Life-Course and Satisfaction, Equal for Every-One?

Since 1974 the department of Social Statistics of the Netherlands Central Bureau of Statistics has carried out regularly Quality of Life Surveys. The goal of the surveys is to give an integrating view of aspects of daily life of the respondents and their evaluation of these aspects. Among other things, information is gathered about satisfaction with life. With the results of the surveys of 1974, 1977, 1980 and 1983 a description is given of the development in satisfaction with life for four hypothetical cohorts. This description points out that there seems to be a general "course of life" in this type of satisfaction, regardless of the generation one belongs to or the period one lives in. This might be explained by the fact that important life-events are concentrated in certain periods of a person's life. However, statistically, this general part of the life-course is small.