Relative Deprivation and Migration in an Agricultural Setting of Nepal

Population and Environment - Are individuals from a relatively more deprived household more likely to migrate for work reasons compared to those from a relatively less deprived household? In this...     

Testing for Measurement Invariance in the Satisfaction with Life Scale: A Comparison of Russians and North Americans

This study examined the comparability of Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) [Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985, Social Indicators Research, 34: 7–32] scores across U.S. and Russian student and community groups. Criteria for weak measurement invariance were met when comparing U.S. and Russian groups (combining student and community samples). Criteria for weak and strong measurement invariance were met when comparing the U.S. and Russian student samples. However, when comparing the U.S. and Russian community samples, the results showed a significant statistic for a baseline model, indicating a lack of comparability across samples. The costs of failing to meet criteria for weak, strong, and strict measurement invariance are discussed. An erratum to this article is available at .     

Income Inequality Indices Interpreted as Measures of Relative Deprivation/Satisfaction

This paper considers different ways of making comparisons between individuals in terms of deprivation and/or satisfaction. This allows the Gini index, the Bonferroni index and the De Vergottini index to be interpreted as social deprivation measures as well as social satisfaction measures. The inequality measures that belong to the ?? family, or linear combinations of them, are obtained when using different weighting schemes to average the deprivation and satisfaction associated with each income level. Particularly, the generalised Gini indices (Yitzhaki, Int Econ Rev 24:617?C628 in 1983), the indices proposed by Aaberge (J Econ Inequal 5(3):305?C322, 2007) or those proposed by Imedio-Olmedo et al. (J Public Econ Theory 13(1):97?C124, 2011) can be used to evaluate social deprivation or social satisfaction in an income distribution.     

The Divergent Meanings of Life Satisfaction: Item Response Modeling of the Satisfaction with Life Scale in Greenland and Norway

Cultural differences in response to the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) items is investigated. Data were fit to a mixed Rasch model in order to identify latent classes of participants in a combined sample of Norwegians (N = 461) and Greenlanders (N = 180). Initial analyses showed no mean difference in life satisfaction between the two subsamples. After transforming the ordinal raw scores into interval scales while simultaneously controlling for response bias, different results appeared. First, approximately 80% of the participants in the Greenlandic subsample fit a latent class with a large degree of random responding to the SWLS. Second, relative to the Norwegians, more Greenlanders were using extreme categories in responding to the SWLS. After statistically controlling for this tendency, Norwegians were in general more satisfied with their lives than Greenlanders. Third, Greenlanders who belonged to one specific latent class were more satisfied than their Norwegian counterparts. A salient feature of this class was the relative unwillingness of respondents to change the circumstances of their lives if they were given such an opportunity. The above results are a reminder of the care that must be used in analyzing survey data across cultures. The analytical strategy applied in the article offers an improved approach to handling such data.     

Aging and Life Satisfaction

This paper was intended to examine how major life events – suchas retirement, deterioration of health, and loss of spouse –experienced in the aging process may affect the elderly's lifesatisfaction. An explanation was also proposed to the change inthe effects of age groups on life satisfaction because of thecontrol of the aging effect. A simple form of a longitudinalsurvey conducted in Taiwan in 1989 and 1993 was used for theempirical test. It was found that life satisfaction among theelderly decreased as age increased beyond 65 years of age. Itwas also found that social demographic variables, an incomedecrease, living arrangement, and level of activity participationhave a profound impact on life satisfaction of Taiwan's elderly. When the correlates were controlled, the coefficients for agegroups greater than 70 turned positive. This change could beexplained by two types of cohort experience: (1) from rough toprosperous life experience and (2) cohort norm on lifeexpectancy.     

Developing an Index of Deprivation Which Integrates Objective and Subjective Dimensions: Extending the Work of Townsend,Mack and Lansley,and Halleröd

This article presents a new approach to index development, extending the methods used by Townsend, Mack and Lansley and Halleröd to measure deprivation in the developed world. The index combines three ‘objective’ dimensions of deprivation (i.e. monetary, consumption and work-related), and weighs them according to subjective perceptions regarding which items are more critical to deprivation. A particular application of factor analysis to determining deprivation measures and their corresponding weights leads to a more sophisticated and theoretically robust index than those used previously. The index draws on data from interviews with both partners of 17 households randomly sampled from a Turkish squatter settlement. The article contends that the methodological and substantive advantages of this approach are relevant to both developing and developed contexts.     

