Abstract:
Cars represent a valuable real asset that most individuals use on a daily basis. Although cars are a form of material prosperity like income and other forms of wealth, the link between cars and subjective well-being (SWB) is barely covered in the existing literature. Furthermore, few existing contributions are scattered across specific cultural contexts. Here, we analyze the relationship between cars and the SWB of seniors in different European countries using the SHARE dataset. We construct multilevel and fixed-effect models to explore the extent of economic, infrastructural, and cultural factors and how they can explain this relationship. The results show that the value of the car is, among all wealth components (houses, bank account, bonds, stocks, mutual funds, debts and mortgages), the form of wealth most related to life satisfaction. In addition, cars matter less (a) in affluent societies, (b) where rail infrastructure is more developed, and (c) where people hold fewer materialistic values. We discuss these results in the framework of the functional and positional value of cars, i.e., respectively, the value derived from it regardless of others and the value derived from it vis-à-vis others.
摘要:
汽车是一种有价值的真正资产,大多数人每天都在使用。尽管汽车是一种物质繁荣的形式,就像收入和其他形式的财富一样,汽车与主观幸福感(SWB)之间的联系在现有文献中几乎没有涉及。此外,现有的贡献很少分散在特定的文化背景下。这里,我们使用SHARE数据集分析了不同欧洲国家的汽车与老年人的SWB之间的关系。我们构建了多层次的固定效应模型来探索经济、基础设施,和文化因素以及它们如何解释这种关系。结果表明,汽车的价值,在所有财富组成部分中(房屋,银行账户,债券,股票,共同基金,债务和抵押),与生活满意度最相关的财富形式。此外,汽车在富裕社会中的重要性较低,(b)在铁路基础设施较发达的地方,以及(c)人们持有较少的物质价值观。我们在汽车的功能和位置价值的框架中讨论这些结果,即,分别,从它身上获得的价值与他人无关,从它身上获得的价值与他人相比。