Gazareth, Pascale

2017, Iglesias, Katia, Gazareth, Pascale, Suter, Christian

This volume analyses the quantification of the effect of factors measuring subjective well-being, and in particular on the metrics applied. With happiness studies flourishing over the last decades, both in number of publications as well as in their exposure, researchers working in this field are aware of potential weaknesses and pitfalls of these metrics. Contributors to this volume reflect on different factors influencing quantification, such as scale size, wording, language, biases, and cultural comparability in order to raise awareness on the tools and on their conditions of use. In the contribution, we examine to what extent the decline in SWB in longitudinal data is a robust result showing an actual decrease or reflect some specific methodological artefacts of these data. We identified more precisely four possible methodological issues: non-random attrition (NRA), panel conditioning (PC), sample refreshment and aging of participants. We discuss the effect of these methodological issues on the measured evolution of SWB, that shows a different trend once these issues are neutralized.

2016, Suter, Christian, Kuhn, Ursina, Gazareth, Pascale, Crettaz, Eric, Ravazzini, Laura, Franzen, Axel, Jann, Ben, Joppke, Christian, Widmer, Eric

We compared time series of eight different data sources (HBS, SLFS, SESS, SHP, SILC, SHS, SPS, tax data) and calculated various inequality measures (Gini coefficient, Atkinson coefficient, Theil’s T, MLD, SCV, p90/p10, p80/p20, p50/p10, p90/p50) for the period from 1990 to 2012. While the level of inequality varies strongly across surveys, the results concerning the evolution over time are rather coherent. For disposable household income, inequality has remained stable, but evolves parallel to the business cycle of the Swiss economy. For individual employment income, findings across datasets are less consistent.