If You\u27re Healthy and You Know it Clap Your Hands: An Exploration of the Relationship between Self-Rated Happiness and Self-Rated Health

This paper uses data from the 2008 General Social Survey to reproduce results that point to health as a positive indicator of happiness. A secondary aim of the study is to examine the affect that happiness has on health. Basic logit estimation techniques are utilized that place happiness and health as dependent variables in two separate sets of regression equations, the counterpart is the main explanatory variable in the respective regression model. Other determinants such as income, employment status, education level, marital status, age, sex and race are also incorporated. I obtain significant results that support earlier findings that good health has a strong, positive influence on happiness. The estimations yielded with health as the dependent variable also suggest that happiness is an important determinant in one\u27s health. However, these results are less conclusive due to omitted variables