Relationship between cultural values and well-being: analysis from some East Asian countries

ABSTRACT

This paper is an empirical analysis of how culture, specifically tradition, affects well-being, i.e., happiness, life satisfaction, and financial satisfaction, along with socioeconomic factors in East Asia. Ordered probit regression model results show that women have higher happiness and satisfaction levels than men even in Confucian cultures in which men generally receive more favourable conditions than women. Additionally, marital status or the impact of religion had strong and positive effects on happiness and sometimes on life satisfaction but not on financial satisfaction. Interestingly, tradition has a statistically significant and important effect on both life and financial satisfaction. Finally, the results show that individuals who value tradition greater also have higher levels of financial satisfaction.

KEYWORDS:

• Confucian
• East Asia
• happiness
• satisfaction
• values

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Psychologists consider well-being to comprise happiness and satisfaction, but economists use happiness and well-being interchangeably.

2. Ordinary least square models are also possible but standard deviations are higher, which can contribute to inference bias.

3. Age and age squared can be used to calculate the minimum age of happiness and satisfaction.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Won Joong Kim

Won Joong Kim is a Professor at the Department of Economics, Konkuk University. His research fields include international economics, macroeconomics and resource economics.

Nguyen Xuan Trung

Nguyen Xuan Trung is an Associate professor at Vietnam Institute for Indian and Southwest Asian Studies – Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences. His research topics are Asian studies, integration and transition in emerging societies.

Le Van Hung

Le Van Hung is a Researcher at Vietnam Institute of Economics, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences. His research subjects are empirical studies which focus on domestic capacity and regional development.

Nguyen Ngoc Trung

Nguyen Ngoc Trung is a Researcher at Institute of Human Studies, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences. His research interests are human resources, innovation and cultural studies.