What matters for well-being: Individual perceptions of quality of life before and after important life events.
View / Open Files
Authors
Scott, Jacqueline
Plagnol, Anke Christine
Publication Date
2009-11-22Series
6/2
ISSN
1871-2576
Publisher
Applied Research in Quality of Life
Language
English
Type
Article
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Scott, J., & Plagnol, A. C. (2009). What matters for well-being: Individual perceptions of quality of life before and after important life events..
Abstract
In recent decades, what matters for individual quality of life (QoL) has
increasingly been the focus of empirical social science research. However, individuals
are rarely asked directly what is important for their quality of life as part of large-scale
surveys. The present analysis studies perceptions of what matters for QoL in a largescale
longitudinal dataset – the British Household Panel Survey – which includes
an open-ended question on QoL in three waves spanning ten years. We find that
concepts of QoL change over the life course and differ between men and women.We
hypothesize that changes in perceptions of QoL are related to important life events,
such as the birth of a first child and retirement. These life events constitute ’turning
points’ after which individuals often shift their priorities of what matters for their
QoL.We further explore whether such shifts in priorities are stable or disappear more
than five years after the life event.
Keywords
Quality of life, life events, turning points, gender differences, life course
Identifiers
This record's URL: http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/242175
Rights
Licence:
http://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved