Poor and dissatisfied? Income poverty, poverty transitions and life satisfaction in Chile

Chile is an interesting country in which to study the relationship between poverty and subjective wellbeing, having experienced a remarkable fall in poverty over the past two decades. This paper explores how poverty status and transitions in and out of poverty contributed to life satisfaction in the...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Samman, Emma, Santos, Maria Emma
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2013
País:Argentina
Institución:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
Repositorio:CONICET Digital (CONICET)
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/1997
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/11336/1997
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Adaptive Preferences
Chile
Happiness
Income Poverty
Life Satisfaction
Subjective Wellbeing
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/5.2
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/5
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/5.7
Descripción
Sumario:Chile is an interesting country in which to study the relationship between poverty and subjective wellbeing, having experienced a remarkable fall in poverty over the past two decades. This paper explores how poverty status and transitions in and out of poverty contributed to life satisfaction in the late 2000s. Using new data for 2006 and 2009, we ind that poor people were more dissatisfied with life than the non-poor and that income gains did not appreciably affect the satisfaction of the poor while they remained below the poverty line. People who were not poor in either period exhibited higher satisfaction than those who were poor in both periods, while those who escaped poverty between 2006 and 2009 exhibited higher satisfaction than those who remained poor. In addition, people who fell into poverty in 2009 were no more or no less satisfied with their lives than those who were poor in both periods. The evidence suggests poor people may not have adapted to their circumstances, in contrast to much literature exploring income dynamics and life satisfaction, and also that people’s recent experiences appear to affect their perceptions more than more distant ones.