Everyday Life Infrastructure Impact on Subjective Well-Being in the European Union: A Gender Perspective

Abstract

This paper processes the 2015 Benefits of Gender Equality through Infrastructure Provision (BGEIP) Survey, a representative survey for the EU-28, to estimating the impact of everyday life infrastructure access on subjective well-being (SWB) from a gender perspective in Europe. Our estimations prove that accessing everyday life infrastructure in Europe indeed increases SWB, but it contributes to increasing more the SWB of women than that of men. Women’s well-being is positively affected for all kinds of everyday life infrastructures, but the differences with respect to men are larger for the Nursery category for children up to 3 years and for the Centers category for people with long term disabilities. In contrast, men’s well-being is only sensitive to the Health infrastructure and to the Gym and Workout places. Clearly, targeting infrastructure investment helping women in caring children, and other dependents in the family constitute an excellent vehicle for increasing women’s SWB and reducing gender inequality in Europe.

Keywords

• everyday life infrastructure
• subjective well-being
• gender analysis
• gender inequality