婚姻挤压下农村流动人口的生育性别偏好——基于相对剥夺感视角的分析

中国的出生性别比偏高持续了三十年,婚姻挤压问题日益凸现,大规模的城乡人口流动则加剧了婚姻挤压问题及其社会影响的严重性与复杂性。受制度与非制度因素影响,农村流动人口在城市处于社会底层,易遭遇成婚困难、诱发相对剥夺感,可能对生育偏好产生重要影响。本文基于相对剥夺感视角,对2009年福建省X市外来农村流动人口调查数据的分析发现,婚姻挤压对农村流动人口的生育性别偏好的观念与行为均无显著影响,但相对剥夺感对生育性别偏好行为有显著影响。本研究有助于理解婚姻挤压与相对剥夺感对农村流动人口生育性别偏好演化的特殊作用,对国家调整生育政策、提高流动人口计生服务与管理、促进性别平等有一定借鉴意义。     

The Richer, the Happier? An Empirical Investigation in Selected European Countries

This study analyses the relationship between subjective and objective measures of well-being in selected European countries using the data of the European Community Household Panel (ECHP). In the first part of the paper, we develop a random-effect ordered probit model, separately for each country, relating the subjective measure of income satisfaction to actual income, and controlling for some individual and household socio-demographic fixed effects. In the second part of the paper, we fit a Bayesian cross-classified multilevel model, in order to control for intra-family correlation in subjective well-being, which actually appears to be present. The research was financially supported by the Italian Ministry of University and Scientific Research and by the 5th European Research Programme (FELICIE – Future Elderly Living Conditions In Europe, No. QLRT-2001-02310, http://www.felicie.org). We gratefully acknowledge the contribution of an anonymous referee.     

Development of the Contentment with Life Assessment Scale (CLAS): Using Daily Life Experiences to Verify Levels of Self-Reported Life Satisfaction

On average, Anglo-Americans report that they are satisfied with their lives, but their global evaluations tend to deviate from their daily experiences (e.g., Oishi [2002, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28(10), 1398–1406]). We explored the hypothesis that the average life satisfaction of Anglo-Americans is better characterized as neutral than satisfied. In Study 1 we developed the five-item Contentment with Life Assessment Scale (CLAS), which focuses on contentment, fulfillment and self-discrepancies. Normative data based on three general population samples demonstrated that the CLAS produces a close to normal distribution of scores, has excellent reliability, and is sensitive to differences in life conditions (e.g., income, marital status). In two daily diary studies we tested whether global life satisfaction measures corresponded to people’s daily subjective well-being. The CLAS was the best predictor among three self-report life satisfaction measures of daily escapist behaviors including television watching and alcohol consumption, and daily stress-related physical symptoms (Study 2). In Study 3, participants recorded their level of life satisfaction daily for two weeks. Average daily life satisfaction scores clustered close to the neutral rather than satisfied point of the measurement scale.     

Absolute Income,Relative Income,and Happiness

This paper uses data from the World Values Survey to investigate how an individual’s self-reported happiness is related to (i) the level of her income in absolute terms, and (ii) the level of her income relative to other people in her country. The main findings are that (i) both absolute and relative income are positively and significantly correlated with happiness, (ii) quantitatively, changes in relative income have much larger effects on happiness than do changes in absolute income, and (iii) the effects on happiness of both absolute and relative income are small when compared to the effects several non-pecuniary factors.

An Individual Relative Deprivation Index and Its Curve Considering Income Scope

China is characterized by a low fertility intention, a strong preference for sons, as well as a stringent birth control policy. In this study, we used data from a Fertility Intention and Behavior Survey of 2101 questionnaires conducted in 2013 in Shaanxi Province of northwestern China, and event history analysis methods to examine the effect of fertility intention and preference for sons on the probability of having a second child. The results not only validate the correlation of fertility intention with having a second child empirically, even in the low fertility intention and stringent birth control context of China, but also show that women with a preference for sons were less likely to have a second child. Women with son preference turn to sex-selective abortion to ensure that their first child is a son, thus reducing the likelihood of a second child and decreasing the fertility rate. Our findings also shed light on China’s potential fertility policy adjustment.     

