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Social Indicators Research

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01.05.2010

Economic, Social, and Cultural Determinants of Life Satisfaction: Are there Differences Between Asia and Europe?

verfasst von: Wolfgang Jagodzinski

Erschienen in: Social Indicators Research | Ausgabe 1/2010

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Abstract

This paper investigates the influence of the economic, social, and cultural variables on life satisfaction in Asia and Europe. The second section sets a unifying theoretical framework for all three domains by defining life satisfaction as a function of aspirations and expectations which in turn are affected by micro- and macro-level variables. On the micro-level, economic capital is a resource for the actor. On the macro-level, societal economic capital improves the opportunity structure for the individual under certain conditions. Thus, economic capital on both levels positively affects the perceived chances of fulfilling aspirations. As long as the latter remain unchanged life satisfaction will increase. Social and cultural factors partially follow the same logic, as indicated by the terms social and cultural capital. Under a set of assumptions, the hypotheses derived are that personal and societal economic capital, national pride and national integration, religiosity, and societal religious integration, all positively affect the life satisfaction of the individual. A multi-level analysis of data from the European Values Study and the AsiaBarometer confirms the micro-level hypotheses. The economic macro-level indicators also display the theoretically expected positive effect on life satisfaction in the multivariate analysis of Asian and European data. By contrast, the direct cross-level effects of a society’s national integration and particularly of religion do not become significant in Europe, yet they are highly significant in Asia. This strong influence of the social and cultural context in Asia can be interpreted in two different ways.

Vorheriger Artikel From Materialist to Post-Materialist Happiness? National Affluence and Determinants of Life Satisfaction in Cross-National Perspective

Nächster Artikel Life is Getting Better: Societal Evolution and Fit with Human Nature

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See the contributions in Kahneman et al. (1999) or Veenhoven (1991, 2009) for a clarification of concepts.

Cf. Diener et al. (1999) for a short overview of the theoretical approaches.

The adoption of RD-concepts does not necessarily imply a relative concept of life satisfaction (cf. Veenhoven 1991). It becomes relative if people define their aspirations and expectations with reference to other persons and groups.

For their relevance cf. see MacLeod and Conway (2005).

Formally the hypotheses are partial derivatives.

Cf. Frey and Stutzer (2002, 78ff.) for a graphical illustration.

Investment in higher education, for instance, indicates the expectation of getting an adequate job after completion of the course of study. Later failure indicates a decline of expectations, which will produce dissatisfaction. Boudon (1982) presents a detailed, insightful analysis of this constellation.

Cf. Argyle (2001), Bjornskov et al. (2007), Frey and Stutzer (2002) with further references.

This is partly a contrast group problem because singles are very heterogeneous. Furthermore, happy people may have a higher likelihood of getting married (Stutzer and Frey 2006).

If extreme atheism is equated to lack of religious aspirations, the percentage of people without religious aspirations is very small. Exceptions are regions where the religious socialization has completely broken down (Jagodzinski 2000; Jagodzinski and Greeley n. d.).

The data does not allow for the estimation of the impact of different dimensions of religiosity such as beliefs and religious experience, or the impact of variables such as the closeness to God (cf. Pollner 1989).

Inoguchi et al. (2005); Inoguchi et al. (2006); Inoguchi (2008).

The AsiaBarometer 2003 uses a different indicator of religiosity than the later surveys.

Greece has been excluded due to sampling problems.

Shin and Inoguchi (2009) have examined this variable more closely.

Where available, indices from 14 and 15 items can be compared. The latter index correlates marginally higher with national pride in a few countries, but is not superior to the 14-item index with regard to other variables. Satisfaction with democracy seems to contribute only marginally to the construct validity of overall life satisfaction.

The exclusion of people with a larger number of missing answers does not change the correlations substantially. Therefore a valid score is assigned to the index if at least two valid answers are given. Therefore, the dependent variable has almost no missing values.

The measure is only second best for Muslims. As Turkey is the only dominantly Islamic country in the dataset, the usually superior measure of religiosity is retained.

The R ²s for the HLM-models are approximations that can only be calculated for a model with fixed slopes.

They can be obtained from the author (jagodzinski@uni-koeln.de).

See, for instance, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_code_top-level_domain.

East and West Germany are treated as different regions because they still differ markedly in the level of religiosity.

Turkey appears less religious in Figure 3b than it actually is, because religious participation underestimates the religiosity of Muslim women.

Significance tests are useful even if countries are not randomly selected, and the assumptions of the hierarchical linear model therefore are not met. If we omit the tests, size and magnitude of the regression coefficients become the sole criteria for accepting or rejecting hypotheses. In particular, cross-level effects are often of impressive size. They will be interpreted as strong empirical evidence though, due to the small second-level N, they would not become significant in a test. If a set of randomly selected units does not confirm a hypothesis, then a set of non-randomly selected units cannot confirm it even more so. If this pragmatic rule is accepted, significance tests are a protection against drawing false conclusions too hastily.

For other system variables see Radcliff (2001).

For the distinction between nationalism and patriotism see Blank and Schmidt 2003.

It can be objected that the selection of countries has produced spurious effects. Furthermore, samples are typically drawn from the residential population, which excludes a large part of the underprivileged total population in poorer countries. This effect may have been further increased in countries where samples were drawn from the population of larger cities.

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Titel: Economic, Social, and Cultural Determinants of Life Satisfaction: Are there Differences Between Asia and Europe?
verfasst von: Wolfgang Jagodzinski
Publikationsdatum: 01.05.2010
Verlag: Springer Netherlands
Erschienen in: Social Indicators Research / Ausgabe 1/2010
Print ISSN: 0303-8300
Elektronische ISSN: 1573-0921
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-009-9555-1

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