Alors que la France est confrontée à un budget d’austérité sans précédent et que partout dans le monde les conséquences du changement climatique se révèlent au moins aussi graves que l’avait annoncé le GIEC, le bien-être peut-il encore être un principe pertinent pour orienter l’action publique ? Nous pensons évidemment que oui — et sans doute plus que jamais. Nous en débattrons mercredi 06 novembre aux Journée des l’économie. Nous voyons également dans chacune des publications de cette newsletter un élément de preuve de ce que les métriques de bien-être subjectif apportent à l’action publique, de l’information — corrigeant par exemple des perceptions faussées sur les aspirations professionnelles des jeunes ou sur les conséquences des jeux vidéo — jusqu’à l’évaluation de l’action publique.

Observatoire

Les jeunes de nos jours

L’idée que les jeunes – catégorie souvent définie de manière floue – ont un rapport différent, plus distancié, au travail fait partie de ces idées aussi communes dans le discours ambiant que difficiles à rattacher à une source précise et fiable. Grâce à une enquête Opinion Way pour le compte de Kéa sur les représentations du travail des 16-45 ans, nous montrons au contraire une grande homogénéité tant dans la relation au travail que dans les priorités données au salaire et aux conditions de travail par rapport à l’autonomie ou à l’impact sur la société.

Perona, M., 2024, Les Jeunes de nos jours, Paris https://www.cepremap.fr/2024/10/note-de-lobservatoire-du-bien-etre-n2024-13-les-jeunes-de-nos-jours/.

La Fonction ressources humaines au Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale

Le rapport de la Cour des Comptes du 25 octobre dernier, dédiée à la fonction ressources humaines au Ministère l’Éducation Nationale s’appuie notamment sur les résultats du Braomètre du bien-être des personnels de l’Éducation nationale, que nous avons contribué à construire, pour souligner les enjeux de reconnaissance professionnelle des enseignantes et enseignants (p. 65 et suivantes). Nous sommes évidemment fiers et heureux de voir la Cour des Compte se saisir de ces métriques de satisfaction pour établir son diagnostic et émettre ces préconisations — en espérant que cela fasse école dans d’autres Ministères, agences de l’État et collectivités.

Cour des Comptes, 2024, La Fonction ressources humaines au Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale, Paris https://www.ccomptes.fr/fr/publications/la-fonction-ressources-humaines-au-ministere-de-leducation-nationale.

Le bien-être aux Journées de l’économie à Lyon

Sur une aimable invitation du Cercle des Économistes, nous aurons le plaisir de participer à la conférence « Bien-être individuel et transitions » aux Journées de l’économie. Louis Margolis et Mathieu Perona échangerons avec Maya Bacache, Françoise Benhamou et Akiko Suwa-Eisenmann sur la possibilité de conserver le bien-être comme orientation de l’action publique dans des temps de transitions. Retrouvez-nous le 06 novembre à 14:00 au Grand amphithéâtre de Lyon 2, ou en ligne sur le site des Jeco.

Le bien-être pour guider les politiques publiques

Le second atelier de partage de connaissances (KEP workshop) du centre WISE de l’OCDE a été l’occasion de faire un tour d’horizon de l’intrégration des mesures de bien-être dans les politiques publiques. Au-delà du Green Book britannique, les participants et participants ont présenté :

• L’outil d’analyses coûts-bénéfices du Trésor de Nouvelle Zélande-Aotaroa, qui s’articule autour d’une base de données d’impacts de politiques publiques, prenant en compte les effets de long terme et le niveau de preuve.
• Le travail de suivi du bien-être par l’institut statistique néerlandais, qui s’inscrit dans le déploiement d’un cadre méthodologique général d’évaluation des politiques publiques du pays. Ce cadre impose en particulier un délimitation claire et complète des parties prenantes, des objectifs visés par la politiques évaluée et de la correspondance de ceux-ci avec des objectifs stratégiques, eux-mêmes exprimés dans les objectifs de développement durable de l’OCDE, ainsi qu’une modélisation explicite des évolutions de comportements induites par la politique évaluée.
• Le Wellbeing Impact Assessment de la province de Camberra, Australie, qui invite les porteurs de politiques à déterminer l’ensemble des impacts de leur action en termes de bien-être, avec une attention aux effest sur les populations marginalisées et en termes d’inégalités.