Satisfaction with life among international students: An exploratory study

The study examines self-reported satisfaction with life and thefactors predicting it among 304 international students (159 malesand 145 females) at the University of Bergen, Norway. Thestudents had on the average lived 2.34 years (SD = 2.31) inNorway. The students reported on the whole good satisfactionwith life. However, students from Europe and North America wereon the whole more satisfied than their peers from Africa andAsia. It was also found that factors such as the number offriends, satisfaction with finances, perceived discrimination andinformation received prior to the foreign sojourn significantlyaffected the student's life satisfaction. The importance ofthese factors differed for students from developing and developedcountries where some paradoxical findings came out. Theseparadoxical findings may be the result of the Norwegian contextof the study. Language proficiency (with respect to host andEnglish languages), and having a host national friend did notshow significant effect on life satisfaction.     

Ranking Income Distributions by Deprivation Orderings

This paper has examined the problem of ranking income distributions using absolute deprivation ordering. It appears that the ranking of distributions by this ordering may be more unambiguous than that generated by the relative deprivation ordering. The class of average deprivation indices consistent with the absolute deprivation criterion is also identified.     

A Hybrid Model for Research on Subjective Well-being: Examining Common- and Component-specific Sources of Variance in Life Satisfaction,Positive Affect,and Negative Affect

The primary components of subjective well-being (SWB) include life satisfaction (LS), positive affect (PA), and negative affect (NA). There is little consensus, however, concerning how these components form a model of SWB. In this paper, six longitudinal studies varying in demographic characteristics, length of time between assessment periods, number of assessment periods, and type of measures employed were used to test a hybrid model of SWB comprising both common and component-specific sources of variance. The majority of explained variance in LS was attributable to temporally consistent common variance, rather than component-specific sources. For PA and NA, both common and component-specific sources were substantive and consistent over time. Implications for the conceptualization and operationalizations of SWB are discussed.     

Is Extremely High Life Satisfaction During Adolescence Advantageous?

This study examined whether extremely high life satisfaction was associated with adaptive functioning or maladaptive functioning. Six hundred ninety-eight secondary level students completed the Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale [Huebner, 1991a, School Psychology International, 12, pp. 231–240], Youth Self-Report of the Child Behavior Checklist [Achenbach and Edelbrock, 1991, Child Behavior Checklist and Youth Self-Report, Burlington, VT], Abbreviated Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire [Francis, 1996, Personality and Individual Differences, 21, pp. 835–844], Self-Efficacy Questionnaire for Children (Muris, 2001, Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assesment, 23(3), pp. 145–149], and the Child and Adolescent Social Support Scale (Malecki and Demaray, 2002, Psychology in Schools, 39, pp. 1–18]. Three groups of students were created based on their life satisfaction reports: very high (top 10%), average (middle 25%), and very low (lowest 10%). Compared to students with average life satisfaction, students with very high life satisfaction had higher levels on all indicators of adaptive psychosocial functioning, except extraversion. Moreover, students with very high satisfaction had the lowest scores on all measures of emotional and behavioral problems. However, rates of clinical levels of behavior problems did not differ significantly between the very high and average groups. Finally, several necessary, but not sufficient factors for very high life satisfaction were identified. Taken together, the findings support the notion that very high life satisfaction is associated with positive psychosocial functioning. Furthermore, adolescents’ reports of their life satisfaction revealed differences in adjustment that were not captured by measures of psychopathology.     

Ways by which Comparable Income Affects Life Satisfaction in Hong Kong

Proponents of social equality attribute low life satisfaction to income inequality in society, an inequality which occurs when most people have relatively low income and only a few have high income. In contrast, range-frequency theory and other social comparison theories predict that when most people have low income, they are satisfied because of the absence of relative deprivation among themselves. This prediction essentially suggests that that the size of the group of individuals with comparable income (i.e., income parity) sustains their life satisfaction. This theoretical prediction, however, does not consider their desire to be distinctive. By incorporating the notion of optimal distinctiveness, the size of income parity may have a quadratic effect on the individual’s life satisfaction. This is a hypothesis that receives support from the present study in Hong Kong, China. The study finds a saddle point of income parity size associated with the lowest life satisfaction, other things being equal. Furthermore, middle-income individuals have income parity size equal to or above this saddle point. They would have higher life satisfaction with increased income parity size, which therefore leads to a more enlarged income inequality. Others, however, may have higher life satisfaction with reduced income parity size. Hence, reducing income inequality would have mixed effects on people with different levels of income.

