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Inequality and Life Satisfaction in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: The Role of Opportunity

This study delves into the relationship between income inequality and subjective well-being by gauging the role played by opportunities at the country level. Using data from the World Value Survey, we estimate multilevel models to explain cross-country differences in individuals’ life satisfaction. Opportunity and inequality exert a significant effect per se on life satisfaction, and their joint effect explains the puzzling positive relationship between income inequality and life satisfaction in lowand middle-income countries. Income inequalities reduce the well-being of individuals if opportunities are low, but inequality is not relevant for life satisfaction if opportunities in the country are high. Among the aspects of opportunity that really matter, we show that inclusiveness and access to advanced education play a more major role than political freedom or personal rights. Results apply for different social, income, and education groups.


Introduction
Extant research in recent years has questioned whether inequalities really matter for life satisfaction, apart from ethical reasons. The issue is important because adverse effects of inequality on well-being provide a major rationale for redistribution policies. However, if citizens care more about other factors, then priority should be given to other issues. Empirical studies seem to converge to the conclusion that national income inequality harms [1][2][3] or is irrelevant [4,5] to the subjective well-being (SWB) of individuals in developed countries in ordinary circumstances. Nonetheless, there is recent growing literature focusing on developing countries that suggests inequality exerts either a neutral effect [6] or a positive effect on SWB [4,[7][8][9][10]. Other researchers also report a positive relationship in a mixed sample of developed and developing countries [11,12]. The empirics for developed countries appear clear enough or, at least, respond to different functioning from the one operating in developing countries. In turn, further research is needed to understand why more inequalities would make individuals living in developing countries more satisfied.
The negative impact of inequality on life satisfaction (LS) has been justified by different approaches, which we will further develop later on. In an economic framework, the income of individuals is expected to be inversely related to the income of other individuals (Easterlin [13]). In a sociological framework, the deprivation hypothesis [14] suggested that individuals feel deprived if they observe that others are better off. Additionally, (rising) inequalities would bring about indirect negative effects such as political instability, social distrust, status anxiety, alteration in the perceptions of justice, and social status. Notwithstanding, the reason why income inequality would make individuals more satisfied with their lives remains an intriguing issue. An attractive rationale can be found in the "tunnel hampers the SWB of the poor in Europe. The authors' interpretation is that Americans believe that their society is mobile, and accordingly, that they can move upward and downward on the socioeconomic scale, while Europeans consider social status as steady, meaning that it is difficult for the poor to improve their situations. Graham and Felton [36] argued that income inequality signals a persistent disadvantage for the poor and a persistent advantage for the rich in Latin America. For industrialized and emerging countries, Beja [2] considered different subjective measures of opportunity to examine their roles in the overall SWB. Their findings suggested that the negative effects produced by inequality can be lessened for individuals who believe that hard work brings success and that equal access to opportunities is guaranteed.
Indeed, few studies have really examined the role of actual social mobility in the association between inequality and SWB. In a large panel of countries, Bjørnskov et al. [11] conjectured that higher SWB is the outcome of the positive interaction between perceived fairness and income inequality, and the positive interaction is larger in countries with low actual social mobility and weaker for countries with high actual social mobility. They empirically found support for their perspective. Ravazzini and Chávez-Juárez [19] studied the relationships between SWB and income inequality, on the one hand, and between SWB and inequality of opportunity, on the other hand, in Europe. Their measure of inequality of opportunity compares the relative importance of inequality due to circumstances over inequality due to effort. They find that inequality of income negatively affects SWB and the effect is lower for people with low income meaning that a normative distaste for inequality would prevail over the possibility to gain more in the case of upward mobility. Inequality of opportunity also hurts the SWB of individuals with lower socioeconomic positions but positively influences the SWB of individuals with higher socioeconomic positions confirming that inequality of opportunity would mean for the rich a lower risk of losing income. Nikolaev and Bennett [37] found that individuals who live in countries with greater economic freedom have a higher perception of more procedural fairness and chances of upward mobility and the effect of economic freedom on SWB becomes larger in societies where individuals consider that hard work pays off and competition is something good [22]. Hence, the willingness of individuals to accept inequality is contingent upon whether their efforts are better rewarded [38].
As shown above, the literature has proposed several new mechanisms to explain the relationship between inequality and SWB. According to Schneider [20], a common caveat of these studies was that they assumed that individuals follow a strict economic rationale. According to this author, it was unlikely that individuals had an accurate and precise assessment of income inequalities, however, instead would be influenced by perceptions of external outcomes based on goals and preferences, as corroborated in the studies of [2,11,21,22]. On the other hand, Haller and Hadler [8,39] considered a different perspective and questioned what makes individuals happy in countries with high inequality (Latin American countries), and unhappy in countries with low inequality (post-communist countries). They argued that other factors exist that can explain the SWB of individuals, namely non-material social and cultural factors, and suggested that the situations that influence the personal life context matters more for the SWB of the individuals than those influencing the society as a whole. For instance, people became happier when their personal and societal circumstances provided them the feeling of personal freedom. In addition, Veenhoven [23] pointed out that happiness and happiness dispersion could also be affected by non-monetary dimensions of inequality (social inequality), such as unequal work chances, inequality in "power, prestige, education", and gender inequality. In fact, Beja [2] echoed this argument by evidencing that objective and subjective freedom are positively associated with the SWB of individuals in both industrialized and emerging countries, and that unequal access to education leads to social cleavages. In contrast, income inequality can be perceived as something acceptable or not, depending on whether it signals chances to move up or down. All in all, there is a need for more studies about the underlying mechanisms linking inequality and SWB. Indeed, SWB may be influenced by social inequality, a broader context evoking fairness in different spheres that are not only related with economic outcomes.

