IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-20-01147.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is happiness in the hands of women?

Author

Listed:
  • Yselle Flora Kuete Malah

    (University of Yaounde 2-Soa)

Abstract

In the context of recent emergence of a huge research and policy interest in the determinants of happiness, this paper analyses the role of women's political empowerment on the citizen's subjective well-being from a global perspective. After discussing some transmission channels through which this relationship can be ascertained in the light of attendant literature, we estimate a crosssectional model consisting of 144 countries. Overall the ï¬ ndings reveal that women's political empowerment promote.

Suggested Citation

  • Yselle Flora Kuete Malah, 2021. "Is happiness in the hands of women?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 41(2), pages 573-587.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-20-01147
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2021/Volume41/EB-21-V41-I2-P51.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Magnus Hatlebakk & Yogendra B. Gurung, 2016. "Female empowerment and the education of children in Nepal," Journal of Developing Areas, Tennessee State University, College of Business, vol. 50(2), pages 1-19, April-Jun.
    2. Ruut Veenhoven, 2005. "Inequality Of Happiness in Nations," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 6(4), pages 351-355, December.
    3. Esther Duflo, 2012. "Women Empowerment and Economic Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(4), pages 1051-1079, December.
    4. Wan-chi Chen, 2012. "How Education Enhances Happiness: Comparison of Mediating Factors in Four East Asian Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 106(1), pages 117-131, March.
    5. Dieudonne Mignamissi & Yselle Flora Malah Kuete, 2020. "What Makes Africans Happy?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(4), pages 2741-2754.
    6. Bruno S. Frey & Alois Stutzer, 2002. "What Can Economists Learn from Happiness Research?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(2), pages 402-435, June.
    7. Easterlin, Richard A, 2001. "Income and Happiness: Towards an Unified Theory," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(473), pages 465-484, July.
    8. Robert J. MacCulloch & Rafael Di Tella & Andrew J. Oswald, 2001. "Preferences over Inflation and Unemployment: Evidence from Surveys of Happiness," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 335-341, March.
    9. Liliana Winkelmann & Rainer Winkelmann, 2010. "Does Inequality Harm the Middle Class?," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(2), pages 301-316, May.
    10. Kumar, Santosh & Prakash, Nishith, 2017. "Effect of political decentralization and female leadership on institutional births and child mortality in rural Bihar, India," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 171-178.
    11. Justina A.V. Fischer & Christian Bjornskov & Axel Dreher, 2007. "On Gender Inequality and Life Satisfaction: Does Discrimination Matter?," University of St. Gallen Department of Economics working paper series 2007 2007-07, Department of Economics, University of St. Gallen.
    12. Lv, Zhike & Yang, Rudai, 2018. "Does women’s participation in politics increase female labor participation? Evidence from panel data analysis," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 35-38.
    13. Linda Mayoux, 2001. "Tackling the Down Side: Social Capital, Women’s Empowerment and Micro‐Finance in Cameroon," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 32(3), pages 435-464, June.
    14. Galor, Oded & Weil, David N, 1996. "The Gender Gap, Fertility, and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(3), pages 374-387, June.
    15. Bruno S. Frey, 2018. "Economics of Happiness," SpringerBriefs in Economics, Springer, number 978-3-319-75807-7, June.
    16. Helliwell, John F. & Huang, Haifang & Grover, Shawn & Wang, Shun, 2018. "Empirical linkages between good governance and national well-being," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 1332-1346.
    17. Rick Geddes & Dean Lueck, 2002. "The Gains From Self-Ownership and the Expansion of Women's Rights," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1079-1092, September.
    18. Ram, Rati, 2017. "Kuznets curve in happiness: A cross-country exploration," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 272-278.
    19. Bola Lukman SOLANKE, 2015. "Marriage Age, Fertility Behavior, and Women’s Empowerment in Nigeria," SAGE Open, , vol. 5(4), pages 21582440156, November.
    20. Delprato, Marcos & Akyeampong, Kwame & Sabates, Ricardo & Hernandez-Fernandez, Jimena, 2015. "On the impact of early marriage on schooling outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa and South West Asia," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 42-55.
