IMPACT OF INFLATION ON SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING
Keywords:
inflation, cost of living, subjective wellbeing, Republic of MacedoniaAbstract
The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of inflation on the subjective well-being of the population in the Republic of Macedonia. For this purpose, a field study was conducted in several cities on the territory of the Republic of Macedonia using a survey that included 400 randomly selected respondents, of which 50 respondents from Skopje, Bitola, Ohrid, Strumica and Kocani; 40 respondents from Veles, Tetovo and Shtip; and 30 respondents from Kavadarci.The structure of the respondents, was 55% (i.e. 220 respondents) male, and 45% (i.e. 180 respondents) female respondents. The age category of the respondents was as follow: 35% of the respondents (140 respondents) were aged 31 to 50 years, 30% of the respondents (120 respondents) were aged 51 to 64 years, 20% of the respondents (80 respondents) were over 64 years, and 15% of the respondents (60 respondents) were aged 18 to 30 years. Regarding the employment status of respondents, 50% (i.e. 200 respondents) were employed, 30% (120 people) were unemployed, and 20% (80 people) were retired.
The survey was consisted of 2 parts, the first part relating to demographic data about the respondents themselves (gender, age, employment and total family income), and the second part containing closed-ended questions with pre-given answers from which the respondents had to choose one answer that best reflected their views on inflation, the cost of living and their subjective well-being (degree of life satisfaction, existence and degree/absence of feelings of anxiety, stress and happiness). The responses from the survey were processed with the IBM SPSS Statistics 23 tool using the regression analysis method.
The results obtained showed that the cost of living of the population in the last 12 months has increased significantly, which means that there is a high level of inflation in the Republic of Macedonia. Inflation also leads to an increase in the feeling of anxiety and distress (correlation coefficient R = 0.745; determination coefficient R2 = 0.556; unstandardized coefficient B = 0.833; significance level p = 0.00), i.e. to a decrease in the feeling of happiness (R = 0.832; R2 = 0.692; B = - 0.900; p = 0.000), as well as to a decrease in the level of life satisfaction related to the material well-being of the population (R = 0.882; R2 = 0.778; B = - 0.933; p = 0.000), which means that inflation has a huge impact on the overall subjective well-being of the population (R = 0.808; R2 = 0.652; B = -1.000; p = 0.000). This interaction between inflation and subjective well-being is inversely proportional, so that any increase in inflation leads to a decrease in subjective well-being and vice versa. Therefore, national authorities should pay special attention to this economic category and, with timely and appropriate measures, influence the reduction of inflation.
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