What is it: A Brisbane economist has modelled life satisfaction data to determine the “relative worth” (either positive or negative) of typical life events, in terms of the money windfall you would need to unexpectedly get to make up for the event occurring (or not). For example, an Australian male would need to be paid an unexpectedlump sum of $32,000 to make him as happy as getting would over his lifetime (women only need $16,000!). As another example, a windfall of $130K offsets the death of a loved one.
Why is it cool: Workers Compensation boards have managed to give every single part of our bodies a dollar value (for example, if you lost 1 testicle in an injury at work you only received $10K, but if you lost both you got around $45K). So, extending this economic equivalising to life events is fascinating.
It’s also surprising how low the $ values were for both positive and negative life events. Do we seriously give such little value to key life events?Or perhaps, are humans wired to cope and constantly adjust to life events. Even after great tragedy, most people can move on and maintain surprisingly good life satisfaction, which means the $ values become almost irrelevant.
Where to find it: here!
Submitted by: Liz Pridham
