Dr Adelina Gschwandtner tells Isabelle and Cameron about the study that proves pets increase human life satisfaction and wellbeing.
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00:00Now, on Wednesdays, we look at the impactful research that goes on here in Kent.
00:05Yes, and joining us today is Dr Adelina Geschwantner at Kent's School of Economics, Politics and International Relations.
00:14Adelina, thank you so much for coming on the show.
00:17We're going to look at a study that has just come out recently that you've worked on,
00:21proving that pets increase human life satisfaction and well-being.
00:27Just give us a bit of a brief overview of the study.
00:32So the study uses the life satisfaction approach, a method that I am teaching in environmental valuation,
00:39in order to put a monetary value on pets.
00:43It has been used normally to estimate environmental impacts and things that normally do not have a value.
00:49But it has been also used to estimate the value of family, friends and relation to neighbourhoods.
00:58So that's why I thought, why not using it for pets?
01:01So the main results are that there is a positive direct causal impact from pets on human life satisfaction,
01:08which is new because until now there were just simple correlations observed.
01:11And the other one is that we also put a monetary value and the monetary value of pets appears to be similar to the one of family and friends,
01:21which is maybe not surprising given the fact that many people consider their pets as family members.
01:27Yes, and £70,000 a year in life satisfaction.
01:32How do you quantify that in numbers?
01:34So the method is econometrically very simple.
01:39You have on the left hand side life satisfaction.
01:42On the right hand side, you have the life event that you want to evaluate, in this case pet companionship and income.
01:50And you estimate the impact of that life event on life satisfaction and the impact of income on life satisfaction.
01:56And then you set the two into relation to each other.
01:59So it's a marginal rate of substitution between the happiness that the life event gives you and the happiness that money gives you.
02:06So it's quite an established method in environmental valuation.
02:10In terms of that valuation, did you find there was a difference based on the, you know, cats, dogs?
02:16I had goldfish when I was younger.
02:17I don't think I got a lot economically or satisfaction from them.
02:22But did you find there was a difference between the animals that you observed?
02:26Surprisingly, we found we were only able to look at cats and dogs because we just have the data for cats and dogs.
02:34And surprisingly, we found a bit of a higher value for cats than for dogs.
02:39And given, you know, the positive impacts of dogs, especially related to socialization and other health impacts,
02:46we expected actually a higher valuation for dogs.
02:49But given the fact that dogs actually are also more costly and that the method looks at the net benefits out of costs,
02:57we think that this is plausible.
02:59But overall, the values are similar.
03:01It's just slightly higher for cats.
03:03And I think this reflects the fact that when you go on vacation or you need someone to care, it's more expensive.
03:10Dogs are more maintenance intensive, if you so wish.
03:13Thank you so much for telling us a little bit more about that.
03:17I have to say, I have a cat myself and I believe she does have a lot of value in my life.
03:26So it's great that we're doing research to look into animals, care for animals, but they also care for us.
03:31It's really fascinating.
03:32Can I just mention one thing at the end?
03:34There is now a petition in the UK going around about putting, you know, a real value on pets in legal cases
03:41because they are just evaluated at their purchase value and they are treated like objects.