The French Unhappiness Puzzle: The Cultural Dimension of Happiness

Claudia Senik ()

No 6175, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This article sheds light on the important differences in self-declared happiness across countries of equivalent affluence. It hinges on the different happiness statements of natives and immigrants in a set of European countries to disentangle the influence of objective circumstances versus psychological and cultural factors. The latter turns out to be of non-negligible importance in explaining international heterogeneity in happiness. In some countries, such as France, they are responsible for 80% of the country's unobserved idiosyncratic source of (un-)happiness.

Keywords: immigration; France; international comparisons; subjective well-being; happiness; European Social Survey (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H52 I31 O15 O52 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 61 pages
Date: 2011-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cul, nep-eur, nep-hap and nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Published - published as 'Why are the French so Unhappy? The Cultural Dimension of Happiness' in: Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2014, 106, 379-401.

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp6175.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The French unhappiness puzzle: The cultural dimension of happiness (2014)
Working Paper: The French Unhappiness Puzzle: the Cultural Dimension of Happiness (2014)
Working Paper: The French Unhappiness Puzzle: the Cultural Dimension of Happiness (2011)
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:iza:izadps:dp6175

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().