Empirical Model
We use multilevel regression analysis to model the life satisfaction of people as a function of both individual and country characteristics. Multilevel analysis allows us to control variability from several nested sources (individuals and countries) and to model hierarchical data that do not satisfy the basic assumption of independence of observations [40].
Individual-level variables include life satisfaction (LS) as our main dependent variable, and a set of control variables (X) to account for individual characteristics (see Table A4 in Appendix A). At country levels, we include income inequality measured by Gini and other macroeconomic characteristics. The following empirical model is estimated: where subscript i is for individual and j for country. Z is a vector of the control variables at the macroeconomic level including GDP per capita, GDP growth, inflation, social trust, fairness, and opportunity. Lastly, β 0 is the fixed intercept, U j is a random effect at the country level, and ε ij is a random effect at the individual level. In addition, β 2 captures the effect of cross-country differences in the average levels of income inequality and β 4 accounts for the effect of opportunity on life satisfaction, while β 5 reveals whether the role of inequality for life satisfaction depends on the degree of opportunity in the countries.

Individuals' Characteristics
As standard in the literature, SWB refers either to happiness or life satisfaction. However, there are some nuances between these two concepts. The latter, according to Haller and Hadler [8], is seen more as the fruit of an evaluation process including material and social aspirations and achievements, while the former results from positive experiences, particularly close personal relationships. We then focus on life satisfaction (LS), which seems more connected to the economic situation of individuals and so more in line with the purpose of the present study.
The analysis is based on cross-sectional data from the sixth wave of the World Values Survey (WVS). We selected the data for the 25 low-and middle-income countries that have been surveyed during the years 2010-2014. For an overview of the countries included in the dataset, see Appendix A  Table A2. The dependent variable, LS, is measured with the question, "All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?", and the answers use an ordinal scale ranging from 1 (completely dissatisfied) to 10 (completely satisfied).
The survey provides information about individual characteristics, such as gender, age, education level, employment status, income level, marital status, number of children, subjective social status, religion, trust in other people, and thinking about whether most people would try to take advantage of you if they got a chance. We have also included variables that better describe the situation of people in low-and middle-income countries: frequency without enough food, frequency without cash, and the possibility of saving money. Information about how these variables are coded is reported in Appendix A, Table A4.

