Playing with data of the World Values Survey (2010-2014)

You can find the new data here (wave 6: 2010-2014). 

Religiosity and Happiness

Our basic result is a conditional U‐shaped relation between happiness and religiosity. Countries with high levels of religiosity and countries with low levels of religiosity report higher levels of well‐being than countries with medium levels of religiosity, conditional on the level of income. We argue that this outcome reflects network and long‐run transition effects. P. 18. 

That is from the conclusions of this new published paper by Gundlach and Opfinger (Review of Development Economics, August 2013). A draft (2011) is here. 

Do happy people migrate?

This paper explores happiness among migrants and stayers in a number of European countries, investigating individuals from eastern European countries who went to western Europe. Migrants generally appear to be happier than those who have remained in the countries of origin – but there is evidence that this difference is the result of a greater tendency towards migration among people with higher levels of happiness (thus not a matter of happiness increasing as a consequence of migration). In addition, there is significant variation by country: migrants from Russia, Turkey and Romania are happier than stayers, but migrants from Poland are significantly less happy than stayers. Models that determine whether a correction for endogeneity is necessary suggest that those country-level differences represent increases and decreases (respectively) in happiness.

That is from an interesting paper by David Bartram (December 2012). I like the conclusions. The title is "Happiness and ‘Economic Migration’: A Comparison of Eastern European Migrants and Stayers."

. . . however, I am less enthusiastic about happiness studies after reading Landsburg's Armchair Economist (2012, chapter 12), and listening to D. McCloskey (see here).

Labor Markets: Happy Working Mothers

This paper analyses the effect of non‐participation and part‐time employment compared to full‐time employment on life satisfaction of mothers in Germany. Using data from the SOEP and applying fixed‐effects panel estimations, the results show that mothers in family‐related non‐participation and mothers employed part‐time are less satisfied than mothers employed full‐time. The direct and the indirect effect—due to foregone household income—each account for about half of the total effect. I attribute the found negative effects on the institutional and social conditions in Germany that prevent many mothers from reconciling (full‐time) employment with motherhood.

That is from the new published paper "Happy Working Mothers? Investigating the Effect of Maternal Employment on Life Satisfaction," by Eva Berger (Economica, January 2013).  The full paper is here. 

Some Key Differences between a Happy Life and a Meaningful Life

Being happy and finding life meaningful overlap, but there are important differences. A large survey revealed multiple differing predictors of happiness (controlling for meaning) and meaningfulness (controlling for happiness). Satisfying one's needs and wants increased happiness but was largely irrelevant to meaningfulness. Happiness was largely present-oriented, whereas meaningfulness involves integrating past, present, and future. For example, thinking about future and past was associated with high meaningfulness but low happiness. Happiness was linked to being a taker rather than a giver, whereas meaningfulness went with being a giver rather than a taker. Higher levels of worry, stress, and anxiety were linked to higher meaningfulness but lower happiness. Concerns with personal identity and expressing the self-contributed to meaning but not happiness. We offer brief composite sketches of the unhappy but meaningful life and of the happy but meaningless life.

[Does this mean that now we need to model two utility functions, at least?]
Source.
HT: Viviana Di Giovinazzo

Happiness

From Wikipedia

There are strong two-way links between parent and child happiness (life satisfaction), even for ‘children’ who have grown up, moved to their own home and partnered themselves. German panel evidence shows that transmission of (un)happiness from parents to children is partly due to transmission of values and behaviors known to be associated with happiness (Headey, Wagner and Muffels, 2010, 2012). These values and behaviors include giving priority to pro-social and family values, rather than material values, maintaining a preferred balance between work and leisure, active social and community participation, and regular exercise. Both parents have about equal influence on the values and behaviors which children adopt. However, the life satisfaction of adult ‘children’ continues to be directly influenced by the life satisfaction of their mothers, with the influence of fathers being only indirect, via transmission of values and behaviors. There appears to be a lifelong happiness dividend (or unhappiness dividend) due to parenting.

Source.

Age, Education, and Life Satisfaction

On average, life satisfaction is mildly decreasing up to age fifty-five followed by a hump shape with a maximum at seventy. The analysis at the lower levels suggests that people differ in their life satisfaction trends, whereas the hump shape after age fifty-five is robust. No important differences between men and women are found. In contrast, education groups differ in their trends: highly educated people become happier over the life cycle, where life satisfaction decreases for less educated people. Source (Baetschmann, May 2012).

I have seen several articles reaching similar conclusions (see here). Even considering these results I would like to think that there is room for "entrepreneurial happiness" throughout one's life." 

HT: Clarence Nkengne Tsimpo.

Women happier than men?

. . . [w]omen [are] typically happier than men in the world as a whole, with the exception of the poorest sample of countries (Graham and Chattopadhyay, March 2012).

