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Protest parties are on the rise in several European countries. This development is commonly attributed to a growing dissatisfaction with life and associated with declining quality of life in modern society of the lowest social strata. This explanation is tested in a cross-sectional analysis of voting and life-satisfaction in 63 districts of the city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, where the share of protest voters increased from 10 % in 1994 to 31 % in 2009. Contrary to this explanation protest voting appeared not to be the most frequent in the least happy districts of Rotterdam, but in the medium happy segment. Also divergent from this explanation was that average happiness in city districts is largely independent of local living conditions, but is rather a matter of personal vulnerability in terms of education, income and health. These results fit alternative explanations in terms of midd

There are sizeable differences in happiness between countries. These differences are consistent across indicators and quite stable through time. There is a little support for the view that these differences are due to "cultural bias". In test performed here do not suggest that a great part of the difference results from cultural differences in "language", "desirability bias", "response tendencies" or "familiarity" with the concept of happiness. There is solid empirical support for the view that these differences result from the fact that some societies provide their citizens with better living conditions than others. The bulk of the variance in happiness can be explained by nation characteristics such as economic prosperity, social security, political freedom, and social equality

ABSTRACT Cross-national studies on happiness have focused on differences in level of happiness. The focus of this paper is on spread in happiness in the nation, also called 'inequality in happiness'. Inequality in happiness in nations can be measured by the size of the standard deviation of responses to survey questions about the 'overall appreciation of one's life-as-a-whole'. This paper considers spread in happiness in 28 countries around 1980. Contrary to notions of a 'divided' society none of these countries shows a bi-modal distribution of happiness. All distribution are uni-modal, but the distributions are not equally flat. There are considerable differences in size of the standard deviations. These differences are not a statistical artifact of variation in level of happiness and appear quite constant through time. Inequality in happiness appears to be greater in the socio-economically most unequal countries and smaller in politically democratic and economically developed nations. Contrary to expectation, inequality in happiness appears to be more closely linked to social equality among rich natio