Who Suffered Most from the Great Recession? Happiness in the United States

• Main Author: Kelsey J. O'Connor
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Russell Sage Foundation 2017-04-01
• Series: RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences
• Subjects: Great Recession; happiness; subjective well-being; demographic groups; General Social Survey
• Online Access: http://www.rsfjournal.org/doi/full/10.7758/RSF.2017.3.3.04

The lowest level of reported happiness since the 1970s occurred in 2010, which was the result of a negative long-term trend and the Great Recession. However, the Recession’s far-reaching consequences were not equally felt. The foreign-born fared the worst, men worse than women, and non-youth worse than youth (eighteen to twenty-four). Declining income and rising unemployment best explain the effects. People reported no change in happiness from the Great Recession when excluding the effects of declining income. This analysis is based on data from the General Social Survey (1972 to 2014). Micro-economic regressions, including macro controls, are used to estimate group-specific trends and deviations from trend occurring in 2008 and 2010. Fixed-effects analysis also supports the main conclusions.