Happiness and spending

We examine whether a positive feedback loop exists between spending money on others (i.e. prosocial spending) and happiness. Participants recalled a previous purchase made for either themselves or someone else and then reported their happiness. Afterward, participants chose whether to spend a monetary windfall on themselves or someone else. Participants assigned to recall a purchase made for someone else reported feeling significantly happier immediately after this recollection; most importantly, the happier participants felt, the more likely they were to choose to spend a windfall on someone else in the near future. Thus, by providing initial evidence for a positive feedback loop between prosocial spending and well-being, these data offer one potential path to sustainable happiness: prosocial spending increases happiness which in turn encourages prosocial spending.

That is from the paper by Aknin, Dunn, and Norton: "Happiness Runs in a Circular Motion: Evidence for a Positive Feedback Loop between Prosocial Spending and Happiness" (Journal of Happiness Studies 2011). 

HT: Kevin Lewis. Check out his blogs where he posts interesting and new research-papers. 

Sports and happiness

We investigate the relationship between participation in physical activity and self reported happiness in the United States. IV estimates based on data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System between 2005 and 2009 and County Business Patterns indicate that individuals living in a county with greater access to sports facilities are more likely to participate in physical activity and also report higher life satisfaction. Both men and women gain happiness from participation, and men appear to benefit more from participation than women.

That is from the paper "Sports participation and happiness: Evidence from US microdata," by Huang and Humphreys (Journal of Economic Psychology, August 2012).  

Obviously this has policy implications. But, does building a gym create more happiness than building a hospital? 

Who is happier: The housewife or working wife?

Short answer: There is not difference.

Long answer:

The earlier studies that came out around the 1970s, as more and more women started to leave the homes, so to speak, and took paid work found no statistically significant difference in the happiness between the housewife and the working wife. This paper revisits the same issue using data from the 2000s but refining the focus of the analysis, namely: paid work is differentiated into full-time, part-time, or self-employment. The findings are still consistent with the earlier studies. What the paper finds more interesting, however, is that a disparity in the happiness between the housewife and the working wife is perhaps more because of idiosyncrasies shaped by culture and social context but less about the paid work status itself.

That is from a new paper by Beja (March 2012). 

Happy people

Sunshine improves happiness significantly. Instrumenting happiness with sunshine, happier people are found to save more, spend less, and have a lower marginal propensity to consume. Happier people take more time for making decisions and have more control over expenditures; they expect a longer life and (accordingly) seem more concerned about the future than the present; they also expect less inflation in the future.

That is from a paper by Cahit Guven published in the Journal of Economic Psychology (January 2012). A draft is here (November 2007). 

Satisfaction

We examine how family, money, and health explain variation in life satisfaction (“happiness”) over the life cycle. Globally, these factors explain a substantial fraction of happiness, increasing from 12 percent in young adulthood to 15 percent in mature adulthood. Health is the most important factor, and its importance increases with age. Income is important only at ages below 50. Remarkably, the contribution of family is small across ages. Across regions health is most important in the wealthier, and income in the poorer regions of the world. Family explains a substantial fraction of happiness only in Western Europe and Anglophone countries.

That is from the new paper "Family, Money, and Health: Regional Differences in the Determinants of Life Cycle Life Satisfaction" by Rachel Margolis, and Mikko Myrskyla. HT: Viviana Di Giovinazzo
To be sure, these variables are hard to measure and they affect each other in different ways. Nevertheless I think the authors say interesting things. A telling graph from the paper: 

Hedging one’s happiness in sports

A risk-averse sport fanatic could hedge his happiness by betting on the opposition.

That is from this new paper by Bart Stemmet.

Internal Migration and Happiness

We investigate whether individuals who migrate within the UK become happier after the move than they were before it and whether the effect is permanent or transient . . . Our findings make an original contribution by revealing for the first time that, on average, migration is preceded by a period when individuals experience a significant decline in happiness. The boost that is received through migration appears to bring people back to their initial level of happiness . . . Perhaps surprisingly, long-distance migrants are at least as happy as short-distance migrants despite the higher social costs that are involved.

That is from the new paper "Does Migration Make You Happy? A Longitudinal Study of Internal Migration and Subjective Well-Being" by Beata Nowok et al. 

"The most important element for success and happiness is been loved"

A quote by a great economists: (HT G. Mankiw)

Unhappy countries or are they?

This link in MR (Between Parenthesis, reading list) takes us to an article on Latin American fiction writers. 

Being myself from Guatemala it calls my attention the description of three Guatemalan writers:

Miguel Ángel Asturias, Augusto Monterroso, and now Rodrigo Rey Rosa, three giant writers from a small, unhappy country.

Is Guatemala really an unhappy country? Bad news are in the media, no question about it, but are we really an unhappy country?

According to this ranking on subjective well being (1995-2007), Guatemala is among the top 20 (out of a sample of 97), below the US, and above Mexico.

According to the "Happy Planet Index" (2009), Guatemala is number 4 out of 147.

Once you have lived in Guatemala for some years you know that people make jokes even out of the most tragic events. International news are misleading. Generalizations and claims about happiness of countries without looking at some data is indeed unfortunate.