Education, job aspirations and subjective wellbeinga quantile regression analysis

Resumo

This paper focuses on the relationship between education and subjective wellbeing using data from the European Social Survey. We analyze this relationship across the entire distribution and taking account of educational mismatches that could condition individuals� satisfaction if education generates certain aspirations that are not met by the individuals. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that the impact of education on subjective wellbeing varies across the distribution, showing decreasing effects as we move from the less satisfied individuals to the top of the distribution. We also find that education generates certain aspirations in the individuals as regards the job they expect to hold and that when those aspirations are not met people suffer a psychological cost. Both results contribute to explain the weak relationship between education and individual satisfaction which is usually found in most of the existing empirical literature. However, our results suggest that the �aspiration mechanism� weakens as we move along the distribution, so the negative association between education and individual wellbeing found among the happiest individuals cannot be explained by rising aspirations generated by education as regards the job to be hold.