Life Satisfaction and Income Distribution in Selected European Countries: a New Perspective

Accepted February 2026

Abstract

The relation between life satisfaction and income is a complex research question, as the two concepts interact differently across social contexts and over time. While most studies try to discern the impact of income or income inequality on life satisfaction, the current research focuses on understanding the relation between income distribution and life satisfaction in selected European countries using data from the latest wave of the European Quality of Life Survey. Our research takes a novel approach by comparing the income distributions for people with high and low life satisfaction. In each country, we find that the income distributions tend to have similar shapes between the satisfied and dissatisfied people, although a slight rightward shift in the income distribution for satisfied people is observed for most countries. The relation between income inequality level and life satisfaction varies across the selected countries. Furthermore, although a universal left-skewness is observed in the distributions of life satisfaction in all the selected European countries, there is no positive relation between income decile groups and life satisfaction, suggesting that higher income does not necessarily bring greater happiness in these nations.