Fractionalization and Well-Being: Evidence from a new South African data set

This paper aims to test whether a number of fractionalization variables that capture cultural and economic diversity have any impact on reported satisfaction as well as happiness. Controlling for standard economic and non-economic variables, we test whether (i) ethno-linguistic, (ii) religious and (iii) income fractionalization at the cluster level have any impact on well-being. The findings indicate that income fractionalization consistently predicts lower subjective life satisfaction when the individual's household income is controlled for, and that religious fractionalization is correlated with lower life satisfaction. Ethno-linguistic fractionalization though does not correlate with life satisfaction. Extensions of the model include adding interaction terms which indicate that ethno-linguistic fractionalization is important to specific ethno-linguistic groups.