Why are Latin Europeans less happy? The impact of hierarchy

Gael Brule and Ruut Veenhoven

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Happiness in the North European is substantially higher than in the South European nations. Only part of that difference can be explained by economic prosperity. This paper explores the effect of social hierarchy. A comparison of contemporary survey findings show that power distance is more pronounced in the South than in the North of Eurpe. Macro‐sociological theory is used to provide an historical account of this difference and it can be used to explain why happiness is ower in hierarchical societies.

Keywords: life satisfaction; power distance; cross cultural; macro sociology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 B15 D60 I31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-evo
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Forthcoming in Chapter 12 in: Canevacci, M. (Ed.) Polyphonic Antropology: Theoretical and empirical cross-cultural field work. InTech Open Access Publishers, Reijka, Croatia, ISBN 978-953-51-0418-6 (2012): pp. chapter 12

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