Short CommunicationHappiness and health among U.S. working adults: is the association explained by socio-economic status?
Section snippets
Approach and findings
Data from the General Social Survey (GSS) was used. The GSS is a cross-sectional, nationally-representative survey of U.S. adults. Due to complex skip patterns in the interviews, only adults in the labour force (including those working part time or temporarily laid off) were asked questions on both happiness and health (n = 3722).
Happiness was measured using the Global Happiness item: ‘Taken all together, how would you say things are these days--would you say that you are very happy, pretty
Implications of findings
It was found that happiness was strongly and consistently associated with self-rated health (SRH) among working U.S. adults. The strong associations persisted with extensive controls for socio-economic factors including education, income, and occupational prestige. The main implication of this pattern is that SES did not seem to confound the association between happiness and health in this population. Additionally, happiness explained more variance in SRH in working adults than any one of the
Ethical approval
Not required.
Funding
None declared.
Competing interests
None declared.
References (10)
- et al.
Whiners and deniers – what does self-rated health measure?
Soc Sci Med
(2012) - et al.
Happiness and life satisfaction prospectively predict self-rated health, physical health, and the presence of limiting, long-term health conditions
Am J Health Promot
(Sep–Oct 2008) - et al.
Happy people live longer: subjective well-being contributes to health and longevity
Appl Psychol Health Well-Being
(2011) - et al.
Covariation in the socioeconomic determinants of self rated health and happiness: a multivariate multilevel analysis of individuals and communities in the USA
J Epidemiol Community Health
(Aug 2005) - et al.
Education and health: evaluating theories and evidence
Cited by (11)
Happiness and longevity in the United States
2015, Social Science and MedicineCitation Excerpt :It may be that these socioeconomic and social resources explain why happier people have better health. But a recent study shows the effect of happiness on self-rated health is largely independent of marital status, education, income, and socioeconomic resources (Zajacova and Dowd, 2014). Sabatini (2014) also finds that the effect of happiness on health is independent of socioeconomic status among Italians.
Latent profile analysis of adolescent temperament: Relations to happiness and health in adulthood
2023, Journal of AdolescenceWell-being costs of perceived job insecurity: Mediating role of financial satisfaction, subjective healthiness and institutional trust
2022, Journal of International StudiesPositive Family Relationships Across 30 Years: Predicting Adult Health and Happiness
2022, Journal of Family PsychologyUnemployment and (un)happiness: Life satisfaction approach to enhance policy efficiency for developing countries
2021, Journal of International Studies