• Across poor respondents in Kenya and Ghana, the average life satisfaction ladder score is 2.8 (where 0 is the lowest and 10 is the highest score).
• Respondents with higher consumption have higher life satisfaction ladder scores; doubling consumption is associated with being 0.4 steps higher on the ladder.
• When describing different points on the ladder respondents most often referred to levels of money and material goods. In contrast, health states were mentioned much less often with regards to life satisfaction. Having a health condition was associated with being 0.3 steps lower on the ladder.
• Overall, taken alone, these findings suggest that consumption is of greater relative importance to wellbeing of respondents than their preferences (described in Section 1-3) indicate.
I notice they only measured life satisfaction. Can you tell me why they didn’t also include at least one measure of hedonic wellbeing, such as those used in the evaluations of GiveDirectly? It is really important to understand whether potential GiveWell top charity beneficiaries are actually unhappy (i.e. generally feel bad) or just dissatisfied with their material circumstances when someone with a clipboard asks them about it. (Life satisfaction is much more sensitive to relative wealth and status than is pleasure/misery.) For instance, this may be the critical factor when choosing between life-extending and life-improving interventions.
Section 4 on subjective wellbeing is interesting.
I notice they only measured life satisfaction. Can you tell me why they didn’t also include at least one measure of hedonic wellbeing, such as those used in the evaluations of GiveDirectly? It is really important to understand whether potential GiveWell top charity beneficiaries are actually unhappy (i.e. generally feel bad) or just dissatisfied with their material circumstances when someone with a clipboard asks them about it. (Life satisfaction is much more sensitive to relative wealth and status than is pleasure/misery.) For instance, this may be the critical factor when choosing between life-extending and life-improving interventions.