Gender, loneliness and happiness during COVID-19.

We analyse a measure of loneliness from a representative sample of German individuals interviewed in both 2017 and at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Both men and women felt lonelier during the COVID-19 pandemic than they did in 2017. The pandemic more than doubled the gender loneliness gap: women were lonelier than men in 2017, and the 2017-2020 rise in loneliness was far larger for women. This rise is mirrored in life-satisfaction scores. Men's life satisfaction changed only little between 2017 and 2020; yet that of women fell dramatically, and sufficiently so to produce a female penalty in life satisfaction. We estimate that almost all of this female penalty is explained by the disproportionate rise in loneliness for women during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Financial Satisfaction and (in)formal Sector in a Transition Country.

This paper examines the relationship between working in the formal or informal sector and self-reported individual financial satisfaction in a country in transition. It does so by allowing for individual heterogeneity in terms of perceived financial insecurity and tax morale. The empirical analysis uses a dataset for Albania, a country in transition. The method applied is the 'self-administered questionnaire', which combines personal contacts with written questionnaire. The results indicate that, for most individuals, working in the informal sector has negative effects on their self reported financial satisfaction. For some individuals, however, this effect is positive. The characteristic defining these two groups of individuals is their attitude towards the perceived financial insecurity related to not paying taxes. These findings have important implications, in particular for transition countries with large informal sectors. Given the involuntary participation in the informal sector in these countries, the majority of individuals working in this sector will remain financially dissatisfied as long as they have no other social safety net.

Hidden consequences of success in pediatrics: parental health-related quality of life--results from the Care Project.

CONTEXT: The number of parents who care for a chronically ill child is increasing. Because of advances in medical care, parental caring tasks are changing. A detailed description of parental health-related quality of life will add to the understanding of the impact of caring for a chronically ill child. This will contribute to pediatric family care. OBJECTIVE: Our goal was to determine the health-related quality of life of parents of chronically ill children compared with parents of healthy schoolchildren. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: A survey of 533 parents of children with chronic conditions (10 diagnosis groups, children aged 1-19 years, diagnosed >1 year ago, living at home) and 443 parents of schoolchildren was conducted between January 2006 and September 2007. Parents were approached through Emma Children's Hospital (which has a tertiary referral and a regional function) and through parent associations. The comparison group included parents of healthy schoolchildren. Health-related quality of life was assessed with the TNO-AZL Questionnaire for Adult's Health Related Quality of Life. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Health-related quality of life measures gross and fine motor function, cognitive functioning, sleep, pain, social functioning, daily activities, sexuality, vitality, positive and depressive emotions, and aggressiveness. The health-related quality of life of the study group was compared with that of the comparison group, and effect sizes were estimated. The percentages of parents at risk for a low health-related quality of life were compared with the 25th percentile scores of the comparison group. RESULTS. Parents of chronically ill children had a significantly lower health-related quality of life. Subgroup analysis showed lower health-related quality of life on sleep, social functioning, daily activities, vitality, positive emotions, and depressive emotions in disease-specific groups. On average, 45% of the parents were at risk for health-related quality-of-life impairment. CONCLUSIONS: Parents of chronically ill children report a seriously lower health-related quality of life, which should receive attention and supportive care if necessary. A family-centered approach in pediatrics is recommended.

Monetary valuation of informal care: the well-being valuation method.

This paper estimates the monetary value of providing informal care by means of a well-being valuation method. This is done by assessing the compensating variation necessary to maintain the same level of well-being after an informal caregiver provides an extra hour of informal care. The informal caregiver's well-being is proxied by the answer to two subjective well-being questions that were posed in a questionnaire answered by 865 Dutch informal caregivers between the end of 2001 and the beginning of 2002. In the econometric analysis, a distinction is made between the care recipients who are and the ones who are not a family member of the informal caregiver. The results indicate that an extra hour of informal care is worth about 9 or 10 Euros. This equals 8 or 9 Euros if the care recipient is a family member and about 7 or 9 Euros if not. When applying the contingent valuation method to the same sample, the value obtained was 10.52 Euros per hour. This paper concludes that the well-being valuation method is a useful complement to the more traditional valuation methods in the health economics literature in general and more particularly for the economic valuation of informal care: it includes all costs and effects associated with providing care from the perspective of the informal caregiver, it is relatively cheap to implement, and it offers an additional possibility to determine the convergent validity of the different monetary valuation methods.

The subjective costs of health losses due to chronic diseases. An alternative model for monetary appraisal.

This paper proposes a method to evaluate health losses or gains by looking at the impact on well-being of a change in health status. The paper presents estimates of the equivalent income change that would be necessary to change general satisfaction with life to the same extent as a change in health satisfaction would do. In other words, the income equivalent of health satisfaction changes is estimated. Next, this health satisfaction changes are linked to specific diseases in order to estimate the income equivalent for these diseases. This method uses answers to well-being and health satisfaction questions as posed in a large German data set, distinguishing between workers and non-workers and between East and West Germans. It is found, for instance, that for West-German workers hearing impediments are on average equivalent to an income reduction of about 20%, and that heart or blood difficulties are for the same group equivalent to a 47% income reduction.