Sur le web

Causal effect of video gaming on mental well-being in Japan 2020–2022

Abstract: The widespread use of video games has raised concerns about their potential negative impact on mental well-being. Nevertheless, the empirical evidence supporting this notion is largely based on correlational studies, warranting further investigation into the causal relationship. Here we identify the causal effect of video gaming on mental well-being in Japan (2020–2022) using game console lotteries as a natural experiment. Employing approaches designed for causal inference on survey data (n = 97,602), we found that game console ownership, along with increased game play, improved mental well-being. The console ownership reduced psychological distress and improved life satisfaction by 0.1–0.6 standard deviations. Furthermore, a causal forest machine learning algorithm revealed divergent impacts between different types of console, with one showing smaller benefits for adolescents and females while the other showed larger benefits for adolescents. These findings highlight the complex impact of digital media on mental well-being and the importance of considering differential screen time effects.

Egami, H., Rahman, M.S., Yamamoto, T. et al. Causal effect of video gaming on mental well-being in Japan 2020–2022. Nat Hum Behav (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01948-y

Return-to-Office Mandates, Health and Well-being: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Abstract: We here exploit an exogenous shift in working conditions for public-sector workers in Italy to establish the causal effect of a return-to-office (RTO) mandate on worker health and well-being. In nine waves of quarterly panel data we first find a significant fall in teleworking for those affected by the RTO mandate, who also spend more time outdoors, work fewer hours, and interact less with relatives and friends. The net effect of these lifestyle changes on a battery of health and well-being measures following the return to office work is insignificant. The place of work post-pandemic has neither positive nor negative health implications.

Costi, C., Clark, A., D’Ambrosio, C., Lepinteur, A. et Menta, G., 2024, Return-to-Office Mandates, Health and Well-being: Evidence from a Natural Experiment https://liser.elsevierpure.com/en/publications/return-to-office-mandates-health-and-well-being-evidence-from-a-n (consulté le 28 octobre 2024).

Did Religious Well-Being Benefits Converge or Diverge During the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Germany?

Abstract: A large body of literature highlights the benefits of being religious in terms of subjective well-being. We examine changes to these so-called religious well-being benefits during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany and address the role of (formal and informal) social integration when explaining these changes. We empirically test two contrasting scenarios: The first scenario predicts a decrease in religious well-being benefits (convergence hypothesis), while the second scenario predicts an increase in religious well-being benefits (divergence hypothesis). We adopt a potential outcomes framework and apply marginal structural models and inverse probability of treatment weighting to nationally representative, longitudinal data including both pre- and during-pandemic periods. Thereby, we show that initial religious well-being benefits declined during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. This decline was partly due to religious individuals’ perception of decreasing social integration. Our results challenge the widespread idea that religious individuals are better protected against crises.

Steinmann, JP., Kröger, H., Hartmann, J. et al. Did Religious Well-Being Benefits Converge or Diverge During the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Germany?. J Happiness Stud 25, 103 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-024-00818-8

Why are City Residents Less Happy than the Rest of the Population in Developed Countries? Studying the Urban-Rural Happiness Gap in Denmark Using Blinder-Oaxaca Decomposition

Abstract: In Denmark, and in developed countries in general, urban residents tend to report lower subjective well-being than rural residents. This difference has been referred to as a happiness paradox as cities historically have pulled in residents from the countryside in what has become known as the rural exodus. This paper explores the urban-rural happiness gap in Denmark. Using the Danish Rural-Urban Survey administered in 2011/2012 (n = 2000), the paper compares the respondents who live in the five largest cities in Denmark (Copenhagen, Aarhus, Odense, Aalborg, and Esbjerg) to the respondents who live in other parts of the country. The residents in the five largest cities report significantly lower life satisfaction than residents in the rest of the country. In contrast to evidence from other developed countries, this urban-rural happiness gap is found to be consistent across groups in the Danish society, e.g., across age, education, and employment groups. Further, the results show that the urban-rural happiness gap loses its statistical significance – and the two groups display similar satisfaction levels – when adjusting for several important factors. Decomposition analyses reveal that differences in urban-rural characteristics explain up to 94% of the urban-rural happiness gap. Of these urban-rural characteristics, lower access to nature amenities, lower bonding social capital, lower rates of retired people, and higher rates of non-native residents in the five largest cities in Denmark were found to account for up to 37%, 22%, 14%, and 9% of the urban-rural happiness gap, respectively.

