Why Do Happiness and Satisfaction Not Coincide? Strict Comparison of Two Sub-Domains of Subjective Well-Being

This paper investigates why subjective happiness and life satisfaction do not coincide. So far, these two sub-domains of subjective well-being have been regarded as interchangeable. This paper measures the two concepts in a strictly comparable way to examine their determinants.

Data are collected in a survey with a representative sample in a Japanese city. The two concepts are measured in four-point scales. They are coded into dummy variables.

The paper shows that (1) (by distributions) there are more happy people than satisfied people by 13.4%. (2) (By a cross table) happiness and satisfaction do not coincide in 14.8% of the sample. (3) (By a logistic regression analysis) people become happier with more education while they become more satisfied with employment and more income.

Therefore, it turned out that happiness and satisfaction are different sub-domains of subjective well-being with different determinants.