Table 1.
Definitions and descriptive statistics
| Variable | Definition | n | Mean | St. Dev. | Min | Max |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subjective well-being | Item: “How happy are you with your life in general?” 5 point scale, ranging from -1-very unhappy- to -5-very happy | 697 | 3.369 | 1.21 | 1 | 5 |
| Household level characteristics | ||||||
| Absolute consumptiona | Natural logarithm of all items bought during last week, all homegrown consumption during last 12 months, durable goods bought last year and replacement value of durables, per capita | 398 | 7.31 | 1.08 | 3.58 | 10.52 |
| Conspicuous consumption | Durable goods (jewellery, watches, mobile phones etc.), social and religious expenses, recreation expenses and last five years dowry expenses as percentage of a household’s total consumption | 398 | 0.08 | 0.018 | 0.056 | 0.12 |
| Village level characteristics | ||||||
| Average consumption in village | Absolute consumption, aggregated average per village | 19 | 7.3 | 0.53 | 6.71 | 8.58 |
| Cross level interaction terms | ||||||
| Absolute consumption * Average consumption in village | Included as a proxy for relative consumption | |||||
| Control variables | ||||||
| Income aspirations | What household level income would you consider to be a good income? “Amount in Indian rupees (measured at the household level)” | 398 | 3344.33 | 1219.42 | 1,000 | 10,000 |
| Health | Number of days respondent missed primary daily activities due to sickness during last 4 weeks | 697 | 0.89 | 2.69 | 0 | 30 |
| Age | Respondent’s age. Continuous measurement | 697 | 45.43 | 11.61 | 20 | 90 |
| Education | Measured in full-time years of education | 697 | 3.51 | 3.6 | 0 | 15 |
| Caste | Scheduled caste/Scheduled tribe | 370 | 53.08% | |||
| Backward caste | 236 | 33.86% | ||||
| General caste | 134 | 19.23% | ||||
| Religion | Hindu | 610 | 87.52% | |||
| Muslim | 26 | 3.73% | ||||
| Christian | 59 | 8.46% | ||||
| Employment status | Employed | 506 | 72.60% | |||
| Unemployed | 191 | 27.40% | ||||
| Marital status | Married | 664 | 95.27% | |||
| Divorced/Widowed/Single | 32 | 4.59% | ||||
| Gender | Female | 350 | 50.22% | |||
| Male | 347 | 49.78% | ||||
aOur survey provided us with very detailed information on the household’s expenses. We used the consumption categories food consumption, food produces and consumed at home, non-food consumption and the replacement values of durable goods owned. We encountered several missing values which we imputed using multiple imputation methods