Contextual Variables
Apart from the individual characteristics, literature on life satisfaction has identified a set of contextual variables that are usually included to explain life satisfaction [5,10,33,41,42]. It is common to control for wealth and socioeconomic development by including GDP per capita and for conjectural economic context by taking into account GDP growth, unemployment rate, and inflation. All these variables and Gini were obtained from the World Development Indicators for the year 2009. Following Bjørnskov et al. [11] and Grosfeld and Senik [16], the macroeconomic variables social trust and social fairness have been included in the models. These are derived from averaging the individual-level variables obtained through the following questions: "Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted, or that you need to be very careful in dealing with people?" and "Do you think most people would try to take advantage of you if they got a chance, or would they try to be fair?", respectively. High levels of both variables indicate more social trust and fairness (see details in Table A4, in Appendix A).
As explained in Section 2, previous studies have suggested that income inequality may have a different effect on SWB depending on social or political contexts. Previous studies have focused on inequality of opportunities [19], actual social mobility [11], economic freedom [37], and political and civil liberties [2]. Rather than focusing exclusively on economic outcomes, individuals are also affected by other social dispersions such as inequalities in work chances, "power, prestige, education" or gender [23] affecting their personal life more directly.
Therefore, we consider the Opportunity Index provided by the Social Progress Imperative. This component of the Social Progress Index reflects how countries "create the conditions for all individuals to reach their full potential" [24] (p. 13). This index provides information on real social progress rather than measuring potential mobility or economic variables such as the basic needs of individuals, as well as access to education and health care. Additionally, this index not only measures the ease with which individuals ameliorate their positions based on their merits, but also the social barriers that may limit these efforts.
Opportunity, for the year 2014, has been retrieved from the Social Progress Imperative that provides several indexes measuring Social Progress (see Porter et al. [24] for the methodology).
Opportunity measures to what degree individuals in a country can exercise their own personal rights and freedoms, whether they have control over their own personal decision making, and to what degree social problems within a society, such as prejudices or hostilities, refrain individuals from achieving their potential. Opportunity also considers whether individuals, who seek to enhance their skills and knowledge, have the possibility to access advanced forms of education. The Social Progress Index provides distinguishing features that often tend to be ignored and considers opportunity as an element of human well-being that mirrors the social progress based on social factors rather than economic outcomes.

Results
Data from the last wave of the World Value Survey (Figure 1) confirm the puzzling positive relationship between inequalities and average life satisfaction for low-and middle-income countries. As already stressed by many authors, there is a huge heterogeneity in SWB among countries and an important variance among income inequalities as well. Neither income nor Gini seem to justify these divergent patterns in life satisfaction. Figure 2 presents scatterplots of average LS against opportunity. Opportunity also varies considerably among countries but the relationship with life satisfaction appears clearer. Countries with higher levels of opportunity register higher average levels of LS (in particular middle-income countries). The relationship between opportunity and income levels is less ambiguous than for Gini, i.e., low-income countries systematically display lower levels of opportunity while they display more heterogeneous levels of inequalities.  Table A2.  Table A2. Opportunity also varies considerably among countries but the relationship with life satisfaction appears clearer. Countries with higher levels of opportunity register higher average levels of LS (in particular middle-income countries). The relationship between opportunity and income levels is less ambiguous than for Gini, i.e., low-income countries systematically display lower levels of opportunity while they display more heterogeneous levels of inequalities.  Table A2. Table 1 reports the coefficients and robust standard errors for the individual characteristics and aggregate/macro level variables included. Models 1, 2, 3, and 4 present results of the model with Gini, opportunity, Gini and opportunity, and the interaction term between both indicators, respectively. We have used robust standard errors because variances of the residual errors have been found different among countries. The Levene's tests about equality of variance rejected this hypothesis for the four models (T = 37.1, p = 0.00). The robust standard errors were calculated using the White estimate of variance [43]. Models without social trust and social fairness (at both macro and micro levels) can be found in the Appendix A, Table A6.   Table A2. Table 1 reports the coefficients and robust standard errors for the individual characteristics and aggregate/macro level variables included. Models 1, 2, 3, and 4 present results of the model with Gini, opportunity, Gini and opportunity, and the interaction term between both indicators, respectively. We have used robust standard errors because variances of the residual errors have been found different among countries. The Levene's tests about equality of variance rejected this hypothesis for the four models (T = 37.1, p = 0.00). The robust standard errors were calculated using the White estimate of variance [43]. Models without social trust and social fairness (at both macro and micro levels) can be found in the Appendix A, Table A6.

