الفهرس 
Statement of the problemOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Happiness is difficult to define because it is very personal. It depends on person’s values, propensities, character, even genes and other factors.
Happiness has a correlation with absolutely every aspect of life.
The Gross National Happiness is the newest Paradigm; it is an alternate way to measure a country’s progress. It includes a number of indices that is derived from the ranking of 33 indicators. They are: psychological well-being, standard of living, education, community vitality, cultural diversity and resilience, health, time use, good governance, and ecological diversity.
The world happiness report determines the average happiness in a country regressed to GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom of choice, Generosity, and corruption.
It is believed that happier societies would have higher levels of trust (social capital) which is argued to affect economic growth. In addition, studies argue that the happiness–success link exists not only because success makes people happy, but also because positivity leads to success. Happiness increases self-reported creativity and innovation and also working in creative environments increases happiness in return.
There are also health effects of happiness on people because subjective wellbeing causes better health and longevity. Moreover, average local happiness is positively correlated with both research and development (R&D), and its intensity, also with firm’s investments.
It was also found that happier societies tend to push their economy in times of contractions.
Misery index ranks of Egypt are usually high, however, in this year , it is considered the highest in 20 years.
There are number of surveys conducted and used as sources to develop international ranks of happiness. One of the highly trusted surveys is the World Values Survey. Egypt was included in three waves of this survey, and answers to happiness questions differ from year to year. Compared to MENA region changes happen from year to year but the overall trend is getting worse from year to year.
Ranks of Egypt in the World Happiness Reports are not competitive and reflect the overall low happiness levels in the Egyptian society.
First hypothesis : Being unemployed doesn’t necessarily decrease happiness of all sectors.
Unemployment rates as a percentage of total labor force in Egypt are high, and the Egyptian youth is the sector which mostly experiences the negative effects of unemployment.
Findings in this literature suggest that being employed, retired, self-employed or in full-time education is associated with higher level of satisfaction, while being engaged in household duties reduce satisfaction other things being equal. Also, unemployment affects a male more severely than a female. At the macro level people en masse are happier when the unemployment rate is low.
There are two major effects of higher unemployment rates. Firstly, as the number of unemployed people increases, the number of happy people in the entire society decreases; secondly, even for the employed, a rise in the macro level unemployment rate increases the fear of unemployment, which in return lowers the level of happiness.
The pain of losing a job is not equally compensated by reemployment; reemployment only has a positive effect if the new job is really satisfying. Unemployment leaves scars.
Happiness is generally lower for the unemployed and among those with high levels of past unemployment. Also Unemployment benefits often do not compensate for the unhappiness experienced from unemployment, and the longer the period of the given unemployment benefits, the longer the duration of unemployment gets.
We should also take into consideration that jobs differ in quality so poorer quality jobs are more likely to be associated with mental health problems than better quality jobs and losing a poor quality job doesn’t affect an individual the same as losing a good quality one. This point implies that comparing all employed with the unemployed is not efficient. Becoming unemployed is associated with an increased likelihood of mental distress for the 31-55 age group, but not for the 18-30 age group.
Unemployment has negative impacts on individuals beyond any DROP in income. Employment is believed to provide five functions:
• Time structure.
• Participation in collective purposes.
• Social contacts.
• Identity.
• Regular activity.
Money is not the only reason why people work; there are many other functions of work which are considered vital for human well-being and psychological stability. In general, unemployment decreases life satisfaction with a great deal.
The psychology of the unemployed is different from the employed in many ways. Standard of living, insecurity of income, stigma and loss of self-esteem, loss of social contacts, family stability, child development, health effects, and political disruption are examples of the detrimental effects of unemployment on different aspects of life.
The case is different from developed and developing countries, as the structure and components of work market vary across nations, and mostly developing countries suffer more from these harmful effects.
Unemployment affects all the components of well-being. Losses are on macro and micro levels and include social, psychological and even political effects. But these effects depend on number of factors such as, economic factors on the macro levels, demographic factors including different ages and genders, and cultural and attitudinal factors. Also, the quality of the job lost.
High happiness levels can benefit the workers in a society and increase their productivity and also encourage those who are unemployed to work. Some jobs can be directly affected by levels of happiness.
In this study variables were divided into age groups and, at each division, data was tested and the multinomial regression was run again.
Age was divided into:
- less than 29 years,
- between 30 and 49,
- and 50 or more years.
Age groups represent the three phases of employment throughout life spans of individuals entering and leaving the labor market.
