Negative interaction between democratization and economic development on changes in average life satisfaction: evidence from European countries between 1981 and 2022

Figures & data

Figure 1. Hypotheses Regarding Factors Pertaining to Life Satisfaction at the Country Level.

Table 1. Descriptive Statistics of Variables at the Individual Level.

	Mean/rate	Sd	Min	Max
Life Satisfaction	7.12	2.21	1	10
Sense of Freedom	6.90	2.23	1	10
Age	46.81	17.46	15	108
Female	0.54	0.50
Married	0.60	0.49
Widowed/Divorced	0.18	0.38
Unmarried	0.22	0.42
Fulltime Worker	0.44	0.50
Parttime Worker	0.07	0.25
Self Employed	0.05	0.23
No Paid	0.37	0.48
Unemployed	0.07	0.26
Household Income	5.10	2.54	1	11

N = 176,088.

Table 2. Descriptive Statistics of Variables at the Country Level.

	N	Mean	Sd	Min	Max
Life Satisfaction (Average)	168	7.12	0.82	4.68	8.37
Sense of Freedom (Average)	168	6.88	0.58	5.18	7.94
Liberal Democracy Index	162	0.67	0.21	0.04	0.89
GDP per capita (US$)	154	22195.76	20718.48	635.76	120422.14

Table 3. Results of Finite Mixture Regression Models Predicting Life Satisfaction.

	Model 1		Model 2
			Class 1		Class 2
	Coeff.	SE	Coeff.	SE	Coeff.	SE
(Intercept)	3.274***	(0.030)	0.238***	(0.028)	4.528***	(0.042)
Age	−0.339**	(0.035)	−0.159***	(0.033)	−0.401***	(0.048)
Female	0.085***	(0.010)	0.032***	(0.009)	0.093***	(0.013)
Married (ref.)	–	–	–	–	–`	–
Widowed	−0.561***	(0.013)	−0.139***	(0.013)	−0.679***	(0.018)
Unmarried	−0.224***	(0.013)	−0.092***	(0.012)	−0.260***	(0.018)
Fulltime Worker (ref.)	–	–	–	–	–	–
Parttime Worker	0.028***	(0.019)	0.056**	(0.018)	0.014	(0.026)
Self Employed	0.013***	(0.021)	−0.058**	(0.019)	0.031	(0.028)
No Paid	0.186***	(0.012)	0.052***	(0.011)	0.213***	(0.016)
Unemployed	−0.510***	(0.019)	−0.024	(0.018)	−0.685***	(0.026)
Household Income	0.095***	(0.002)	0.018***	(0.002)	0.119***	(0.003)
Sense of Freedom	0.375***	(0.002)	0.951***	(0.002)	0.130***	(0.004)
GDP par capita	0.011***	(0.000)	0.004***	(0.000)	0.014***	(0.000)
Liberal Democracy Index	1.085***	(0.025)	0.246***	(0.024)	1.402***	(0.035)
pi			0.309		0.691
AIC	729024.5		700561.3
BIC	729165.6		700853.6

N = 176,088. Standard errors in parentheses.

*** p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05.

Table 4. Descriptive Statistics by Latent Class.

	Class 1 (N = 58,234)	Class 2 (N = 117,854)	t-test
	Mean/rate	Mean/rate
Life Satisfaction	7.38	6.99	***
Sense of Freedom	7.31	6.69	***
Age/100	0.47	0.47	***
Female	0.54	0.54
Married	0.61	0.59	***
Widowed/Divorced	0.17	0.18	***
Unmarried	0.21	0.23	***
Fulltime Worker	0.45	0.43	***
Parttime Worker	0.07	0.07	***
Self Employed	0.05	0.06	*
No Paid	0.36	0.37	***
Unemployed	0.07	0.07	***
Household Income	5.21	5.05	***

*** p < 0.001.

Table 5. Correlation Matrix of Variables at the Country Level.

	ALS	ASF	LDI	GDP	Class 1
Average Life Satisfaction	1
Average Sense of Freedom	0.737***	1
Liberal Democracy Index	0.526***	0.267***	1
log(GDP per capita)	0.552***	0.402***	0.512***	1
Portion of Class 1	0.380***	0.582***	0.139	0.474***	1

N = 149.

*** p < .001, ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05.

Table 6. Results of Fixed Effects Regression Models Predicting for Changes in Average Life Satisfaction at the Country Level.

	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4
Portion of Class 1	2.369*	0890	12.212	−0.083
	(0.904)	(0.904)	(6.222)	(0.720)
log(GDP per capita)		0.400***	1.271***	1.306***
		(0.060)	(0.272)	(0.123)
Liberal Democracy Index		−0.612	11.848***	11.619***
		(0.538)	(1.775)	(1.591)
Portion of Class 1 X log(GDP)			−0.525
			(0.769)
Portion of Class 1 X LDI			−9.931*
			(4.564)
log(GDP) X LDI			−1.070***	−1.373***
			(0.187)	(0.172)
AIC	138.6	87.3	4.2	17.1
BIC	144.6	99.3	25.2	32.1
Num. obs.	149	149	149	149

Standard errors in parentheses.

*** p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05.

Figure 2. Marginal Effects of Changes in LDI and GDP per Capita on Changes in Average Life Satisfaction at the Country Level. X = LDI, Y = Marginal Effect of Changes in GDP per capita [log] (top). X = GDP [log], Y = Marginal Effect of Changes in LDI (bottom).

Figure 3. Analytical Results for Factors Related to Life Satisfaction at the Country Level.