Individual Characteristics
As standard in the literature, most of the individual characteristics that we observed in the analysis, generated significant effects on life satisfaction e.g., [1,12,44,45]. Concerning individual's age, we find support for the view that life satisfaction traces a U-shaped curve with age. With regard to having children, we find that children seem to bring about higher satisfaction [8,46]. The results also show that higher income and education leads to higher life satisfaction than those with lower levels of income and education [12,18]. Results for employment status show that being unemployed, robustly makes individuals less satisfied with their lives than those who are full-time employees. Regarding marital status, we find that individuals who are divorced, separated, widowed or single, are less satisfied than individuals who are married, emerging from the individual's feeling of being lonely, while being married enhances self-esteem and emotional support [47]. The higher the subjective social class, the higher the life satisfaction. Individual religiosity does not have a dominant role in determining the life satisfaction of individuals. However, we find that being a Protestant, or a Catholic, makes individuals satisfied with their lives, a finding which is consistent with empirical findings by Ngamaba and Soni [48]. As expected, individuals who believe in others' fairness are more satisfied. Serious economic problems (often without enough food or going without cash) lead to lower life satisfaction. Accordingly, people who have had the chance to save in the last year report higher life satisfaction.

Inequality
Our results provide evidence that income inequality is an important predictor of life satisfaction (model 1). The strength of the association between inequality and life satisfaction better explains cross-countries differences in life satisfaction than national wealth and growth. The GDP per capita, growth, inflation, and average level of social trust and social fairness are not significant. The estimates point toward unemployment rate as having the largest and most negative effect among all the macroeconomic variables on LS, as widely established in cross-section studies. Indeed, unemployment does not only lead to income loss, but also affects an individual's identity in society and self-esteem, which, in turn, negatively affect SWB [49].
More importantly, income dispersion could either hurt or fuel LS due to the competing mechanisms at stake. Our results lend support to the "tunnel effect" hypothesis and corroborate recent empirical findings of others (i.e., [4,7,10]) for developing countries. Hence, we find that more inequality is associated with higher satisfaction in low-and middle-income economies.

Opportunity
To test if respondents are affected by social inequalities in a broader sense, we include the Opportunity Index in the model. As can be seen from models 2 and 3, opportunity per se is positively related to life satisfaction and the inclusion of opportunity makes the Gini coefficient lose significance. Once the interaction term between opportunity and Gini is included (model 4), all three terms appear significant. Hence, the relationship between Gini and LS is contingent upon opportunity. In model 4, the average effects of inequality and opportunity turn out to be negative, whereas, the interaction term is positive. This result deserves cautious analysis and Figure 3 provides a useful tool to interpret these findings.
The picture clearly shows that Gini has a different impact on SWB, depending on the possibilities the society offers to individuals. In countries with a lower level of opportunities, the relationship between inequality and LS is actually negative, while in countries with a higher level of opportunities, people are more satisfied with their lives regardless of the income inequality level. In other words, income inequality reduces individuals' well-being if opportunities are low, but inequality is not relevant for life satisfaction if opportunities in the country are high. Our finding is in line with the intuition formulated by several authors (i.e., [2,11,19,37,39,50]) according to which SWB may be influenced by inequality in "life chances" and not only by income inequality.  Table 1.
The picture clearly shows that Gini has a different impact on SWB, depending on the possibilities the society offers to individuals. In countries with a lower level of opportunities, the relationship between inequality and LS is actually negative, while in countries with a higher level of opportunities, people are more satisfied with their lives regardless of the income inequality level. In other words, income inequality reduces individuals' well-being if opportunities are low, but inequality is not relevant for life satisfaction if opportunities in the country are high. Our finding is in line with the intuition formulated by several authors (i.e., [2,11,19,37,39,50]) according to which SWB may be influenced by inequality in "life chances" and not only by income inequality.
Moreover, this outcome is independent from subjective perception regarding fairness, thus complementing the view of Bjørnskov et al. [11] who found that income disparities contribute to the SWB of individuals with high fairness perception. Hence, our results confirm that the actual system of incentives at the country level matters. Life satisfaction does not only depend on subjective perception or the circumstances of individuals. If people who are living in more unequal societies are more satisfied, it is only because the socio-political context allows them to take their chance, but not because they prefer inequality. Indeed, another reading of our results is that, in low-and middleincome countries with high income disparities, the mechanisms that allow people to achieve their personal goals increase their welfare.
As well as this, information from Figure 3 also puts forward the view that individuals' life satisfaction would be independent of inequality in countries with intermediate levels of opportunity. This is in line with one of the conjectures of Kelley and Evans [4], who suggest that "the relatively stable opportunity structures and existential security" in developed countries make inequality relatively irrelevant to SWB. They also suggest a positive association between inequality and happiness in developing countries due to the hope factor. We confirm that this positive relationship only holds true in countries where individuals have the chance to reach better social positions based on their own merits. Nevertheless, this is not the case in countries where social positions are not obtained on a fair basis. In this case, inequality is viewed as detrimental.

