3.9 Subjective quality of life
Studying the overall subjective well-being of people with different levels of education takes into account the contributions of improved health, less unemployment, less substance abuse, and so on, while also avoiding any double-counting of benefits. Studies of well-being typically show that better-educated people have a greater level of well-being than their less-educated counterparts. Blanchflower and Oswald (2000) find, using data from the United States and from the United Kingdom, that this conclusion also holds when income is taken into account.
The largest, most comprehensive study of subjective well-being is the World Values Survey. This survey asks the question: “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?” and measures responses on a 10-point scale. Helliwell (2002) analyses this measure of subjective well-being with data from three successive waves of the Survey – 1980-82, 1990-91, and 1995-97. In total, over 87,000 people were interviewed, from 46 different countries (although not from New Zealand). As well as measuring life satisfaction, the Survey gathers information about the characteristics of respondents, including the age at which they finished their full-time education.
Helliwell (2002) uses the results of the World Values Survey, including both individual and national-level variables, to construct a number of multivariate regression models to explain subjective well-being. When the education variables alone are regressed against well-being there is a strong association (as other studies have found) between increasing well-being and increasing duration of education. People who invest more in their education are more satisfied with their lives. In this model there also appears to be a small positive spill-over effect from greater education. People who live in countries with a higher average level of education tend to be slightly more satisfied than their counterparts in less-educated countries.
When the other individual and national variables are introduced into Helliwell’s model, however, the association with education falls away. This suggests that the effect of education on well-being is wholly expressed through other mediating variables. More educated people are more satisfied with their lives because they are healthier, earn higher incomes, are less likely to be unemployed, and are better socially connected (as the above sections have shown). Similarly, with regard to national-level variables, people from countries which have a better-educated population are more satisfied because their countries are richer and have greater levels of social capital.
In this study, however, there are no controls for potentially confounding personality traits, dispositions, family backgrounds, neighbourhoods, social environments, and so on, which might affect both a person’s decisions about their education, and their later feelings of life satisfaction. The direction of the relationship between life satisfaction and the proposed mediating variables is also unclear from Helliwell’s models. It might be, for example, that happier people are more likely to stay married, or to join groups, or to keep jobs, rather than the other way round.
Ross and van Willigen (1997) trace pathways from education (measured by the number of years completed) to subjective well-being, using two United States national telephone surveys. They find that education reduces psychological distress largely because better-educated people have jobs where they can exercise some control, have a variety of work to do and are able to use their skills. As a result, better-educated people have a greater sense of personal control: an expectation that outcomes are contingent on their own choices and actions. They also find that the other, less important, channel through which education reduces distress is by increasing the level of social support which a person receives, particularly through intimate relationships. Ross and van Willigen conclude that education shapes life chances, which affect people’s subjective quality of life. Again, however, there are no controls in this study for early life factors which might be associated with both educational attainment and with later life outcomes, including psychological distress. The only controls in the study are those for age, gender and race. An alternative view is therefore that other, unobserved factors shape both life chances and educational choices.
In summary, both Helliwell (2002) and Ross and van Willigen (1997) show an association between education and well-being, and suggest some mediating factors, but neither study is designed to show that this association is causal. It is therefore not possible to say on the basis of these studies that more education causes greater life satisfaction. Also, even if education does cause greater life satisfaction for individuals, it might do so through influencing perceptions of status relative to others. More-educated individuals might be genuinely more satisfied with their lives than their less-educated neighbours, but in part this could be because of their increased social status. If this were the case, an increase in education might not significantly improve the well-being of society as a whole.