Sørensen, J.F.L. Why are City Residents Less Happy than the Rest of the Population in Developed Countries? Studying the Urban-Rural Happiness Gap in Denmark Using Blinder-Oaxaca Decomposition. Applied Research Quality Life (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-024-10380-3

Cities, Inequalities and the Geography of Societal Discontent in European Regions

Abstract: The “urban wellbeing paradox” is a recurring theme in research examining the differences in life satisfaction across settlements of varying sizes, suggesting that large cities are consistently associated with higher levels of dissatisfaction due to disproportionately high interpersonal income inequalities. This paper re-evaluates that conclusion by analysing the relationship between individual dissatisfaction, conditions of personal disadvantage, and income inequality in large cities. Our extensive study, based on self-reported dissatisfaction from over 760,000 citizens living in EU and UK NUTS2 regions between 2013 and 2018, reveals that individuals facing occupational and economic disadvantages are the most negatively affected by living in urban areas. However, urbanization economies partially offset these negative effects, particularly for those individuals in disadvantaged conditions.

Lenzi, C., Perucca, G. Cities, Inequalities and the Geography of Societal Discontent in European Regions. Applied Research Quality Life (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-024-10381-2

Sharing News Left and Right: Frictions and Misinformation on Twitter

Abstract: On 20 October 2020, prior to the US presidential election, Twitter modified its user interface for sharing social media posts. In an effort to reduce the spread of misinformation on the platform, the new interface nudged users to be thoughtful about the content they were sharing. Using data on over 160,000 tweets by US news media outlets, we show that this policy significantly reduced news sharing, but that the reductions varied heterogeneously by political slant: sharing of content fell significantly more for left-wing outlets relative to right-wing outlets. Examining Twitter activity data for news-sharing users, we find that conservatives were less responsive to Twitter’s intervention. Lastly, using web traffic data, we document that the policy significantly reduced visits to news media outlets’ websites.

Daniel Ershov, Juan S Morales, Sharing News Left and Right: Frictions and Misinformation on Twitter, The Economic Journal, Volume 134, Issue 662, August 2024, Pages 2391–2417, https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/ueae027

Version grand public sur VOXEU.

PhD studies hurt mental health, but less than previously feared

Abstract: We study the mental health of PhD students in Sweden using comprehensive administrative data on prescriptions, specialist care visits, hospitalizations, and causes of death. We find that about 7 % (5 %) of PhD students receive medication or diagnosis for depression (anxiety) in a given year. These prevalence rates are less than one-third of the earlier reported survey-based estimates, and even after adjusting for difference in methodology, 43 % (72 %) of the rates in the literature. Nevertheless, PhD students still fare worse than their peers not pursuing graduate studies. Our difference-in-differences research design attributes all of this health disadvantage to the time in the PhD program. This deterioration suggests doctoral studies causally affect mental health.

Keloharju, M., Knüpfer, S., Müller, D. et Tåg, J., 2024, PhD studies hurt mental health, but less than previously feared, Research Policy, 53, p. 105078. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733324001276

Version grand public sur VOXEU.

Means-Tested Welfare Benefits and Subjective Well-Being Through Time: Does Clients’ Life Satisfaction Recover?

Abstract: We study the process of subjective well-being adaptation to receiving welfare benefits. Using 15 waves of the German Panel Study Labour Market and Social Security and fixed-effects regression models, we find that welfare benefit receipt decreases life satisfaction. Furthermore, on average, the results speak against the hypothesis of adaptation to receiving the benefit; the subjective well-being of welfare benefit receipt starts poor and stays poor. On average, the life satisfaction of women with small children does not decrease upon receipt of welfare benefits.

Nivorozhkin, A. et Promberger, M., s. d., Means-Tested Welfare Benefits and Subjective Well-Being Through Time: Does Clients’ Life Satisfaction Recover?, Social Policy & Administration, n/a, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/spol.13078 (consulté le 28 octobre 2024).

Relative income within the household, gender norms, and well-being

Abstract: This study examines the effects of relative household income on individual well-being, mental health, and physical health in Germany. Consistent with previous studies, we document a dip in the distribution of households in which the wife out-earns the husband. Using a regression discontinuity design, we show that husbands in couples in which the wife earns just more exhibit lower satisfaction with life, work, and health, and report worse physical health. Women in these couples report lower satisfaction with life and health, and worse mental health. Results on life, work, and health satisfaction among women are more pronounced in West Germany, consistent with previous evidence of gender norm differences between East and West Germany.

Gihleb R, Giuntella O, Stella L (2024) Relative income within the household, gender norms, and well-being. PLoS ONE 19(10): e0306180. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0306180