david bartram university of leicester [email protected] · happiness studies key findings income the...
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![Page 2: David Bartram University of Leicester d.bartram@le.ac · Happiness Studies Key findings Income The “Easterlin paradox” Those with higher incomes are happier than those with less](https://reader033.vdocuments.net/reader033/viewer/2022053015/5f1645336b8a7e6d99443009/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
Happiness Studies
Typically, interest is in “objective” well-being
e.g. income, health, education, etc.
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Happiness Studies
Typically, interest is in “objective” well-being
e.g. income, health, education, etc.
Happiness studies asks:
What are the subjective consequences of
different forms of objective well-being?
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Happiness Studies
Typically, interest is in “objective” well-being
e.g. income, health, education, etc.
Happiness studies asks:
What are the subjective consequences of
different forms of objective well-being?
So: happiness = subjective well-being
Other definitions
Layard: “feeling good”
Haybron: “positive emotional state”
○ (more durable: “mood propensities”)
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Happiness Studies
“Subjective consequences”?
An empirical question, as against an assumption
or axiom
Thus quite different from “revealed preferences”
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Happiness Studies
“Subjective consequences”?
An empirical question, as against an assumption
or axiom
Thus quite different from “revealed preferences”
Different ways of forming empirical question:
What determines happiness?
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Happiness Studies
“Subjective consequences”?
An empirical question, as against an assumption
or axiom
Thus quite different from “revealed preferences”
Different ways of forming empirical question:
What determines happiness?
How much do different factors contribute to
happiness?
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Happiness Studies
Empirical methods:
Mainly surveys
Many large surveys contain a question on
happiness:
○ Taking all things together, how happy would you
say you are?
○ 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
○ Extremely unhappy extremely happy
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Happiness Studies
Empirical methods:
Mainly surveys
Many large surveys contain a question on
happiness:
○ Taking all things together, how happy would you
say you are?
○ 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
○ Extremely unhappy extremely happy
Sometimes “life satisfaction”
○ Cognitive as opposed to affective
○ But answers are usually very similar
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Happiness Studies
Empirical methods
Single question vs. multi-item scale?
○ Results/answers very similar
Other approaches:
○ Diaries
○ “beeper” studies
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Happiness Studies
Key findings
Income
○ The “Easterlin paradox”
Those with higher incomes are happier than those with less
(cross-sectional comparison)
But gaining more money / a higher income generally
doesn’t bring greater happiness (longitudinal)
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Happiness Studies
Key findings
Income
○ The “Easterlin paradox”
Those with higher incomes are happier than those with less
(cross-sectional comparison)
But gaining more money / a higher income generally
doesn’t bring greater happiness (longitudinal)
○ Explanations:
The relative dimension of income (income as a positional
good)
“Social comparisons”, status
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Happiness Studies
Key findings
Income
○ The “Easterlin paradox”
Those with higher incomes are happier than those with less
(cross-sectional comparison)
But gaining more money / a higher income generally
doesn’t bring greater happiness (longitudinal)
○ Explanations:
The relative dimension of income (income as a positional
good)
“Social comparisons”, status
So: economic growth generally doesn’t raise happiness
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Happiness Studies
Key findings
Income (Easterlin paradox cont’d.)
○ Aspirations: we want more – but we continue to want
more even after we get more
Holds for people in poorer countries, not only in wealthy ones
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Happiness Studies
Key findings
Income (Easterlin paradox cont’d.)
○ Aspirations: we want more – but we continue to want
more even after we get more
Holds for people in poorer countries, not only in wealthy ones
○ Adaptation (particularly w/rt the things we buy)
○ So, even with individual mobility:
Average happiness doesn’t rise
For upwardly mobile individuals, happiness doesn’t rise
much and increases don’t persist (cf. lottery winners)
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Happiness Studies
Key findings
Income (Easterlin paradox cont’d.)
○ Aspirations: we want more – but we continue to want
more even after we get more
Holds for people in poorer countries, not only in wealthy ones
○ Adaptation (particularly w/rt the things we buy)
○ So, even with individual mobility:
Average happiness doesn’t rise
For upwardly mobile individuals, happiness doesn’t rise
much and increases don’t persist (cf. lottery winners)
Recent work: broaden focus beyond income, to
include wealth
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Happiness Studies
Key findings
Other factors:
○ Health (but: “subjective health”)
○ Avoiding unemployment
○ Religiosity (but only in religious contexts)
○ Spouse/partner
○ Social capital (friends, community)
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Happiness Studies
Key findings
Other factors:
○ Health (but: “subjective health”)
○ Avoiding unemployment
○ Religiosity (but only in religious contexts)
○ Spouse/partner
○ Social capital (friends, community)
○ Demographic variables: age, gender, race/ethnicity
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Migration and Happiness
Focus on income, in connection with
“economic migration”:
If in general ↑income does not mean
↑happiness, then perhaps migration as a
means of gaining more income doesn’t lead
to greater happiness
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Migration and Happiness
Focus on income, in connection with
“economic migration”:
If in general ↑income does not mean
↑happiness, then perhaps migration as a
means of gaining more income doesn’t lead
to greater happiness
○ Even worse: if relative position matters most,
then even in cross-sectional terms:
Migrants often move from middle-income positions at
origin to lower-income positions at destination
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Migration and Happiness
Focus on income, in connection with
“economic migration”:
If in general ↑income does not mean
↑happiness, then perhaps migration as a
means of gaining more income doesn’t lead
to greater happiness
○ Even worse: if relative position matters most,
then even in cross-sectional terms:
Migrants often move from middle-income positions at
origin to lower-income positions at destination
So, improvement in objective well-being –
but subjective?