    21. Homan, Patricia, 2017. "Political gender inequality and infant mortality in the United States, 1990–2012," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 127-135.
    22. Henri Njangang, 2019. "Governance and Happiness in African countries," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 39(2), pages 1546-1555.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mignamissi, Dieudonné & Malah Kuete, Yselle Flora, 2021. "Resource rents and happiness on a global perspective: The resource curse revisited," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    2. Avom, Desire & Yselle Malah, Flora, 2022. "Social media and happiness nexus in the millennial generation," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(8).
    3. Dieudonne Mignamissi & Yselle Flora Malah Kuete, 2020. "What Makes Africans Happy?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(4), pages 2741-2754.
    4. Georges Ngnouwal Eloundou & Blaise Ondoua Beyene & Marius Messoh Lonte, 2023. "In pursuit of Happiness in developing countries: does the diffusion of ICT matter?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 43(4), pages 1730-1740.
    5. Désiré Avom & Itchoko M. M. Mwa Ndjokou & Pierre C. Tsopmo & Cherif Abdramane & Simplice A. Asongu, 2024. "Duration in Power and Happiness in the World," Working Papers of the African Governance and Development Institute. 24/033, African Governance and Development Institute..
    6. Gabriel Leite Mota, 2022. "Unsatisfying ordinalism: The breach through which happiness (re)entered economics," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(3), pages 513-528, June.
    7. Ingebjørg Kristoffersen, 2010. "The Metrics of Subjective Wellbeing: Cardinality, Neutrality and Additivity," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 86(272), pages 98-123, March.
    8. Konow, James & Earley, Joseph, 2008. "The Hedonistic Paradox: Is homo economicus happier," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1-2), pages 1-33, February.
    9. Ariel Herbert Fambeu & Georges Dieudonné Mbondo & Patricia Tchawa Yomi, 2022. "Bigger or better? The effect of public spending on happiness in Africa," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 34(4), pages 487-499, December.
    10. Marijana Andrijić & Tajana Barbić, 2021. "When the Going Gets Tough … the Effect of Economic Reform Programmes on National Well-Being," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-19, October.
    11. Adam Okulicz-Kozaryn & Joan Maya Mazelis, 2017. "More Unequal in Income, More Unequal in Wellbeing," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 132(3), pages 953-975, July.
    12. David G. Blanchflower & Andrew J. Oswald, 2004. "Money, Sex and Happiness: An Empirical Study," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 106(3), pages 393-415, October.
    13. Binder, Martin & Coad, Alex, 2010. "An examination of the dynamics of well-being and life events using vector autoregressions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 352-371, November.
    14. Gregor Gonza & Anže Burger, 2017. "Subjective Well-Being During the 2008 Economic Crisis: Identification of Mediating and Moderating Factors," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 18(6), pages 1763-1797, December.
    15. John Malcolm Dowling & Yap Chin Fang, 2006. "Homeostasis and Well Being," Working Papers 09-2006, Singapore Management University, School of Economics.
    16. Sechel, Cristina, 2021. "The share of satisfied individuals: A headcount measure of aggregate subjective well-being," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 373-394.
    17. Stutzer, Alois & Frey, Bruno S., 2006. "Does marriage make people happy, or do happy people get married?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 326-347, April.
    18. Thomas Markussen & Maria Fibæk & Finn Tarp & Nguyen Do Anh Tuan, 2018. "The Happy Farmer: Self-Employment and Subjective Well-Being in Rural Vietnam," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 19(6), pages 1613-1636, August.
    19. Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Ada & Gowdy, John M., 2007. "Environmental degradation and happiness," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 509-516, January.
    20. Popova, Olga, 2014. "Can religion insure against aggregate shocks to happiness? The case of transition countries," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 804-818.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Women's political empowerment; subjective well-being; cross-sectional model;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty
    • C3 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-20-01147. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.