Associations between Longevity and Subjective Well-Being by Country

This study examines the relationships between longevity and subjective well-being from the social science perspective, using global data, by employing epidemiological methods and data from the Human Development Report 2010. For all countries as a whole and of all the subjective well-being variables in this study, the overall life satisfaction had the strongest positive association with longevity. At this point, the situations are similar for very high and medium human development countries, but quite different for high and low human development countries. The effects of various control variables seemed relatively limited. Path analyses showed that the overall life satisfaction had the strongest effect on life expectancy, while the effect of income was indirect. The number of physicians per 10,000 people, which was the main medical indicator, had neither direct nor indirect effects on life expectancy. In conclusion, the cognitive component of subjective well-being had a stronger impact than the emotional component did on life expectancy. However, subjective and psychological factors play more important roles in prolonging lifespans than objective factors such as economic and medical indicators do.