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How Education Enhances Happiness: Comparison of Mediating Factors in Four East Asian Countries

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Abstract

Educational philosophers contend that education enhances autonomy and thus happiness, but empirical studies rarely explore the positive influence of education on happiness. Based on the previous finding that being better connected to the outside world makes people happy, this study examines the possibility that how well an individual connects to the world accounts for the positive association between education and happiness. Analyzing survey data from four East Asian countries, we find a common pattern among Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. Although both monetary and non-monetary factors play a role in explaining the relationship between education and higher reports of happiness, monetary factor is relatively unimportant whereas non-monetary factors, such as interpersonal network and degree of cosmopolitanism, account for a significant part of the association between education and happiness. China is exceptional due to its relative importance of personal income in accounting for happiness. In short, individuals who receive more education have more extensive social networks as well as greater involvement with the wider world; these life conditions are positively related with happiness. By enhancing one’s ability and propensity to connect with the wider social world, education may improve an individual’s subjective well-being.

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Notes

  1. While Brighouse argues that schooling facilitates human flourishing, he is actually ambiguous about flourishing. He exemplifies flourishing with something like exercising one's talent and stretching one's limited capacities, but at the same time he emphasizes that connections to others is “a tremendously important precondition of flourishing” (p. 46).

  2. The other four factors are financial situation, health, personal freedom and personal values.

  3. Self-Determination Theory, a branch of developmental psychology, provides abundant empirical findings for the importance of human connections. It is argued that relatedness, the need to feel belongingness and connectedness with others, is regarded as one of the three basic psychological needs which, if satisfied, conduces toward health and well-being. Two articles by Deci and Ryan (2000), Ryan and Deci (2000) provide an introduction as well as a complete review.

  4. For example, more human capital decreases the risk of unemployment.

  5. Empirical studies indicate that education is positively associated with informal social network as well as formal participation in organizations (Nieminen et al. 2008; Pichler and Wallace 2009).

  6. Another interpretation of this correlation is that happy people are more likely to get married or stay married (Stutzer and Frey 2006).

  7. The only economic factor found to have an effect on happiness is financial security.

  8. It is often reported that individuals with more education are less likely to divorce (Heaton 2002) and there is a trend of increasing educational differentials in marital dissolution (Hoem 1997; Martin 2006; Raymo et al. 2004). Empirical studies also indicate that parents with more education spend more time with their children (Sandberg and Hofferth. 2001; Sayer et al. 2004).

  9. The authors categorized five occupational groups, including professional-managerial class, intermediate class, petty bourgeoisie, working class, and never in paid work, as a proxy for social class.

  10. Informal social capital includes contact frequency with friends, colleagues, and neighbors, giving informal help; formal social capital includes donations to, membership of, and participation in organizations.

  11. Hannerz (1990) describes a cosmopolitan person as someone who has involvement with the wider world rather than just their local area. Hannerz argues that being cosmopolitan means having an intellectual willingness to be open toward divergent cultural experiences and a personal ability “to make one's way into other cultures, through listening, looking, intuiting and reflecting”.

  12. In this case, comparative perspective refers to a tendency to compare and contrast their local area with other places, or to evaluate it through “seeing it as if from afar or from outside” (Szerszynski and Urry 2006: 126).

  13. For more information about EASS data, please see http://www.eass.info/about/about01.php.

  14. CGSS, China General Social Survey, is a biannual national survey conducted by the Department of Sociology at People University of China (Renmin University). The sampling design is intended to provide a representative sample of both rural and urban residents in China (Tibet Autonomous Region excluded); however, migrants may be underrepresented due to China's unique Household Registration (Hukou) System.

  15. JGSS of Japan used two-stage stratified random sampling. TSCS of Taiwan used three-stage stratified PPS sampling. KGSS of Korea used three-stage area probability sampling. CGSS of China used four-stage PPS sampling.

  16. Among the four countries, Japan has the highest missing data percentage, which is due to its much higher percentage of missing values regarding to the income variable (about 11%). This phenomenon has been reported by previous study. Comparing five East Asian countries, Yamaoka (2008) observed Japan's exceptionally higher percentage of missing data on household income, too. The author surmised that "(t)his might be related to the particular Japanese culture; many Japanese people are taught that "money is important but do not talk much about money with other people"(p. 888).

  17. Data from Taiwan, Korea, and Japan also include observations of participants ages 18 and 19.

  18. Respondents not working but not unemployed include students, retired persons, and housekeepers.

  19. The original data from Japan and China provide annual income information and thus are divided into 12. Information from Korea and China comes in the form of continuous variables, whereas the same variable from Japan and Taiwan is in the form of categorical variables. In order to make the categorical income variables comparable across countries, they were transformed into continuous variables by taking the midpoint of each individual’s income bracket as an approximation of his/her income in local currency.

  20. If there are sample members with zero monthly incomes, one currency unit is added to each sample member's income before taking the log transformation.

  21. These two items originally contain seven categories, including zero, 1–4, 5–9, 10–19, 20–49, 50–99, and 100 or more. They are transformed into continuous variables by taking the midpoint of the highest and the lowest value in each category as an approximation of the actual number of contacts.

  22. Some researchers assess cosmopolitan practice on five aspects: visited 5 or more countries in a lifetime, phone overseas at least once a week, have more than five friends who are overseas, spend at least 1–2 h a day online, and frequently watch programs on SBS (a multicultural broadcaster in Australia) (Phillips and Smith 2008).

  23. This variable ranges from 0 (never) to 6 (almost every day).

  24. Japan's GDP per capital (PPP) in 2008 is around US$34,400; Taiwan: US$32,700; South Korea: US$28,100; China: US$6,190 (CIA 2009).

  25. The Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM), an index in which higher value indicates greater gender equality, in 2007 for Taiwan, Japan and Korea are 0.726, 0.567 and 0.554 respectively (UNDP 2008; DGBAS 2010).

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  1. National Taipei University, New Taipei, Taiwan

    Wan-chi Chen

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Table 5 Summary statistics for demographic variables by country
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Chen, Wc. How Education Enhances Happiness: Comparison of Mediating Factors in Four East Asian Countries. Soc Indic Res 106, 117–131 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-011-9798-5

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