International Evidence on Well-Being

Abstract

Abstract This chapter compares the results of evaluated time use to those of more conventional well-being measures, including life satisfaction and happiness. It is observed that many of the findings from evaluated time-use data are replicated in more conventional data on subjective well-being. The evaluated time-use data can be used to understand why some groups are happier than others, that is, some differences in well-being between groups can be traced to differences in time use. The comparable historical and cross-country data on life satisfaction and happiness are valuable even if they are less informative than NTA. Considerable attention is given to exploring national differences in subjective well-being with overall life satisfaction and happiness data. The contrast is also observed between the difference in subjective well-being between France and the United States using the U-index and life satisfaction is suggestive that NTA can help overcome biases in conventional happiness measures.