The Role of Demographic and Socio-Economic Characteristics in Affecting Subjective Well-being. The Case of Hungary
The Role of Demographic and Socio-Economic Characteristics in Affecting Subjective Well-being. The Case of Hungary

Summary/Abstract: This paper investigates the influence of various demographic and social factors on the perception of well-being in Hungary. For the purpose of the analysis, various measures of subjective well-being have been developed as dependent variables using both narrower and broader sets of items, and a principal factor analysis was applied to construct normalised indices. Demographic predictors include gender, age, family composition, residence;sociological predictors contain education, labour market position, income and wealth as well as questions on health and religiosity. Hungary is an interesting case to study, given its well-known strong deficit in subjective wellbeing. The phenomenon is particularly motivating in light of the official propaganda from the governing political authorities on the country’s economic and social progress. A low level of subjective well-being is confirmed again, partly in international comparisons, partly from the perspective of temporal change. Furthermore, a detailed analysis of the data reveals that Hungarians seem to be markedly divided into higher and lower assessments of well-being onthe basis of age, residence and social status. Regression models prove that material conditionshave the strongest impact on subjective well-being, even if controlled for education and labourmarket position. The results concerning subjective-wellbeing raise questions for public policy in Hungary

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