A. van Soest

Explaining subjective well-being: the role of victimization, trust, health, and social norms

A. van Soest

This paper extends research on the relation between crime and happiness by investigating the impact of serious and less serious crime (i.e. incorrect behavior) on subjective wellbeing using a representative survey of the Dutch adult population in 2008. We also control for variables reflecting trust, health and social norms, in addition to standard demographic and socio-economic characteristics. We find that people who feel healthy, have more trust in others and have higher social norms are in general happier. We find evidence of an indirect effect of victimization on well-being via trust, health and social norms. The remaining effect of victimization on well-being, keeping trust, social norms, and health constant, is quite weak.