Economic Growth and Emotional Well-Being: Longitudinal Evidence from 33 European Countries
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The relationship between economic growth and emotional well-being remains poorly understood relative to life satisfaction, largely due to methodological limitations. Using psychometrically robust measures we examined how national income relates to emotional well-being. Analyzing 178,948 participants across 33 European countries in four European Social Survey waves (2006, 2012, 2014, 2023), we constructed a reliable emotional well-being measure and compared it with single-item life satisfaction. Both showed strong positive cross-sectional correlations with GDP per capita. Linear mixed-effects models revealed economic growth significantly predicts within-country increases in both emotional well-being and life satisfaction. These findings demonstrate that economic development improves both cognitive and affective dimensions of subjective well-being, contradicting previous research suggesting a weak association with emotional experiences. Economic growth thus remains important for improving citizens' daily emotional experiences, not merely their life evaluations, highlighting the continued relevance of economic development for well-being.
