Happiness and Transition: the Case of Kyrgyzstan

Abstract

The paper analyzes self-reported measures of satisfaction with life in a transition country, Kyrgyzstan, using 1993 household survey data. The authors test whether higher levels of satisfaction are associated with greater economic wellbeing. This hypothesis is strongly supported by the data. Unhappiness is prevalent among older people, the unemployed, and those who are divorced. There appears to be little correlation between happiness and either gender or education level. There is some evidence that income relativities, as measured by perceived position on the wealth ladder, also have a strong effect on life satisfaction.

Subjective well-being in China, 2005–2010: The role of relative income, gender, and location

“…Among other factors, unemployment status systematically lowers happiness in China, particularly among men. This is consistent with evidence from the international literature on happiness (Clark and Oswald, 1994;Helliwell, 2003;Blanchflower, Bell, Montagnoli and Moro, 2014) as well as the experience of transition economies where job insecurity has been identified as a significant determinant of happiness loss (Namazie and Sanfey, 2001;Hayo, 2007;Selezneva, 2011;Rodriguez-Pose and Maslauskaite, 2012;Ivlevs, 2014).…”

Surveying transitional experience and subjective well-being: Income, work, family

“…In both developed and transitional economies a permanent welfare loss even after a short period of unemployment is confirmed (e.g. Clark, 2003b;Lucas et al, 2004;Ravallion and Lokshin, 2001;Hayo and Seifert, 2003;Blanchflower and Oswald, 1997;Namazie and Sanfey, 2001). Although, in case of the transitional countries, the negative impact of unemployment can be reinforced by the unemployed stigmatization during the communist times.…”

“…Unsurprisingly, income-well-being correlations are rather small in their size in most of developed countries (e.g. Frey and Stutzer, 2000;Caporale et al, 2009), while absolute level of (household) income, or total expenditure category as its proxy 4 , showed to be an important determinant of the subjective well-being not only with the assumption of decreasing but also of a constant utility of money, especially in the period of reforms when incomes of all these levels were extremely low (see Saris (2001a); Senik (2004) for Russia in 1994Russia in -2000Namazie and Sanfey (2001) for Kyrgyzstan (weakly); Andren and Martinsson (2006) for Romania; Hayo (2007) for a pooled sample of East European countries).…”

“…Income comparisons impact on the individual well-being was demonstrated even in one of the poorest transitional countries, Kyrgyzstan, and in case of the poor rural areas of China. Like in developed economies, achievement of a high living standard comparing to the income norm of the reference group lead to a subjective improvement of the own status and in the position in income distribution (Namazie and Sanfey, 2001;Knight et al, 2009). This importance of relative income consideration was suggested already by Easterlin (1974) even for the countries with income levels close to poverty line, and recently demonstrated by Guriev and Zhuravskaya (2009) for 26 transition countries with different levels of GDP.…”

“…Namazie and Sanfey (2001) Kyrgyzstan, Kyrgyzstan Multipurpose Poverty Survey (1993) Satisfaction with life in general. Ordered probit regressions Examination of the link between happiness and income (absolute and relative); testing whether psychological variables, such as perceived position on the wealth ladder, or concern about providing necessities for the family, have an effect on happiness.…”