---
title: "Subjective well-being research: papers and trends"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “subjective well-being” appeared in 1,311 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (835), health economics and policy (138) and management (93)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/subjective-well-being
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/subjective-well-being.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “subjective well-being” appeared in 1,311 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (835), health economics and policy (138) and management (93). (as of 2026-11-05)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-05T06:02:37+09:00
window: 2026-10-07 to 2026-11-05
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Papers on “subjective well-being”

[Browse research topics](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/directory/page/6.md)

Research on “subjective well-being” in the 480 tracked journals: papers per year and category, the journals, institutions and countries publishing it, the keywords studied with it and its most-cited papers. It is not among the most frequent keywords of the last 30 days, so this page has no list of its latest papers.

Back to the ranking: https://scholar4ai.com/rankings/keywords.md

## Key findings

- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “subjective well-being” appeared in 1,311 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (835), health economics and policy (138) and management (93).
- 156 of them were published in 2025, against 116 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Peking University (17), Renmin University of China (11) and Beijing Normal University (10).
- The journals publishing most of them were Journal of Happiness Studies (171), Social Science & Medicine (25) and International Journal of Hospitality Management (11).
- The most-cited of them is “Happiness in the air: How does a dirty sky affect mental health and subjective well-being?” (Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2017), with 659 citations.

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 86 | 73 | 94 | 87 | 97 | 81 | 68 | 73 | 91 | 85 |
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 7 | 16 | 18 | 17 | 10 | 14 | 11 | 14 | 17 | 14 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 5 | 10 | 2 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 9 | 18 | 13 | 13 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 5 | 1 | 5 | 8 | 5 | 9 | 10 | 10 | 9 | 2 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 4 | 2 | 8 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 7 | 5 | 2 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 4 | 6 | 7 | 11 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 3 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 11 | 5 |
| [Statistics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/statistics.md) | 3 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| All categories | 116 | 112 | 141 | 139 | 134 | 132 | 114 | 134 | 156 | 133 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Journal of Happiness Studies](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-happiness-studies.md) | 171 |
| 2 | [Social Science & Medicine](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/social-science-medicine.md) | 25 |
| 3 | [International Journal of Hospitality Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-hospitality-management.md) | 11 |
| 4 | [Transportation Research Part A Policy and Practice](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-a-policy-and-practice.md) | 11 |
| 5 | [Journal of Business Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-research.md) | 10 |
| 6 | [Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-economic-behavior-organization.md) | 9 |
| 7 | [Ecological Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ecological-economics.md) | 9 |
| 8 | [Quality & Quantity](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/quality-quantity.md) | 8 |
| 9 | [Technology in Society](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technology-in-society.md) | 8 |
| 10 | [Economics Letters](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/economics-letters.md) | 8 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Peking University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/peking-university.md) | 17 |
| 2 | [Renmin University of China](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/renmin-university-of-china.md) | 11 |
| 3 | [Beijing Normal University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/beijing-normal-university.md) | 10 |
| 4 | [IZA - Institute of Labor Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/iza-institute-of-labor-economics.md) | 10 |
| 5 | [University College London](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-college-london.md) | 10 |
| 6 | [Erasmus University Rotterdam](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/erasmus-university-rotterdam.md) | 8 |
| 7 | [Shandong University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/shandong-university.md) | 8 |
| 8 | [University of Hong Kong](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-hong-kong.md) | 8 |
| 9 | [Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/centre-national-de-la-recherche-scientifique.md) | 7 |
| 10 | [Hong Kong Polytechnic University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/hong-kong-polytechnic-university.md) | 7 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 157 |
| 2 | United States | 104 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 59 |
| 4 | Germany | 39 |
| 5 | Italy | 35 |
| 6 | Australia | 31 |
| 7 | Japan | 25 |
| 8 | France | 24 |
| 9 | Canada | 18 |
| 10 | Netherlands | 18 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | life satisfaction | 141 |
| 2 | happiness | 89 |
| 3 | [China](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/china.md) | 43 |
| 4 | [gender differences](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/gender-differences.md) | 41 |
| 5 | [COVID-19 pandemic](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/covid-19-pandemic.md) | 37 |
| 6 | [older adults](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/older-adults.md) | 31 |
| 7 | [cross-national comparison](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/cross-national-comparison.md) | 30 |
| 8 | [mental health](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/mental-health.md) | 22 |
| 9 | [income inequality](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/income-inequality.md) | 21 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 659 | 5.7 | [Happiness in the air: How does a dirty sky affect mental health and subjective well-being?](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2017.04.001) | [Journal of Environmental Economics and Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-environmental-economics-and-management.md) | 2017-04-05 | Xin Zhang, Xiaobo Zhang, Xi Chen |
| 2 | 534 | 5.8 | [A hedonic motivation model in virtual reality tourism: Comparing visitors and non-visitors](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2018.11.016) | [International Journal of Information Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-information-management.md) | 2019-03-04 | Myung Ja Kim, C. Michael Hall |
| 3 | 525 | 4.6 | [Does self-control predict financial behavior and financial well-being?](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbef.2017.04.002) | [Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-behavioral-and-experimental-finance.md) | 2017-05-05 | Camilla Strömbäck, Thérèse Lind, Kenny Skagerlund et al. |
| 4 | 477 | 4.7 | [Caste and development: Contemporary perspectives on a structure of discrimination and advantage](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.06.003) | [World Development](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/world-development.md) | 2018-06-21 | David Mosse |
| 5 | 442 | 6.0 | [Is happiness U-shaped everywhere? Age and subjective well-being in 145 countries](https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-020-00797-z) | [Journal of Population Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-population-economics.md) | 2020-09-09 | David G. Blanchflower |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “subjective well-being”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/subjective-well-being

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-subjective-well-being,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “subjective well-being”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/subjective-well-being}},
  urldate = {2026-11-05},
  note = {Journal and Conference Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).