Özge Gökdemir

University / Organisation : Maastricht University - Istanbul University

Paper or project ? project

Title : Institutions and Life Satisfaction in Transition and selected European Developed Countries

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Abstract : This study evaluates the impacts of the perceived quality of institutions, and confidence in national institutions on life satisfaction in transition and selected European Developed economies.. This work relies on World Values Survey which was conducted in 2013. As is known recent research suggests the general quality of institutions is one of the most important factors for long-term growth and economic development. This study argueswhether the perceived quality of instutions and confidence in national instutions have effects on individual well-being, in addition to economic factors. In the survey the evaluation of life satisfaction was based on the self-reported answer to a single question: ‘‘All things considered how satisfied are you with your life as awhole these days?’’ Answers were on a scale of 10 (1 completely dissatisfied; 10 completely satisfied). The data includes a consistent set of independent variables, including gender, age, age square, marital status, household size, educational attainment, income ladder, employment status, household size, health status, perceived quality of institutions and confidence in 15 different nation instutions. In order to see the relationship between perceived quality of institutions and life satisfaction, a questionwas selected from the survey. The survey asked the question “how democratically is this country being governed today? Using a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 means that it is “not at all democratic” and 10 means that it is “completely democratic,” what position would you choose?” The second question is about the confidence in 15 different institutions. The question asked was as follows “Could you tell me how much confidence you have in them: is it a great deal of confidence, quite a lot of confidence, not very much confidence or none at all?” (15 different institutions includes churches, armed forces , labor unions, courts, government, political parties, parliament, major companies, banks, enviromental organizations, womens organization, humanitarian organizations, the European Union, ad the United Nations).