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Published in: Social Indicators Research 1/2017

27-10-2015

Long Term Trends in Life Satisfaction, 1973–2012: Flanders in Europe

Author: Marc Callens

Published in: Social Indicators Research | Issue 1/2017

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Abstract

In this paper we focus on temporal heterogeneity of overall life satisfaction. Using repeated Eurobarometer Surveys from the period 1973–2012 and multilevel hierarchical age period cohort regression, trend, life-cycle and cohort effects are disentangled. In Flanders, the trend fluctuations are stronger than the life-cycle effects and there are hardly any generation effects. In other countries, by contrast, there are few or no trend fluctuations, but rather signs of a generational change. The international heterogeneity is particularly large and these international differences are stronger than the temporal ones. It remains unclear what factors from the macro-context lie at the basis of the observed international differences.

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Footnotes
1
NUTS (Nomenclature des Unités Territoriales Statistiques) is a system for the division of the territory of the European Union, the so-called NUTS regions. NUTS 1 regions contain 3–7 million inhabitants.
 
2
The trend variables have been harmonized with respect to variable names, variable and value labels, coding over time and weighting factors.
 
3
Luxembourg is not included in the analysis because of the low number of respondents.
 
4
Thalidomide, popular with pregnant women at the end of the 1950s as a cure for morning sickness and as a sedative, caused about 10,000 newborns to have serious defects such as missing or underdeveloped limbs.
 
5
The estimated period effects equal the sum of the intercept and the period-specific random effect.
 
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Metadata
Title
Long Term Trends in Life Satisfaction, 1973–2012: Flanders in Europe
Author
Marc Callens
Publication date
27-10-2015
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Published in
Social Indicators Research / Issue 1/2017
Print ISSN: 0303-8300
Electronic ISSN: 1573-0921
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-015-1134-z

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