Study Easterlin & Plagnol (2008): study DE 1984
- Public
- 16-65 aged general public, Germany, followed 1-21 years, 1984-2004
- Survey name
- DE-SOEP
- Sample
- Respondents
- N = 294528
- Non Response
- Assessment
- Interview: face-to-face
Correlate
- Authors's Label
- Foreigners
- Our Classification
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- Remarks
- East-Germany entails the area of the former Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR). West-Germany entails the former Bundes Republik Deutschland (BDR). They were reunited in 1990 into Germany. N represents number of happiness-assesments, not the number of people interviewed. Immigrants comprise 10% of the West-German population and 1% of the East-German population. Immigrants' happiness is aggregated over both regions. The sample of West-Germans is a bit more than 4 times as big as the sample of East-Germans. Furthermore, the percentage of immigrants in West-Europe is 10 times larger than in East-Germany. Hence, for every immigrant in East-Germany included in the sample of foreigners, there are 40 immigrants in West-Germany included. To assess the gap between natives and immigrants, best practice would be to compare immigrants to West-German natives.
- Operationalization
- a) Turkish immigrants (N=15.520)
b) Other European immigrants (N=24.930)
c) East-German natives (N=48.668)
d) West-German natives (N=205.410)
Observed Relation with Happiness
East-German natives:M=6.32 SD=1.84 CI:6.30-6.34
- difference: 0.38
West-German natives:M=7.08 SD=1.89 CI:7.07-7.09
- difference: 0.38
European immigrants:M=7.03 SD=1.93 CI:7.01-7.05
- difference: 0.33
East-German natives:M=6.32 SD=1.84 CI:6.30-6.34
- difference: 0.71
West-German natives:M=7.08 SD=1.89 CI:7.07-7.09
- difference: 0.05
Note: The small negative difference is likely to be driven by the fact that a small portion (about 1/40) of the European immigrants lived in the 'unhappier' East-Germany. Therefore, it would be better to conclude that there is no convincing difference.