Components of Opportunity
The Opportunity Index accounts for distinct but interrelated dimensions. Here, we look further into the indicator to tease out which aspects matter the most for SWB. To this end, we replicate the estimation of model 4 (Table 1), substituting the Opportunity Index by each one of its components successively. The four components are personal rights, personal freedom and choice, inclusiveness and access to advanced education. For an overview of the values of these variables for the countries  Table 1.
Moreover, this outcome is independent from subjective perception regarding fairness, thus complementing the view of Bjørnskov et al. [11] who found that income disparities contribute to the SWB of individuals with high fairness perception. Hence, our results confirm that the actual system of incentives at the country level matters. Life satisfaction does not only depend on subjective perception or the circumstances of individuals. If people who are living in more unequal societies are more satisfied, it is only because the socio-political context allows them to take their chance, but not because they prefer inequality. Indeed, another reading of our results is that, in low-and middle-income countries with high income disparities, the mechanisms that allow people to achieve their personal goals increase their welfare.
As well as this, information from Figure 3 also puts forward the view that individuals' life satisfaction would be independent of inequality in countries with intermediate levels of opportunity. This is in line with one of the conjectures of Kelley and Evans [4], who suggest that "the relatively stable opportunity structures and existential security" in developed countries make inequality relatively irrelevant to SWB. They also suggest a positive association between inequality and happiness in developing countries due to the hope factor. We confirm that this positive relationship only holds true in countries where individuals have the chance to reach better social positions based on their own merits. Nevertheless, this is not the case in countries where social positions are not obtained on a fair basis. In this case, inequality is viewed as detrimental.

Components of Opportunity
The Opportunity Index accounts for distinct but interrelated dimensions. Here, we look further into the indicator to tease out which aspects matter the most for SWB. To this end, we replicate the estimation of model 4 (Table 1), substituting the Opportunity Index by each one of its components successively. The four components are personal rights, personal freedom and choice, inclusiveness and access to advanced education. For an overview of the values of these variables for the countries included in the dataset see Appendix A Table A3. Together, these components shed light on the possibilities and limitations for individuals regarding autonomy, freedom, and ability to progress. Results for the newly included variables are displayed in Table 2. Again, the data speak rather clearly-not all the components of opportunity play a part in explaining life satisfaction. Specifically, personal rights, and personal freedom and choice do not exert any influence on the inequality-LS nexus. In contrast, inclusiveness and access to advanced education make significant contributions to SWB. According to Stern et al. [51], the components personal rights and access to advanced education reflect how societies can facilitate individuals to achieve their goals, while personal freedom and choice, and tolerance and inclusion measure how societies can limit them. Among the incentives, access to advanced education seems to matter more for LS than personal rights. Regarding the limits, inclusiveness makes more difference than personal freedom and choice.
For the relevant components (columns 3 and 4 of Table 2), the three coefficients of interest have the same significance and signs as in model 4 of Table 1, meaning that they interfere with the relationship between inequality and SWB in the same manner as opportunity measured as a whole. Accordingly, in countries with better universities, where women access education and where access to university is easier, individuals register higher SWB regardless of the level of inequality. Similarly, in countries where there is tolerance towards homosexuals, minorities, and where political power is more equally distributed among genders and socioeconomic positions, citizens are more satisfied with their lives. Likewise, in less inclusive societies or societies where access to advanced education is limited, income inequality damages SWB. In such an environment, there is a threshold level of equality of income that could compensate for the lack of hope and lead individuals to similar LS as individuals living in countries with high prospects of achieving their goals to the best of their ability but with high disparity of income.

Robustness Check
To check the robustness of our results we have repeated the estimation of model 4 (Table 1), splitting the sample successively into: people with low (no formal or primary) versus high (secondary or universitary) education, people with low (below median) versus high (above median) household income, and people with low (lower/lower middle/working) versus high (upper/upper middle class) subjective social status. The results are presented in Table 3 and corroborate the relationships found between LS, inequality, and opportunity. In general, income inequalities and lack of opportunities would hurt more people with lower education, lower income and lower status levels, however, the differences are only significant among the education groups for the Opportunity Index.   Table 1.

