Does Culture Affect Divorce? Evidence From European Immigrants in the United States

This article explores the role of culture in determining divorce by examining country-of-origin differences in divorce rates of immigrants in the United States. Because childhood-arriving immigrants are all exposed to a common set of U.S. laws and institutions, we interpret relationships between their divorce tendencies and home-country divorce rates as evidence of the effect of culture. Our results are robust to controlling for several home-country variables, including average church attendance and gross domestic product (GDP). Moreover, specifications with country-of-origin fixed effects suggest that immigrants from countries with low divorce rates are especially less likely to be divorced if they reside among a large number of coethnics. Supplemental analyses indicate that divorce culture has a stronger impact on the divorce decisions of females than of males, pointing to a potentially gendered nature of divorce taboos.     

Happiness and Satisfaction: Measures of Affect and Cognition?

Analyses of data from six national samples of adult respondents indicated that happiness could be predicted better from cognitive measures of domain satisfaction and work attitudes than from a measure of positive affect, thereby calling into question the widely accepted argument that satisfaction measures are cognitive and happiness measures affective in orientation. Perhaps distinctions between cognitive and affective measures are illusory in studies of subjective well being.     

Does Internet Use Affect Netizens’ Trust in Government? Empirical Evidence from China

Social Indicators Research - Although the Internet has had a profound influence on China’s economy and society, the empirical research pertaining to political consequences of the Internet is...     

Does Religion Make You Healthier and Longer Lived? Evidence for Germany

Researchers in the US have consistently reported substantial—not just statistically significant—links between religious belief and practice, and improved health and longevity. In this paper we report evidence for Germany, using data from the long-running, nationally representative German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP 1984). The SOEP dataset includes multiple measures of health, plus many ‘controls’ which it is appropriate to use in assessing links between religious practice, health and longevity. These controls include personality traits known to be associated with better health (notably conscientiousness), and also the age of death of parents of the survey respondents. Initial results suggested that religious practice (church attendance) may be linked only to subjective (self-rated) measures of health, not to more objective measures. It seemed possible that results in some previous research could be due to what may be termed satisfaction bias or positivity bias; the known tendency of religious people to report higher than average satisfaction with almost all aspects of life. Further investigation indicated that relationships between church attendance and subjective measures of health were weaker, when a control for satisfaction bias was in place. However, there was countervailing evidence that the subjective measures in SOEP may actually be more not less valid than the objective measures; they are better not worse predictors of mortality. It was also clear that religious belief and church attendance are associated with health-protective behaviors and attitudes, including taking more exercise, not smoking and higher life satisfaction. At the end of the paper we estimate a structural equation model which maps links between religious practice, these protective behaviors and attitudes, and improved health outcomes.     

How Does Evidence Matter? Understanding ‘What Works’ for Wellbeing

Social Indicators Research - In 2015 the UK launched an independent What Works Centre for Wellbeing, co-funded by government departments and various agencies, which aims to develop a ‘strong...     

Does Consumer Confidence Forecast Household Saving and Borrowing Behavior? Evidence for Poland

Consumer confidence plays an important role in households’ decision-making processes. This study investigates the effects of consumer confidence on household saving and borrowing behavior that are unsatisfactorily considered in previous discussions. The questions of interest are first, whether indexes of consumer confidence have any predictive power on their own for future household saving and borrowing rates, and second, whether they contain information about future household saving and borrowing rates aside from the information contained in other available indicators. In addition to aggregate confidence indicators, their components are used to provide more precise information. Overall, the multiple linear regression analysis (OLS technique) of Polish time-series data gives positive answers to both questions. This finding supports the recommendation of combining the strengths of objective indicators (such as economic fundamentals) and subjective indicators (such as consumer confidence) to improve household financial behavior forecasts.     

Does National Income Inequality Affect Individuals’ Quality of Life in Europe? Inequality,Happiness, Finances,and Health

This paper analyses the effect of income inequality on Europeans’ quality of life, specifically on their overall well-being (happiness, life satisfaction), on their financial quality of life (satisfaction with standard of living, affordability of goods and services, subjective poverty), and on their health (self-rated health, satisfaction with health). The simple bivariate correlations of inequality with overall well-being, financial quality of life, and health are negative. But this is misleading because of the confounding effect of a key omitted variable, national economic development (GDP per capita): Unequal societies are on average much poorer (r = 0.46) and so disadvantaged because of that. We analyse the multi-level European Quality of Life survey conducted in 2003 including national-level data on inequality (Gini coefficient) and economic development (GDP) and individual-level data on overall well-being, financial quality of life, and health. The individual cases are from representative samples of 28 European countries. Our variance-components multi-level models controlling for known individual-level predictors show that national per capita GDP increases subjective well-being, financial quality of life, and health. Net of that, the national level of inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient, has no statistically significant effect, suggesting that income inequality does not reduce well-being, financial quality of life, or health in advanced societies. These result all imply that directing policies and resources towards inequality reduction is unlikely to benefit the general public in advanced societies.     

