Many people believe that earning more money would bring more happiness into their lives. However, despite massive improvements in material living conditions in most Western countries, average population happiness has stagnated for decades. This raises an evident question: does money bring about happiness? The answer is 'yes', but far less than most people would think, and with strings attached. Herein, we review the state of the literature after half a century of empirical research on income and happiness. We will use the term 'happiness' to refer to the evaluative component of subjective wellbeing, in particular measured as self-reported life satisfaction, and explicitly state whenever we are referring to the affective component.

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30 August 2024

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Published in Encyclopedia of Happiness, Quality of Life and Subjective Wellbeing (2024), Edited by Hilke Brockmann and Roger Fernandez-Urban, pp. 139-146, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited

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Link To Website

DOI: 10.4337/9781800889675.00026

This Chapter is part of the centre's Community Wellbeing programme.

This publication comes under the following theme: Causes and effects of wellbeing