Explaining the Decline in Subjective Well-Being Over Time in Panel Data

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.