Does Wealth Enhance Life Satisfaction for People Who are Materially Deprived? Exploring the Association among the Orang asli of Peninsular Malaysia

Recent studies investigating need theory and the extent to which money can buy happiness have called for more research within culturally homogeneous samples from developing countries to explore this relationship. We examine wealth as a measure of possessions and savings and relate this to subjective well-being (SWB) among poor indigenous farmers in Peninsular Malaysia. With hierarchical multiple regression, we find that the association between wealth and life satisfaction, after controlling for demographic variables, is positive and significant, β = 0.24, p<0.001. This effect is similar to effect sizes reported for other poor samples around the globe and is larger than what has been normally found in Western samples. Our analysis of the Malay translation of the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) reveals rather low internal reliability and prompts us to explore the potential wealth-SWB relationship in the absence of measurement error. We find a larger effect size when measurement error is removed, r = 0.43. We discuss the use of latent variable analysis to better interpret wealth-SWB effect sizes and recommend its use for future studies that use SWLS translations. Finally, we find that age, education, family size, and recent illness, while weak zero-order correlates of SWB, become significant predictors of life satisfaction when included with wealth in the multiple regression model. Some explanations and implications of these findings are conjectured. Our study contributes a unique sample to the expanding literature in support of need theory, and may be one of the first to examine the relationship between wealth and life satisfaction among a country’s aboriginal people.     

Personal Values as Mitigating Factors in the Link Between Income and Life Satisfaction: Evidence from the European Social Survey

Using data from the first two rounds of the European Social Survey, we examine the link between income, reference income and life satisfaction across Western Europe. We find that whilst there is a strong positive relationship between income and life satisfaction, reference or comparison income exerts a strong negative influence. Interestingly, our results confirm the importance of personal values and beliefs not only as predictors of subjective well-being, but also as mitigating factors in the relationship between income, reference income and life satisfaction. While our findings provide additional empirical support for the relative utility hypothesis, they are also consistent with Rojas’ (J Econ Psychol 28:1–14, 2007) Conceptual-Referent-Theory (CRT), which is based on the premise that the salience of income and comparison income depends on one’s intrinsic values and personal beliefs.

Making the Best of a Bad Situation: Satisfaction in the Slums of Calcutta

Eighty three people in the slums of Calcutta,India were interviewed, and responded toseveral measures of subjective well-being. Therespondents came from one of three groups:Those living in slum housing, sex workers(prostitutes) residing in brothels, andhomeless individuals living on the streets.They responded to questions about lifesatisfaction and satisfaction with various lifedomains, as well as to a memory recall measureof good and bad events in their lives. Whilethe mean rating of general life satisfactionwas slightly negative, the mean ratings ofsatisfaction with specific domains werepositive. The conclusion is that the slumdwellers of Calcutta generally experience alower sense of life satisfaction than moreaffluent comparison groups, but are moresatisfied than one might expect. This could bedue, in part, to the strong emphasis on socialrelationships and the satisfaction derived fromthem.     

Effect of family structure on life satisfaction: australian evidence

How do family arrangements affect subjective well-being? We investigate this issue using data pooled from the IsssA and HILDA, both large, representative national samples of Australia (pooled n=38 447). Our regression analysis of cross-sectional and panel data examines how large are the differences in life satisfaction according to marital status and cohabitation. We find that women and men in formal marriages experience higher levels of life satisfaction than do people in other family arrangements. Moreover, both multiple tests in the cross-section, and tests controlling for prior happiness in the panel analysis, suggest that this is a causal relationship. Aggregating up the levels of life satisfaction generated by different marriage and cohabitation arrangements across a lifetime, suggests that a life-long marriage is the most satisfying. Early divorce followed by an enduring second marriage is little worse (because little time is spent outside the married state). But divorce without remarriage, or long lasting cohabitation without formal marriage, reduce the lifetime sum of subjective well-being by 4–12% for both women and men.