Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Wealth Of Nations, Individual Income andLife Satisfaction in 42 Countries:A Multilevel Approach

  • Published:
Social Indicators Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In this study, individual and contextualdeterminants of life satisfaction in 42countries were examined. The question wasaddressed whether income at the individuallevel and wealth at the national level affectlife satisfaction of individuals. In addition,the hypothesis was tested whether therelationship between income and lifesatisfaction is stronger in poor countries thanin more prosperous ones. Multilevel modelingallows differentiating between main andinteraction effects of group and individuallevel variables on the dependent variable. Itwas used to explore a possible multilevelstructure in the data, in which individuals areviewed as micro observations and countries asmacro observations. The results showed that, inaddition to and independent of individualincome, the economic prosperity of a nationcontributed to a person's life satisfactionlevel. Also, the hypothesized cross-levelinteraction between wealth and income wastested and found significant: poor peopleliving in poor countries were less satisfiedwith their lives than poor people living inaffluent countries. Moreover, complex variationin life satisfaction was found at thewithin-nation level: poor individuals variedmore in their life satisfaction than richindividuals.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

REFERENCES

  • Ahuvia, A. C. and D. C. Friedman: 1998, ‘Income, consumption, and subjective well-being: toward a composite macromarketing model’, Journal of Macromarketing18(2), pp. 153–168.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aitkin, M. A. and N. T. Longford: 1986, ‘Statistical modeling issues in school effectiveness studies’, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society A 149, pp. 1–43.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bullen, N., K. Jones and C. Duncan: 1997, ‘Modelling complexity: analysing between-individual and between-place variation–a multilevel tutorial’, Environment and Planning A 29, pp. 585–609.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clark, A.: 1999, Unemployment as a social norm: psychological evidence from panel data (Document de Recherche).

  • Clark, A., Y. Georgellis and P. Sanfrey: 1999, Scarring: the psychological impact of past unemployment (Document de Recherche).

  • Diener, E., M. Diener and C. Diener: 1995, ‘Factors predicting the subjective well-being of nations’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 5, pp. 851–864.

    Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E., J. Horwitz and R. Emmons: 1985, ‘Happiness of the very wealthy’, Social Indicators Research 16, pp. 263–274.

    Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E. and S. Oishi: 2000, ‘Money and happiness: income and subjective well-being across nations’, in E. Diener and E. M. Suh (eds.), Subjective Well-Being across Cultures (MIT Press, Cambridge MA).

    Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E., E. M. Suh, R. E. Lucas and H. L. Smith: 1999, ‘Subjective well-being: three decades of progress’, Psychological Bulletin 125, pp. 276–302.

    Google Scholar 

  • DiPrete, E. and R. Biswas-Diener: 1999, Income and Subjective Well-being: Will Money Make Us Happy? (Unpublished paper).

  • DiPrete, T. A. and J. D. Forristal: 1994, ‘Multilevel models: methods and substance’, Annual Review Sociology 20, pp. 331–357.

    Google Scholar 

  • Di Tella, R., R. J. MacCulloch and A. J. Oswald: 2000, ‘Preferences over inflation and unemployment: evidence from surveys of happiness’, Forthcoming in American Economic Review.

  • Easterlin, R. A.: 1995, ‘Will raising the income of all increase the happiness of all?’, Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organisation 27, pp. 35–47.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fernandez, R. M. and J. C. Kulik: 1981, ‘A multilevel model of life satisfaction: effects of individual characteristics and neighborhood composition’, American Sociological Review 46, pp. 840–850.

    Google Scholar 

  • Headey, B. and A. Wearing: 1992, Understanding Happiness, A Theory of Subjective Well-being (Longman Cheshire, Melbourne).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hox, J. J.: 1995, Applied Multilevel Analysis (TT-Publikaties, Amsterdam).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hüttner, H. J. M.: 1995, ‘Marginaal: Onderzoeken op niveau’, Sociologische Gids, jg. XLII, juli/okt., pp. 272–284.

    Google Scholar 

  • Inkeles, A.: 1997, National Character, A Psycho-Social Perspective (Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick).

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, K. and C. Duncan: 1998, ‘Modelling context and heterogeneity: applying multilevel models’, in E. Scarborough and E. Tanenbaum (eds.), Research Strategies in the Social Sciences: A Guide to New Approaches (Oxford University Press, Oxford).

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, K., R. J. Johnston and C. J. Pattie: 1992, ‘People, places and regions: exploring the use of multi-level modelling in the analysis of electoral data’, British Journal of Political Science 22: pp. 343–380.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kreft, I. and J. De Leeuw: 1998, Introducing Multilevel Modeling (Sage Publications, London).

