ESS-06 / The good life
Happier, but less equally happy?
Has Europe become happier or merely less equally happy?
PlannedPilot 2Research question, not a published result
The question
Follow the mean, the middle and the tails together. An average can improve while the least satisfied fall further behind.
What the analysis will test
- Primary quantity
- Weighted wellbeing levels, quantiles and low- and high-tail shares within countries.
- Evidence
- ESS rounds 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. Modules: core, wellbeing.
- Primary comparison
- Percentile fan or discrete distribution comparison. The final form depends on validated data and uncertainty.
- Publication threshold
- Pinned source editions, reviewed questionnaire comparability, survey-design-aware intervals, disclosure checks and reproducible aggregate outputs.
What this evidence does not prove
Life satisfaction is a bounded self-report; changing sample composition and response patterns can affect measured dispersion.
The ESS interviews different probability samples in each round. It measures structural differences and change, not today's mood or the same individuals over time.
Sources and next release
This page reserves the permanent address for ESS-06. Estimates and downloads will appear here after the data, statistical, editorial and reproducibility checks pass.