What Makes Us Happy? Higher Education And Subjective Well-Being

Student: Solovyeva Natalia

Faculty: International College of Economics and Finance

Educational Programme: Double degree programme in Economics of the NRU HSE and the University of London (Bachelor)

Year of Graduation: 2018

The research paper examines the relationship between life satisfaction of Russians and high education factor in 2016. Based on the RLMS data, the results show that high education correlates with life satisfaction measurement. However, the current study finds high education factor to have a negative influence on the level of “happiness”. This result shows that Russians may have unjustified expectations connected with their education level that are hard to reach in post-crisis time. In this work subjective well-being is measured as an ordinal qualitative variable. Overall, the study provides a conclusion that high education does not improve life conditions in Russia currently. Thus, one has to think if it is better to improve effects of higher education or to invest in the secondary education at the moment.

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