recent global pandemic it has been associated to higher mortality rates related to COVID-19 (Alberca et al, 2021;Simonnet et al, 2020). Obesity also represents an important socio-economic concern, as it gives rise to increased health expenditure, productivity loss, and economic stigmatization, like reduced employment opportunities and lower wages (Clément et al, 2020) and complexities in subjective perception of wellbeing (Becchetti et al, 2023) and in nutrition-related consumer dynamics (Drichoutis et al, 2009;Gwozdz et al, 2019;Ortiz et al, 2022). Indeed, the UN Agenda 2030 recognized the fight against obesity as one of the focus of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as it is strictly connected to Target 2.2 of SDG 2 (End All Forms of Malnutrition) and to SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-Being).…”