null 'Educated and Happy' available in Open Access

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Samenleving
'Educated and Happy' available in Open Access
The January 2019 issue of Applied Psychology: An International Review published an article by Dr. Petru L Curseu, associated with the Faculty of Management, Science & Technology of the Open Universiteit and three researchers of National University of Singapore. The paper Educated and Happy: A Four-Year Study Explaining the Links Between Education, Job Fit, and Life Satisfaction is now available for free download.

Approach and results

Drawing on a bottom-up theoretical perspective on life satisfaction, the authors developed and tested a model that specifies distinct paths from education to life satisfaction through three domain satisfactions (i.e., job, financial, and health satisfactions). Furthermore, the authors proposed explanatory mechanisms for each of these three paths (i.e., job fit, financial literacy, and proactive healthy behaviours). To test their hypotheses, the authors used a large probability sample comprising 3,011–9,669 individuals, from the Netherlands, who provided survey responses over four consecutive years. The results supported the hypothesised mediating mechanisms explaining the indirect relationship between education and job, financial, and health satisfactions. Findings also showed that each of these domain satisfactions independently predicts general life satisfaction. Overall, the study shows the importance of education for life satisfaction and highlights the importance of work (i.e., job fit and job satisfaction) for individuals general subjective well-being.

Paper

Download the paper