How Does the Age Gap Between Partners Affect Their Survival?

I use hazard regression methods to examine how the age difference between spouses affects their survival. In many countries, the age difference between spouses at marriage has remained relatively stable for several decades. In Denmark, men are, on average, about three years older than the women they marry. Previous studies of the age gap between spouses with respect to mortality found that having a younger spouse is beneficial, while having an older spouse is detrimental for one’s own survival. Most of the observed effects could not be explained satisfactorily until now, mainly because of methodological drawbacks and insufficiency of the data. The most common explanations refer to selection effects, caregiving in later life, and some positive psychological and sociological effects of having a younger spouse. The present study extends earlier work by using longitudinal Danish register data that include the entire history of key demographic events of the whole population from 1990 onward. Controlling for confounding factors such as education and wealth, results suggest that having a younger spouse is beneficial for men but detrimental for women, while having an older spouse is detrimental for both sexes.     

Does child gender affect marital status? Evidence from Australia

Pooling microdata from five Australian censuses, I explore the relationship between child gender and parents’ marital status. By contrast with the USA, I find no evidence that the gender of the first child has a significant impact on the decision to marry or divorce. However, among two-child families, parents with two children of the same sex are 1.7 percentage points less likely to be married than parents with a boy and a girl. This finding is unlikely to be consistent with theories of preference for sons over daughters, differential costs, role models, or complementary costs but is consistent with a theory of mixed-gender preference.

Does emigration benefit the stayers? Evidence from EU enlargement

Around 9 % of the Lithuanian workforce emigrated to Western Europe after the enlargement of the European Union in 2004. I exploit this emigration wave to study the effect of emigration on wages in the sending country. Using household data from Lithuania and work permit and census data from the UK and Ireland, I demonstrate that emigration had a significant positive effect on the wages of stayers. A one-percentage-point increase in the emigration rate predicts a 0.67 % increase in real wages. This effect, however, is only statistically significant for men.     

Does welfare reform affect fertility? Evidence from the UK

This paper provides evidence on the effect of welfare reform on fertility, focusing on UK reforms in 1999 that increased per-child spending by 50% in real terms. We use a difference-in-differences approach, exploiting the fact that the reforms were targeted at low-income households. The reforms were likely to differentially affect the fertility of women in couples and single women because of the opportunity cost effects of the welfare-to-work element. We find no increase in births among single women, but evidence to support an increase in births (by around 15%) among coupled women.     

Does welfare reform affect fertility? Evidence from the UK

This paper provides evidence on the effect of welfare reform on fertility, focusing on UK reforms in 1999 that increased per-child spending by 50% in real terms. We use a difference-in-differences approach, exploiting the fact that the reforms were targeted at low-income households. The reforms were likely to differentially affect the fertility of women in couples and single women because of the opportunity cost effects of the welfare-to-work element. We find no increase in births among single women, but evidence to support an increase in births (by around 15%) among coupled women.     

Health Education for Farmers

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Does Education Improve Cognitive Performance Four Decades After School Completion?

We study the effect of secondary education on cognitive performance toward the end of working age. We exploit the exogenous variation in years of schooling arising from compulsory schooling reforms implemented in six European countries during the 1950s and 1960s. Using data of individuals, approximately age 60, from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we assess the causal effect of education on memory, fluency, numeracy, and orientation-to-date. Furthermore, we study education effects on cognitive decline. We find a positive impact of schooling on memory scores. One year of education increases the memory score approximately four decades later by about 0.2, which amounts to 10 % of a standard deviation. Furthermore, we find some evidence for a protective effect of schooling on cognitive decline in terms of verbal fluency.     

