Which health conditions cause the most unhappiness?

Abstract

This paper assesses the effects of different health conditions on happiness. Based on new data for Latin America, we examine the effects of different conditions across age, gender, and income cohorts. Anxiety and pain have stronger effects than physical problems, likely because people adapt better to one-time shocks than to constant uncertainty. The negative effects of health conditions are very large when compared with the effects of income on happiness. And, while higher peer income typically elicits envy, better peer health provides positive signals for life and health satisfaction. Health norms vary widely across countries.

Subjective Well-Being and Its Association with Subjective Health Status, Age, Sex, Region, and Socio-economic Characteristics in a Chinese Population Study

“…This is similar to previous studies (Appleton and Song 2008;Davey et al 2007;Dolan and Metcalfe 2012;Graham et al 2011;Jiang et al 2012;Mukuria and Brazier 2013). Furthermore, in our study we also investigated the association between five different dimensions of health and SWB and found the strongest association for the anxiety/depression dimension.…”

“…Furthermore, in our study we also investigated the association between five different dimensions of health and SWB and found the strongest association for the anxiety/depression dimension. This finding is in line with previous studies: when individuals' current experiences are referred to, the mental health dimension has a larger impact than the physical health dimension, not only on health valuation (Burström et al 2013;Dolan 2008;Leidl and Reitmeir 2011), but also on SWB (Dolan and Metcalfe 2012;Graham et al 2011;Mukuria and Brazier 2013). One possible explanation could be that the ability to adapt is different for physical and mental health dimensions, with the latter being more difficult to adapt to (Dolan and Kahneman 2008;Mukuria and Brazier 2013).…”

“…Tables 7, 8 and 9 of Appendices show results from the ordered logit models; the sign and significance of the coefficients are similar to that for the OLS models, with only a few exceptions 1 . This is in line with previous studies using both OLS and ordered logit or ordered probit models (Ferrer-i-Carbonell and Frijters 2004;Graham et al 2011;Knight and Gunatilaka 2010a;Mukuria and Brazier 2013).…”

“…Existing studies suggest that the mental health dimension is more strongly associated with SWB than the physical health dimension (Dolan and Metcalfe 2012;Graham et al 2011;Mukuria and Brazier 2013). In China, a positive association between health and SWB has been found as well (Appleton and Song 2008;Chyi and Mao 2011;Knight et al 2009;Monk-Turner and Turner 2011).…”

“…(Cheung and Leung 2004); Cantril's Ladder item, 'Where on the ladder would you say you personally stand at the present time?' (Graham et al 2011); and a happiness item, e.g., 'Taking all things together, would you say you are very happy, quite happy, not very happy, or not at all happy? ' (World Values Survey 2014).…”