Inequality of happiness is the degree to which citizens in a country differ in how much
they like the life they live.
This difference is expressed in the standard deviation (SD) of responses to single
questions about happiness in general population surveys. This concept and the statistic
are discussed in Kalmijn, W. & Veenhoven, R. Measuring
inequality of happiness in nations. In search for proper statistics (paper under
review)
| Variable | Item type and code in itembank | SPSS code | Nation | Since | Source World Database of Happiness (WDH) Distributional Findings in Nations Transformed scores# |
| SD Happiness | 3-step, all variants | eqhl3_us | USA | 1947 | WDH table 111a |
| 3-step, O-HL/c/sq/v/3/aa | eqhl3a_us | USA | 1947 | WDH table 111a | |
| 3-step, O-HL/g/sq/v/3/d | eqhl3d_us | USA | 1975 | WDH table 111a | |
| 4-step, all variants | eqhl4_us | USA | 1946 | WHD table 111b | |
| SD Life satisfaction | 2-step, O-SLP/g/sq/v/2/b | eqls2_us | USA | 1979 | WDH table 121a |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | eqls4_be | Belgium | 1973 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | eqls4_de | Germany (re-united) | 1990 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | eqls4_dee | Germany (former East) | 1990 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | eqls4_dew | Germany (former West) | 1973 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | eqls4_dk | Denmark | 1973 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | eqls4_eu8* | EU-8 | 1973 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | eqls4_fr | France | 1973 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | eqls4_gr | Greece | 1981 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | eqls4_ie | Iereland | 1973 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | eqls4_it | Italy | 1973 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | eqls4_jp | Japan | 1958 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | eqls4_lu | Luxemburg | 1973 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | eqls4_nl | Netherlands | 1973 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | eqls4_pt | Portugal | 1985 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | eqls4_sp | Spain | 1985 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4/b | eqls4_uk | UK (Great Britain) | 1973 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLL/u/sq/v/4 variants a,e,f | eqls4a_jp | Japan | 1958 | WDH table 121c | |
| 4-step, O-SLW/u/sq/v/4/e | eqls4b_jp | Japan | 1992 | WDH table 121c | |
| 5-step, O-SLW/u/sq/v/5 variants a,g,k,l | eqls5_jp | Japan | 1978 | WDH table 121d | |
| 4+5 step, mean eqls4_jp and eqls5_jp | eqls45_pj | Japan | 1958 | WDH table 121c+d | |
| SD Best-Worst (Cantril ladder) |
11-step, C-BW/c/sq/l/11/a | eqbw11_us | USA | 1959 | WDH table 131b |
* Weighted average: EU-8 = Belgium x 0.037423 + Denmark x 0,19263 + France x
0,213337 + West-Gernamy x 0,243826 + Italy x 0,211549 + Luxemburg x 0,0001503 +
Netherlands x 0,056975 + UK x 0,216118
# Standard deviations transformed to response range 0-10. Method
explained in section 7/3.3 of the introductory
text.
Same variable in datafile 'States of Nations' Inequality of happiness