Happiness among subaltern groups: Dalits in India and blacks in South Africa

Vani Borooah

Journal of Social and Economic Development, 2024, vol. 26, issue 1, No 7, 83-114

Abstract: Abstract This study has two purposes; the first is to test differences between dominant and subordinate groups in India and South Africa. For India, the comparison is between caste groups: the dominant “forward castes” and the subordinate “non-forward castes”. For South Africa, the comparison is between racial groups: whites as a dominant group and non-Whites (Blacks, Coloured, and Asians) as a subordinate group. The second purpose of the study is to compare happiness levels between India and South Africa with a view to rigorously establishing where happiness is greatest and what its drivers are. These issues are examined using data from the World Values Survey (WVS). Covering in excess of 250,000 respondents drawn from 90 countries, and available for the period 1994–2014, WVS remains the most widely accessible database on well-being. This study establishes that, in general, Indians were happier than South Africans in this period, meaning that the predicted probability of being happy was, on average, higher in India (84.2%) than in South Africa (81.1%). Another important finding was that persons from the dominant groups were more likely to be happy in South Africa than in India but that persons from the subordinate groups were more likely to be happy in India than in South Africa.

Keywords: India; South Africa; Dalits; Blacks; Happiness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40847-023-00314-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:jsecdv:v:26:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1007_s40847-023-00314-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/40847

DOI: 10.1007/s40847-023-00314-4

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Social and Economic Development is currently edited by M.G. Chandrakanth, D. Rajasekhar, Anand Inbanathan and S. Madheswaran

More articles in Journal of Social and Economic Development from Springer, Institute for Social and Economic Change
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().