TY - JOUR
AU - Delhey, Jan
AU - Hess, Stephanie
AU - Boehnke, Klaus
AU - Deutsch, Franziska
AU - Eichhorn, Jan
AU - Kühnen, Ulrich
AU - Welzel, Christian
PY - 2023
DA - July
TI - Life satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of human, economic, social, and psychological capital
JO - Journal of Happiness Studies
EP - 2222
VL - 24
IS - 7
DO - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-023-00676-w
AB - A cornerstone of well-being research is that the resource-rich are happier with their lives than the resource-poor and better positioned to cope with stressful life events. This paper addresses the role of various resources—human, economic, social, and psychological capital—in life satisfaction during the coronavirus pandemic, using panel data from Germany and the United Kingdom for 2020 and 2021. Cross-sectionally, we find life satisfaction to be clearly related to all these forms of capital, with psychological capital being the strongest predictor of life satisfaction. Longitudinally, the capital endowments in 2020 did not predict changes in life satisfaction within individuals from 2020 to 2021, except for psychological capital. Our results suggest two things: first, the unfolding pandemic did not heighten well-being inequalities; and second, weathering the pandemic required psychological resources in the first place.
PB - Springer Nature
UR - https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/en/publications/565b1564-e6c1-44ed-a7dc-43da94087d60
KW - Coronavirus (COVID-19)
KW - Mental health and wellbeing
ER