Conclusions
This study contributes to the research on subjective well-being by examining the influence of income inequality on life satisfaction in low-and middle-income countries where people surprisingly seem more satisfied with their lives when income inequality is higher. Our results show that income inequality is a more obvious predictor of life satisfaction than national wealth and growth, than average trust and fairness perception. Our main contribution consists in corroborating that social opportunities interfere with this relationship.
Our analysis yields a number of interesting results. Opportunity and inequality exert significant effects per se on life satisfaction. These effects are positive when considered separately and negative when considered jointly. More interestingly, their joint effect is highly significant, confirming that the impact of income disparities on life satisfaction should be interpreted in light of what possibilities societies offer to individuals to achieve self-improvements. In low-and middle-income countries, inequalities reduce the well-being of individuals if opportunities are low, while individuals seem satisfied when opportunities are high, regardless of the inequality level. If people living in more unequal societies are more satisfied, it is only because the socio-political context allows them to take their chances, but not because they prefer inequality. Our study also sheds light on the aspects of opportunity that really matter, showing that inclusiveness and access to advanced education play a more major role than political freedom or personal rights. Finally, once opportunity at the macroeconomic level is accounted for, we do not find clear evidence that the relationship between income inequality and life satisfaction differs between low-and high-income groups, low and high socioeconomic status and educated and less educated people.
From a policy design point of view and focusing on life satisfaction as the ultimate goal, seeking measures that make it possible for individuals to achieve their goals based on their own merits would be a far more sensible strategy than focusing exclusively on redistribution, wealth or growth. In terms of the debate about how much income inequality is acceptable or justified [52], individuals living in countries with accentuated inequality, such as many Latin American countries, and with very low opportunity, such as many low-income countries, would clearly register lower life satisfaction. For this reason, international institutions and governments should ensure that societies never fall under both thresholds at the same time. This strategy is in line with several targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations member states in 2015 [53]. In particular, achieving jointly target 4 "ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all" and target 10 "reduce inequality within and among countries" would constitute effective steps towards more satisfaction in low-and middle-income countries.
Another interpretation of our results is that opportunity has an obvious positive effect on life satisfaction when income inequalities are high. Additionally, these opportunities are not restricted to economic mechanisms, involving labor markets functioning, for instance. On the contrary, people are sensitive to social indicators such as inclusiveness and access to advanced education, aspects where lowand middle-income countries usually stand far behind the high-income countries. For instance, in 2014, the average Opportunity Index was 72.54, 51.83, and 41.38 for high-, middle-and low-income countries, respectively. Bjørnskov et al. [11] have mentioned that the importance of subjective fairness justifies the fact that it is not only important to guarantee social mobility, but also to communicate these policies accurately to make people aware of them, instead of promoting more redistribution. Our findings suggest that people are quite aware of social opportunities, since a high level of opportunities at the macroeconomic level would be able to compensate for the negative effects of inequality in terms of life satisfaction. Nevertheless, when opportunities are low, more redistribution and improvement of life chances for all would definitively prove useful for increasing SWB.
In countries with a medium and high level of opportunities, inequality of income seems relatively irrelevant to SWB, all else being constant. This result should be interpreted cautiously. According to the Tunnel effect [4,[15][16][17], this optimistic perception could vanish in a second step if, despite more opportunities, income inequalities do not subside. In this paper, we have focused on cross-national differences in the inequality-life satisfaction relationship. Further work is needed to explore the soundness of our results in a more comprehensive panel. Indeed, dynamic patterns may be crucial in emerging countries where social conditions, including opportunities, evolve quickly while income inequality may temporarily increase. Another limitation of our study is that our data do not allow us to assess predictions at more local levels, which certainly deserves further investigation. Another promising area of future research is to investigate how the broader access to information facilitated by internet access shapes the perception of inequality. Indeed, there are aspects of globalization that make comparisons easier and accelerate convergence in social values, which may eventually increase the sense of deprivation of individuals in poor countries.    It is derived from averaging in each country the answers to the following question: Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you need to be very careful in dealing with people? Possible answers: 1 most people can be trusted and 0 need to be very careful.

Social fairness
It is derived from averaging in each country the answers to the following question: Do you think most people would try to take advantage of you if they got a chance, or would they try to be fair? Possible answers: from 1 people would try to take advantage of you to 10 people would try to be fair  Gini is positively associated with SWB in developing countries, while it has no effect in developed countries. Gini has a negative effect on SWB, and especially the top income earners during the downward mobility, while Gini has a positive effect on the poorest.