Working Papers

The WNE Working Papers series has been published by the Faculty of Economic Sciences at the University of Warsaw since 2008.

The WNE Working Papers series provides a fast, open channel for disseminating research conducted at the Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw. The papers hosted here are working versions (pre-prints) and may evolve as authors refine their analyses, incorporate feedback, or progress through formal peer-review. What you read is the current version released by the authors, timestamped and assigned DOI/ISSN identifiers to ensure precise citation and version tracking. Copyright remains with the authors, who may, at any time, upload a revised file or add a note directing readers to a later, peer-reviewed publication.

The Working Papers series accepts articles by research employees of the Faculty and publications from conferences organised at the Faculty of Economic Sciences at the University of Warsaw. Articles should be original research papers which have not been previously published, on the subject of economics.

Please send your paper by e-mail: Ht\A-9/V4NsgE~bxe3#uK^R}qJz]#[@dO&q'qGp?YZ5?ZgK@{mTD3sz7g 

Please send 2 files:

(1) the main text without the title of the article and the authors (DOC/DOCX file) and

(2) the title page including: the title of the paper, the authors and their affiliation (DOC/DOCX file).

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Number of Results 4

WP(28/2026)522. Intra-Household Relative Income and Happiness: The Role of Unpaid Work Division During COVID and Afterwards

Authors: Grabowska Magdalena
Rising female employment and earnings have transformed partners’ economic positions, while gender divisions in unpaid labor persist. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the organization of paid and unpaid work, opening a window to reassess these tw…

WP522. Intra-Household Relative Income and Happiness: The Role of Unpaid Work Division During COVID and Afterwards

Rising female employment and earnings have transformed partners’ economic positions, while gender divisions in unpaid labor persist. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the organization of paid and unpaid work, opening a window to reassess these two dimensions within couples. Using longitudinal panel data from Poland (2021–2024), this paper examines how relative income and the division of unpaid labor relate to both life satisfaction and partner satisfaction among partnered adults. Random-effects models reveal distinct gendered patterns. For men, these dynamics are associated primarily with global life satisfaction: men report higher life satisfaction when they out-earn their partners, but substantially lower life satisfaction when they are out-earned and primarily responsible for domestic work. For women, effects concentrate in partner satisfaction: women who out-earn their partners report lower partner satisfaction when they also perform most domestic labor. These patterns hold for both housework and childcare and are observed primarily in the post-pandemic period.


DOI: https://doi.org/10.33138/2957-0506.2026.28.522
Grabowska Magdalena
relative income unpaid labor division subjective well-being intra-couple income distribution Poland

WP(6/2024)442. Why the Happiest Moments in Life are Sometimes Short? The Role of Psychological Traits and Socio-Economic Circumstances

Authors: Grabowska Magdalena, Górny Agata, Kalbarczyk Małgorzata
This paper studies happiness’ variability in the course of life and examines how psychological and socio-economic factors influence the probability that an individual is capable of identifying the happiest period in life and its length. The stu…

WP442. Why the Happiest Moments in Life are Sometimes Short? The Role of Psychological Traits and Socio-Economic Circumstances

This paper studies happiness’ variability in the course of life and examines how psychological and socio-economic factors influence the probability that an individual is capable of identifying the happiest period in life and its length. The study is based on SHARELIFE data and uses logistic regression and Cox proportional hazards models. Results show that the personality traits significantly, but differently, influence the probability of isolating the happiest life period and its length. Importantly, both positive and negative socio-economic circumstances augment the probability of identifying the happiest period and shorten its duration. These circumstances relate to familial events and socioeconomic status in the life course. The happiest moments of life are thus concentrated around not only positive but also negative changes in life. Our results contribute to the research on changes in the levels of happiness by identifying factors shaping occurrence and duration of the most happiest moments in life.


Grabowska Magdalena, Górny Agata, Kalbarczyk Małgorzata
Subjective well-being SHARELIFE Retrospective data Cox proportional hazards model Big 5

WP(4/2023)411. Inequality and happiness: the role of income versus wealth inequality

Authors: Sałach-Dróżdż Katarzyna
There are conflicting theories about whether individuals like or dislike inequality, or in other words, whether living in an unequal country increases or decreases their subjective well-being. The empirical literature has also not yet reached a conse…

WP411. Inequality and happiness: the role of income versus wealth inequality

There are conflicting theories about whether individuals like or dislike inequality, or in other words, whether living in an unequal country increases or decreases their subjective well-being. The empirical literature has also not yet reached a consensus. In this paper, we add a new perspective to the inequality-happiness puzzle. First, we study not only income inequality, but also wealth inequality, which has so far been overlooked in the happiness literature. Second, we reach beyond the usually studied Gini coefficient and top income shares, looking also at the other parts of income or wealth distribution. Using data from the integrated World Values Surveys and European Values Surveys for over 50 countries, matched with World Inequality Database data over the years 1981-2020, we find that individuals are happier with increases in the top 10% and top 1% shares of wealth and less happy with increases in the middle 40% share of either wealth or pre-tax income. Increasing the bottom 50% share of after-tax income also makes individuals happier, suggesting that they favor income redistribution. We offer possible explanations for these findings.


Sałach-Dróżdż Katarzyna
income inequality wealth inequality happiness subjective well-being life satisfaction

WP(15/2018)274. Top incomes and subjective well-being

Authors: Brzeziński Michał
We use data from the World Wealth & Income Database, the European Values Surveys and World Values Surveys to estimate the relationship between top income shares and subjective well-being in a sample of 35 countries observed between 1980s and 2010…

WP274. Top incomes and subjective well-being

We use data from the World Wealth & Income Database, the European Values Surveys and World Values Surveys to estimate the relationship between top income shares and subjective well-being in a sample of 35 countries observed between 1980s and 2010s (139 surveys and more than 200,000 respondents). Results show that top 1% income shares are positively associated with happiness, but not with life satisfaction. The effect is present in a subsample of Western countries. We discuss possible explanations for the positive association between top income shares and happiness.


DOI: http://doi.org.10.26405/WP/WNE2018/274/015
Brzeziński Michał
top incomes subjective well-being life satisfaction happiness income inequality World Wealth & Income Database
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