Time Affluence Versus Social Class: Their Competing Effects on the Happiness of Elites

Abstract

Are those on the top of social hierarchy happier? Research on happiness is dominated by ‘material’ economic theory and proposes that individuals enjoying high class, and the accompanying higher monetary earning capacities, should experience more subjective well-being than others. This paper tests whether this proposition applies to political elites and, in particular, the members of the Swedish and German parliaments (MPs, National Legislators). I have conducted an extensive survey on the entire populations of these two parliaments. The survey explored how Time Affluence (spare/free/non-work -time availability) affects happiness for these political elites. I have also supplemented the survey with publicly available European Social Survey data, and employed Propensity Score Matching and conventional regression to analyze the data. The results indicate that the elite-class effect on happiness is negatively mediated by the lack of spare time both in the Swedish and the German case, though the welfare state settings of the two countries differ significantly. Further, Swedish National Legislators even experience lower total happiness than average citizens of the country, even after control for relevant background and mediation variables.