TITLE:
Determinants of Subjective Well-Being and Invariance Measurement: Evidence from German and Ghanaian Data
AUTHORS:
Muhammad Ba
KEYWORDS:
Subjective Wellbeing, Germany, Ghana, Invariance Measurement, MGCFA
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.8 No.8,
August
14,
2020
ABSTRACT: This
paper aims to test the invariance measures of subjective well-being and some of
its determinants using Ghanaian and German data from the WVS (World Value
Survey). From the WVS wave-6 data, the following dimensions are selected:
religion, social capital, social trust, fear feeling or worry, political activities, personalities, security, economic
conditions, and subjective well-being. To test the different types of
invariance (configural invariance and metric invariance), MGCFA (Multi-group
Confirmatory Factor Analysis) was used. The first result of our modeling was that all dimensions
significantly determine subjective well-being in the local model with the
German data. In contrast to the Ghanaian data, only the dimensions of political
activity and the fear feeling or worries turn out not to be significant in
explaining subjective well-being. Second, the configural invariance test
revealed that social capital, religion, social trust, fear feelings or worries,
and economic conditions are non-equivalent between the two countries. Security,
political activities, and subjective well-being satisfy the partial invariance
measurement. Only personality traits are fully invariant across the two
countries. As a result, a comparison of the determinants of well-being across
the two countries is only possible for personality traits (full invariance
measurement) and security (partial invariance measurement).