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Migration and Happiness
Data problem:
No panel data on immigrants with data
collected before migration and after
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Migration and Happiness
Data problem:
No panel data on immigrants with data
collected before migration and after
So, cross-sectional comparisons
○ Direction of causation?
○ Omitted variable bias?
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Migration and Happiness
Two types of comparison:
First, compare immigrants to natives in
destination countries
○ Typical result: immigrants are less happy than
natives, e.g. in the USA, in western Europe
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Migration and Happiness
Two types of comparison:
First, compare immigrants to natives in
destination countries
○ Typical result: immigrants are less happy than
natives, e.g. in the USA, in western Europe
Holds in a simple bivariate comparison, and also in
regression models
The regression models adjust for the fact that
immigrants and natives might already be different in
ways that matter separately for happiness – thus the
“net” difference associated with being an immigrant
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Migration and Happiness
b s.e. P>|t| β
Ln(income) 0.198 0.081 0.015 0.073
Immigrant -2.189 0.998 0.028 -0.290
Interaction 0.563 0.276 0.041 0.270
married 0.720 0.185 0.000 0.173
split -0.320 0.230 0.163 -0.049
widowed -0.042 0.263 0.872 -0.006
one child -0.314 0.189 0.096 -0.054
two+ children -0.429 0.152 0.005 -0.105
Age2/100 0.019 0.003 0.000 0.179
Unemployed -0.466 0.223 0.037 -0.053
God 0.090 0.020 0.000 0.116
Health -0.608 0.062 0.000 -0.266
Constant 6.843 0.384 0.000
n 1339
F 21.13
Prob > F 0.000
Adjusted R-sq 0.153
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Migration and Happiness
Key points re comparison of immigrants
to natives in the USA:
Lower happiness among immigrants in a
simple bivariate comparison
Lower happiness with regression controls
○ Including a variable indicating that the income/
happiness association is stronger for
immigrants than for natives
Lower financial satisfaction ○ Even though even immigrants from poorer countries
have average earnings on par with natives
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Migration and Happiness
Two types of comparison:
Second: compare migrants to stayers in the
origin country
○ For Europe EW migrants, the migrants are
happier than the stayers
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Migration and Happiness
Two types of comparison:
Second: compare migrants to stayers in the
origin country
○ For Europe EW migrants, the migrants are
happier than the stayers
○ While this is true generally, it is not true for all
flows:
Migrants from Romania are no happier than stayers
in Romania
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Migration and Happiness
Don’t try to answer the question in a
“universal” way
○ Some migrants are probably happier, some
aren’t.
○ Why the differences?
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Migration and Happiness
Don’t try to answer the question in a
“universal” way
○ Some migrants are probably happier, some
aren’t.
○ Why the differences?
○ The Eastern European case is probably the
most “optimistic”:
Happiness in Eastern Europe is low
Contrast with migration from Latin America to the
USA: happiness in Latin America is high
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Migration and Happiness
Other issues:
○ Return
○ Remittances
○ Refugees
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Migration and Happiness
Other issues:
○ Return
○ Remittances
○ Refugees
Almost all work so far is quantitative
○ Though there are affinities with (non-
quantitative) sociological migration studies
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Policy implications?
For admissions policies:
Beware the potential for misuse
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Policy implications?
For admissions policies:
Beware the potential for misuse
○ Paternalist policy: “keep them out, it’s for their
own good”
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Policy implications?
For admissions policies:
Beware the potential for misuse
○ Paternalist policy: “keep them out, it’s for their
own good”
Even so: more emphasis on alleviating the
local deficiencies that lead people to prefer
migration?
○ Joseph Carens: most people don’t want
migration for its own sake – it is a means to
address other needs
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Policy implications?
For integration policies:
First, is happiness an appropriate policy
goal?
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Policy implications?
For integration policies:
First, is happiness an appropriate policy
goal?
Perhaps for some areas
○ Thus to support employment – reinforces
need to support language learning
○ (Perhaps would also help with social
integration, social capital)
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Policy implications?
Getting better data
Panel data, before and after migration
○ (useful for assessing consequences of
migration more broadly, not just happiness)
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Policy implications?
Getting better data
Panel data, before and after migration
○ (useful for assessing consequences of
migration more broadly, not just happiness)
Data collection efforts must be rooted in
origin countries, prior to migration