The Origins of Happiness

Chapter 2

and the next two chapters we confine the analysis to people

of working age (aged under 65 but above 25).

The results are in Table 2.2. The first column shows the

results of pooled cross- sectional analyses including every

observation on every sample member, with time and re-

gional dummies added in to the equation. As can be seen,

these cross- sectional results are similar to those we have al-

ready seen in the British Cohort Study. But the fixed- effects

estimates for both Britain and Australia are really small.^15

Table 2.1. How life- satisfaction (0– 10) is affected by adult outcomes

(British Cohort Study)

Units Cross- section Panel

Income ln 0.20 (.03) 0.13 (.04)

Qualifications SD (index) 0.04 (.02)

Not
unemployed

1, 0 0.89 (.13) 0.35 (.15)

Noncriminality Minus no. of
arrests

0.05 (.01)

Partnered 1, 0 0.69 (.03) 0.40 (.05)

Physical health No. of condi-
tions

0.12 (.01) 0.03 (.02)

Emotional health
(lagged)

SD (index) 0.35 (.01)

Emotional health SD (index) 0.11 (.02)

Observations 17,812 17,812

Individual fixed
effects

No Ye s

R^2 0.147

Within R^2 0.018