2017 Volume 32 Issue 1 Pages 127-139
This paper examines whether the impact of individual subjective comparison of the living arrangement between past and present on subjective wellbeing does decline with the passage of time as the adaptation hypothesis predicts. Using data from an online survey for male and female Japanese individuals aged 20-69 in 2015 (N = 10,434), we employ OLS regressions of life satisfaction to perceived change in living arrangement since two distinct points in time, namely his or her childhood and five years ago, to compare the standardized coefficients of these two subjective comparisons with each other. The results show the comparison with childhood has a greater impact on wellbeing than the comparison with five years ago, which means that, contrary to the prediction of the adaptation hypothesis, the impact of the past does not decrease with time. This finding practically implies that to improve individual subjective wellbeing, not only the economic and social support for current living arrangement but also a long-term policy intervention to reduce the inequality of opportunity in earlier stage of the life course would be required.