What Aspects of Society Matter for the Quality of Life of a Minority? Global Evidence from the New Gay Happiness Index

There is great variation in views on and treatment of minorities such as gay men across the world. We are the first to pinpoint what features of societies are beneficial to gay men’s quality of life by using a unique new cross-country dataset covering 110 countries, the Gay Happiness Index. It covers how gays perceive public opinion about them, how they experience behavior towards them and how satisfied they are with their lives. Our study is based on the premise that it is important to look at minority-specific effects of policies and institutions and not solely at the effects for the average citizen, as well as the transmission mechanisms through which policies and institutions affect life satisfaction. We find that factors such as equal legal rights for gay people, GDP per capita, democracy and globalization relate positively to the quality of life of gay men, primarily by shaping public opinion and behavior in a pro-gay direction. Religion (the shares of Muslims and Orthodox Christians) and living in a post-communist country tend to relate negatively to our quality of life indicators. Most of these factors have been shown to matter for the well-being of people in general as well, which may be taken to suggest that gay people benefit from being included in society—legally, socially and economically—on the same terms as others.     

Does Country Matter for Subjective Well-Being?

It is known that characteristics of individuals explain only a part of the variations in Subjective Well-Being (SWB) between people. The country of origin of an individual accounts for a significant part of these differences. We study what drives the variations in SWB between countries after taking individual characteristics into account. We base our analysis on data from the four waves of the World Values Survey. 64% of the variations between the countries in the sample (64 countries) are explained by the natality rate, life expectancy, the level of corruption and a Muslim culture. This adds to the discussion on the link between economic conditions and SWB. The economic situation is not an explanatory variable in a direct way but indirectly affects SWB through some of the significant variables. Corruption has detrimental effects on SWB beyond its economic consequences.     

Population Education for young Children

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How Does Relative Income and Variations in Short-Run Wellbeing Affect Wellbeing in the Long Run? Empirical Evidence From China’s Korean Minority

Cognitively appraised life satisfaction is relatively stable over time and can be considered as reflecting subjective wellbeing in the long run. Affect is transitory and can be considered as reflecting subjective wellbeing in the short run. Using the Personal Wellbeing Index to measure cognitively appraised life satisfaction and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule to measure positive and negative affect we examine how income relative to one’s comparator group and variations in short run wellbeing impact upon wellbeing in the long run. We do so for China’s Korean ethnic minority. We find that affective state has an effect on wellbeing in the long run and that a negative shock to affectivity is more persistent than a positive shock. We also find that relative income, rather than absolute income, matters for wellbeing in the long run and that the results are consistent with a status effect.     

Does Municipal Socioeconomic Development Affect Public Perceptions of Crime? A Multilevel Logistic Regression Analysis

Chile is considered as one of the safest countries in Latin America, with a below-the-average world crime rate. However, during the last few decades, the country has experienced a deterioration in public perceptions of safety. This paper investigates public perceptions of crime in the 52 municipalities of the metropolitan area of Santiago, by employing an index of socioeconomic development for each municipality. Multilevel logistic regression analysis is used in order to assess the impact of individual and municipal-level variables on perceptions of crime in these municipalities. The results show that women exhibit higher perceptions of crime, while people living in rural areas, inactive people, and people with higher education and income have generally lower perceptions. Multidimensional poverty is positively associated with high perceptions of crime, while municipal spending on health and/or education does not show a relationship with perceptions of crime. Regarding socioeconomic development level of municipalities, the results show that people living in municipalities of high development show the lowest perceptions of crime, despite the fact that these municipalities do actually exhibit the highest crime rates, a fact confirming the ‘perception gap’ and the ‘neighbourhood favouritism’ theories. The results and conclusions of this study can be used not only by local policy-makers but also by officials in other cities that—like Santiago—are characterised by high urban segregation.     

Greater Happiness for a Greater Number: Did the Promise of Enlightenment Come True?

In the eighteenth century ‘Enlightened’ thinkers challenged the belief that happiness exists only in Heaven. They claimed that happiness is possible in earthly life and foresaw that greater happiness would be achieved using reason. Did this promise of greater happiness come true? Several scholars doubt that we have become any happier and some claim that happiness has declined. These critical claims are tested using the time trend data available in the World Database of Happiness, which cover the period 1950–2010 and involve 1531 data points in 67 nations yielding 199 time-series ranging for 10 to more than 40 years. The analysis reveals that happiness has risen in most nations. The average yearly rise in the 67 nations was +0.012 on scale 0–10, which equals a rise of one full point every 83 years. At this rate happiness must have improved by more than two points over the past two centuries and, together with increasing longevity, this denotes an unprecedented rise in happy life years.