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Published in: Social Indicators Research 3/2016

01-04-2015

The Role of Spousal Income in the Wife’s Happiness

Author: Kitae Sohn

Published in: Social Indicators Research | Issue 3/2016

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Abstract

Few studies have examined spousal income in the context of happiness. This paper analyzes the Indonesia family life survey and finds a positive relationship between the husband’s income and his wife’s happiness. Specifically, a 100 % increase in the husband’s income is related to a 0.72 % point increase in his wife expressing very happy, which is about 11 % of the proportion expressing that response. Surprisingly, among the husband’s characteristics, only his income (along with health) is statistically significantly related to his wife’s happiness. This positive relationship is particularly strong among old, educated, and poor (in absolute and relative terms) urban residents.

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Appendix
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Footnotes
1
Utility is an economic concept, while happiness is a psychological concept. However, in economics, it is typically hypothesized that happiness scores provide information about utility, so these two terms are often interchangeably used. We follow this convention.
 
2
For the small number of the self-employed with negative profits, zero is assigned to the natural log of their incomes.
 
3
Strictly speaking, \( \alpha_{1} \) is the coefficient on spousal income, but we also treat it as its marginal effect to save another notation.
 
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Metadata
Title
The Role of Spousal Income in the Wife’s Happiness
Author
Kitae Sohn
Publication date
01-04-2015
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Published in
Social Indicators Research / Issue 3/2016
Print ISSN: 0303-8300
Electronic ISSN: 1573-0921
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-015-0934-5

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