Happy protest voters: The case of Rotterdam 1997-2009

Protest parties are on the rise in several European countries. This development is commonly attributed to a growing dissatisfaction with life and associated with declining quality of life in modern society of the lowest social strata. This explanation is tested in a cross-sectional analysis of voting and life-satisfactrion in 63 districts of the city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, where the share of protest voters increased from 10% in 1994 to 31% in 2009. Contrary to this explanation protest voting appeared not to be the most frequent in the least happy districts of Rotterdam, but in the medium happy segment. Also divergent from this explanation was that average happiness in city districts is largely independent of local living conditions, but is rather a matter of personal vulnerability in terms of education, income and health. These results fit alternative explanations in terms of middle class status anxiet

Cross-national differences in happiness: cultural bias or societal quality?

There are sizeable differences in happiness between countries. These differences are consistent across indicators and quite stable through time. There is a little support for the view that these differences are due to "cultural bias". In test performed here do not suggest that a great part of the difference results from cultural differences in "language", "desirability bias", "response tendencies" or "familiarity" with the concept of happiness. There is solid empirical support for the view that these differences result from the fact that some societies provide their citizens with better living conditions than others. The bulk of the variance in happiness can be explained by nation characteristics such as economic prosperity, social security, political freedom, and social equalit

Happiness in Rotterdam: Analysis of 7 city surveys

Rotterdam is a big city in the Netherlands, characterized by an economic focus on its port and industry, and by the large share of migrants and blue-collar workers in its population. Every two years a survey is conducted on the Rotterdam population and they are asked a wide variety of questions, including a question on their happiness. In this paper, we use the data on happiness to answer the following questions: 1) How happy are people in Rotterdam? 2) How happy are Rotterdammers compared to people living in other places? 3) Has happiness in Rotterdam changed in the past decade? 4) Does happiness differ across districts in Rotterdam? 5) What drives the differences in happiness found between different Rotterdam districts? We find that inhabitants of Rotterdam are fairly happy on average, but somewhat less happy than people in other places in the Netherlands. Average happiness increased slightly between 1997 and 2009, varying with the economic tide. There are substantial differences in happiness across districts in Rotterdam, these are largely due to composition of the population. Rotterdam has attracted relatively many not too happy people, more of whom live in some districts than in others

Happy Protest Voters: The Case of Rotterdam 1997–2009

Protest parties are on the rise in several European countries. This development is commonly attributed to a growing dissatisfaction with life and associated with declining quality of life in modern society of the lowest social strata. This explanation is tested in a cross-sectional analysis of voting and life-satisfaction in 63 districts of the city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, where the share of protest voters increased from 10 % in 1994 to 31 % in 2009. Contrary to this explanation protest voting appeared not to be the most frequent in the least happy districts of Rotterdam, but in the medium happy segment. Also divergent from this explanation was that average happiness in city districts is largely independent of local living conditions, but is rather a matter of personal vulnerability in terms of education, income and health. These results fit alternative explanations in terms of mid

Social Security and Well-Being of the Unemployed in 42 Nations

happiness, health, welfare state, cross-national,

Livability of the welfare-state

ABSTRACT One issue in the debate on the welfare-state is whether state-care renders society more livable or not. The positive view is that people flourish in the welfare-state, the negative view is that people thrive better without. This article approaches the dispute empirically, by comparing livability of nations that differ in state-welfare-effort. The livability of nations is measured by the degree to which its citizens live long and happily. State-welfare-effect is measured by the scope of welfare-laws and the size of state-welfare-expenditures. Data on average appreciation-of-life

Inequality in happiness: inequality between countries compared accross countries

ABSTRACT Cross-national studies on happiness have focused on differences in level of happiness. The focus of this paper is on spread in happiness in the nation, also called ‘inequality in happiness’. Inequality in happiness in nations can be measured by the size of the standard deviation of responses to survey questions about the ‘overall appreciation of one’s life-as-a-whole’. This paper considers spread in happiness in 28 countries around 1980. Contrary to notions of a ‘divided’ society none of these countries shows a bi-modal distribution of happiness. All distribution are uni-modal, but the distributions are not equally flat. There are considerable differences in size of the standard deviations. These differences are not a statistical artifact of variation in level of happiness and appear quite constant through time. Inequality in happiness appears to be greater in the socio-economically most unequal countries and smaller in politically democratic and economically developed nations. Contrary to expectation, inequality in happiness appears to be more closely linked to social equality among rich nati