engleski

Subjective well-being during the lifespan in Croatia: U-shaped curve, declinig or no change?

Subjective well-being (SWB) becomes one of the focal goals both for individuals and public policy. In the EU context of rapidly aging societies the well-being of different age groups becomes even more important. In past few decades a number of researchers have identified a U-shaped relation between age and subjective well-being. However, some authors have found decrease in well-being throughout the lifecycle in middle income and transition countries. It seems that life satisfaction is more negatively affected by age in poorer than in richer countries. Thus, the primary focus of the paper is to examine the effect that age has on subjective wellbeing in Croatia. We have applied different measures of SWB (overall life satisfaction, happiness and Personal well-being index - PWI) on representative sample of 750 Croatian citizens. We have compared four age groups (up to 35 ; 36 to 50 ; 51 to 65 ; and more than 66 years old) on different measures of SWB, with and without controlling for physical and mental health and income. The direct effects of age on SWB were small but significant indicating reduction in wellbeing with age. However, after the controlling for covariates no age difference were found. In the paper we discussed the difference between the general trend of subjective well-being across the lifespan and the “pure” age effect when other relevant explanatory variables are kept constant.

age, well-being, lifespan

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