Abstract
Past research has shown a positive association between education and well-being. Much of this research has focused on the cognitive component of well-being (i.e., life satisfaction) as outcome. On the other hand, the affective component, that is, how often and intensively people experience positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) in their everyday lives, has received far less attention. Therefore, we examined the association between education and PA and NA in everyday life, with a particular focus on affective experiences at the sub-facet level (based on a structure of NA with multiple factors). We used data from a nationally representative sample (N = 1647) of the German Socioeconomic Panel Innovation Sample (SOEP-IS), employing the Day Reconstruction Method (DRM) to capture affective experiences of everyday activities. Multilevel structural equation models revealed that (1) education was not related to PA, but (2) was positively associated with two sub-facets of NA (mourning/worries and loneliness/boredom); (3) income might in part explain the association between education and NA; (4) education does not particularly seem to serve as a resource in times of unemployment or retirement (i.e., there were no interactions between education and unemployment/retirement regarding well-being) In essence, higher educated people reported fewer negative emotions in everyday life than their lower educated counterparts, but not more positive emotions. The findings underline that different facets of NA, in addition to life satisfaction, are relevant variables related to education and should receive more attention in order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of non-monetary correlates of education.
Highlights
The field of research on subjective well-being (SWB) is one of the fastest growing areas in social and life sciences (Diener and Scollon 2014), with many publications on antecedents and consequences of feeling well
To address Aim 3, we first included income in the regression analyses
Higher education was associated with less negative affect (NA) except for in the model comparing moderate vs. high education, where there were no significant effects of education
Summary
The field of research on subjective well-being (SWB) is one of the fastest growing areas in social and life sciences (Diener and Scollon 2014), with many publications on antecedents and consequences of feeling well. Economists are interested in how socio-economic variables such as education can foster higher levels of SWB (Dolan et al 2008). In this context, it has been postulated that the returns of education have a positive effect on the possibility to satisfy human needs through better material and non-material living conditions (Vila 2001). It has been postulated that the returns of education have a positive effect on the possibility to satisfy human needs through better material and non-material living conditions (Vila 2001) In this regard, the outcomes of education can be viewed as human capital that likely impacts individual lives way beyond economic productivity (Becker 1993). SWB can be considered as a non-monetary outcome of education
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