International inequality in subjective well-being: An exploration with the Gallup World Poll

Arbeitspapier

In this paper we compute inequality measures over the distribution of a subjective well-being variable constructed from a life satisfaction question included in the Gallup World Poll in almost all countries in the world. We argue that inequality in subjective well-being may be a better proxy for the degree of unfairness in a society than income inequality. We find evidence that inequality in subjective well-being has an inverse-U relationship with per capita GDP, but it is monotonically decreasing with respect to mean subjective well-being. We argue that this difference might be associated to inequality aversion in the space of utility.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Documento de Trabajo ; No. 216

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; General Welfare; Well-Being ; Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions ; Distribution: Other ; Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
• Subject: inequality ; subjective well-being ; Kuznets curve ; Gallup World Poll

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Gluzmann, Pablo ; Gasparini, Leonardo C.
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS)
• (where): La Plata
• (when): 2017

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/177441
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:41 AM CET