Pet ownership happiness study estimates cats and dogs at £70,000
Michael Gmeiner and Adelina Gschwandtner used UK survey data to argue cats and dogs causally raise life satisfaction.
By Priya Nair · Economy Reporter
· 3 min read
A pet ownership happiness study by Michael Gmeiner and Adelina Gschwandtner says the link between having a cat or dog and higher life satisfaction may be causal, not just a feel-good correlation. For anyone thinking about the real cost and value of a pet, the striking number is their estimate that owning a cat or dog is worth about £70,000 in life-satisfaction terms.
The researchers looked at a familiar problem in social science: pet owners often report being happier, but that does not prove pets are the reason. Correlation means two things move together. Causation means one thing helps produce the other.
Gmeiner and Gschwandtner tried to get closer to causation by looking for a way to separate the effect of animals from broader social factors. According to their paper, available through SpringerLink, they examined whether people were happier when they were asked to look after neighbors’ property, a measure they used as an indirect way to capture exposure to neighbors’ pets while those neighbors were away.
Does pet ownership make people happier?
Gmeiner and Gschwandtner’s answer is yes, based on their analysis. They found that people who own a cat or a dog report higher life satisfaction, and they argue their method supports a causal interpretation.
The approach is not the same as a real-time survey that asks people directly whether they are currently feeding a neighbor’s dog or checking on a neighbor’s cat. The researchers instead used the UK Household Longitudinal Survey, which asks how often respondents are asked to watch over a neighbor’s property.
To reduce the risk that the finding was really about friendly neighborhoods rather than animals, they controlled for variables tied to social connections and closeness to neighbors. In plain English, they tried to account for the possibility that people who know and trust their neighbors are already happier for reasons unrelated to pets.
The measure is indirect, and the researchers acknowledge that it is not a perfect substitute for direct data on pet-sitting. Still, they show that the property-watching question is correlated with pet ownership, which is why they use it as part of their strategy.
How did researchers put a price on owning a pet?
Gmeiner and Gschwandtner also estimated the monetary value of pet ownership using willingness to pay, a standard way economists measure how much people value something by asking what they would give up to have it. In this case, they considered how much people say they would pay for a cat or dog and how that choice relates to happiness.
Their estimate puts the life-satisfaction value of owning a pet at roughly £70,000. That figure does not mean a cat or dog costs £70,000 to buy or care for. It is an attempt to translate the happiness associated with ownership into a money-like measure, which can help compare emotional benefits with other parts of household life.
The study adds evidence to a debate that matters beyond pet lovers. If companionship from animals raises well-being in a measurable way, then household choices that look purely personal can have effects that show up in broader quality-of-life data.
This story draws on original reporting from Klement on Investing.