    Google Scholar 

  • Kuper, A. and J. Kuper: 1996, The Social Science Encyclopedia (Routledge, New York).

    Google Scholar 

  • La Barbera, P. and Z. Gurhan: 1997, ‘The role of materialism, religiosity and demographics in subjective well-being’, Psychology and Marketing 14, pp. 71–97.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lane, R. E.: 1996, The Joyless Market Economy. Paper presented at the Conference on Economics, Values, and Organization (Yale University, New Haven, CT), April.

  • Maslow, A. H.: 1970, Motivation and Personality, 2nd edition (Harper & Row Publishers, New York).

    Google Scholar 

  • Maslow, A. H.: 1987, Motivation and Personality, 3rd edition (Longman Publishers, New York).

    Google Scholar 

  • Mastekaasa, A. and T. Moum: 1984, ‘The perceived quality of life in Norway: regional variations and contextual effects’, Social Indicators Research 14, pp. 385–419.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oishi, S., E. Diener, R. Lucas and E. Suh: 1999, ‘Cross-Cultural variations in predictors of life satisfaction: perspectives from needs and values’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 25(8), pp. 980–990.

    Google Scholar 

  • Poel, van der, M. G. M.: 1993, Personal Networks: ARational Choice Explanation of Their Size And Composition (Swets & Zeitlinger, Lisse).

    Google Scholar 

  • Rampichini, C. and S. Schifini d'Andrea: 1998, ‘A hierarchical ordinal probit model for the analysis of life satisfaction in Italy’, Social Indicators Research 44, pp. 41–69.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robinson, W. S.: 1950, ‘Ecological correlations and the behavior of individuals’, American Sociological Review 15, pp. 351–357.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosenfeld, R.: 1992, ‘Job mobility and career processes’, Annual Review of Sociology 18, pp. 39–61.

    Google Scholar 

  • Saris, W. and A. Andreenkova: 1997, ‘Study of the effect of individual income changes on satisfaction in Russia’, in W. Saris, R. Veenhoven, R. Scherpenzeel and B. Bunting (eds.), A Comparative Study of Satisfaction with Life in Europe (Eötvos University Press, Budapest).

    Google Scholar 

  • Schor, J. B.: 1991, The Overworked American, The Unexpected Decline of Leisure (Basic Books, New York).

    Google Scholar 

  • Schyns, P.: 1996, Gender en geluk. Paper presented at the Young Researcher's Day, SISWO, November 22, Amsterdam.

  • Schyns, P.: 1998, ‘Crossnational differences in happiness: economic and cultural factors explored’, Social Indicators Research 43, pp. 3–26.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schyns, P.: 2000, ‘The relationship between income, change in income and life satisfaction in West Germany and the Russian Federation: absolute, relative or a combination of both?’, in E. Diener and D. Rahtz (eds.), Advances in Quality of Life Theory and Research (Kluwer, Dordrecht).

    Google Scholar 

  • Snijders, T. and R. J. Bosker: 1997, The Introduction to Multilevel Analysis, reader, March.

  • Tacq, J. J. A.: 1994, ‘Vragen aan Jacques’, Facta, Sociaal Wetenschappelijk Magazine, vol.2 (issue 5), pp. 32-37 (3).

    Google Scholar 

  • United Nations Development Programme: 1993, Human Development Report 1993 (Oxford University Press, New York).

    Google Scholar 

  • United Nations Development Programme: 1996, Human Development Report 1996 (Oxford University Press, New York).

    Google Scholar 

  • Veenhoven, R.: 1991, ‘Is happiness relative?’, Social Indicators Research 24, pp. 1–34.

    Google Scholar 

  • Veenhoven, R.: 1995, ‘The cross-national pattern of happiness: test of predictions implied in three theories of happiness’, Social Indicators Research 34, pp. 33–68.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilkinson, R. G.: 1996, Unhealthy Societies, The Afflictions of Inequality (Routledge, London).

    Google Scholar 

  • Woodhouse, G. (ed.): 1995, A Guide to MLn for New Users (Institute of Education, University of London).

  • World Values Study Group: 1994, World Values Survey (Codebook), 1981–1984 and 1990–1993 (ICPSR version, ICPSR, Ann Arbor, Michigan).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Peggy Schyns
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Schyns, P. Wealth Of Nations, Individual Income andLife Satisfaction in 42 Countries:A Multilevel Approach. Social Indicators Research 60, 5–40 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021244511064

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021244511064

Keywords

Search

Navigation