In the survey respondents were categorized based on their employment status as Fulltime employed, Part time employed, Self Employed, Housewives, Retired, Students and Unemployed and other.
We concentrate in this study on those who explicitly consider themselves as unemployed and we use the fulltime employed respondents as the reference category. However, in the year 2008, self employed, part time employed were not included as a choice in the survey, that’s why most of those who actually have a job would choose fulltime employed instead. This would result in increased cases in the fulltime employed category compared to the other 2 years.
The dependent variable – Happiness – was combined into only two categories ; (1) Happy , (0) Unhappy.
Dependent variables were used in combinations and divided as the following:
1. Satisfaction with Financial Situation: High and Low
2. Gender: Male and Female
3. Marital Status: Married, Divorced/Separated/widowed and Single
4. Number of Children: No Children and One or more
5. Health status: Fair/ Good/Very Good and Poor
6. Education: No Formal Education, Some School Education, and Some/Complete Higher Education
7. Income: Middle/High and Low/Very Low
8. Social Class: Upper Middle/Upper and Low/Working/Lower Middle.
In 2001 it is clear that the division including youth category was the one mostly to give significant outcomes, in contrast to 2008 when the middle age groups was the one resulting in significance correlations. This is inspite of the closeness of the sample sizes of the two years 2001 and 2008 respectively: (Age ≤29 ;1024, & 49≥Age≥30; 1320) and (Age ≤29; 757 & 49≥Age≥30; 1439). In 2012, the age group shifted to those who are more than or equal to 50 years old.
Despite of the difference in age groups, there are some common variables that are shared in showing the significant correlation between unemployment and low happiness levels in the three years, which are:
• Marital Status: Married
• Gender: Male
• Number of Children: One or more
• Income: Low/Very Low or Social Class: Low/Very Low
• Health status: Fair/ Good/Very Good
The only common variable that constantly gives insignificant correlations in the three years across all age groups is being a female. It never shows significant correlation with unhappiness and unemployment. This could for other cultural reasons or because of the structure of the labor force in Egypt.
Thus we suggest that the effect of unemployment on different categories on happiness levels in Egypt is not equal.
Second Hypothesis: Suffering from inflation doesn’t necessarily decrease happiness of all sectors
Inflation rates of Egypt fluctuated throughout the years but it reached the highest rate in 55 years after the floatation of the Egyptian Pound.
Inflation has some known financial side effects, but it also has other psychological and behavioral effects on individuals, firms and the government. Examples on how price instability and specially inflation decreases levels of aggregate happiness and satisfaction are, noise in the economy, inflation-induced uncertainty, money illusion, losing the nominal anchor, taking advantage and damaging national prestige.
There is an adaptive behavior that people have when faced with rapid changes in prices which vary across lower and middle classes of a society.
In times of inflation, the entire atmosphere becomes negative and lowers the national morale, and inflation is believed to be negatively correlated with happiness levels. This relationship is universal as individuals all over the globe dislike inflation.
The level of dissatisfaction is not constant and depends a great deal on some factors, such as, nominal assets and liabilities, labour force status, political ideology and partisanship, current economic performance, inflationary finance, openness, financial sector size, and the historical economic performance of a country.
There is a link between happiness and the financial behavior as psychology drives much of the financial decision making. Happier individuals tend to control their finance is a better way. Happiness and optimism can boost the prices of stocks in the whole economy
Debates among economists on whether low inflation and unemployment rates could be achieved with one set of policies in one economy were on fire since decades.
Central banks may choose to focus on unemployment rates even if the people prefer it to focus on inflation rates. The link between the notion of happiness and macroeconomic policy can be useful in the process of valuing public goods or in understanding habituation.
The misery index tries to estimate the misery experienced by countries in an economical way, however, it implicitly gives equal weights to the inflation and unemployment rates.
New findings revealed that Individuals prefer to increase inflation rather than to increase unemployment. This doesn’t mean that these results are universal and it should be taken case by case.
Using the same survey and variables we tested individual’s response on the World Values Survey. There are some common characteristics of people choosing fighting rising prices as a priority in Egypt. Despite the rise or fall of inflation rates. Additionally, some common opinions regarding employment in Egypt are nearly constant for the three years.
In the survey respondents were categorized based on their answers to the questions “What is your first aim? What is your second aim? respondents are required to choose only two between 4 choices: Maintaining order in the nation, Give people more say, Fighting rising prices, and Protecting freedom of speech.
We consider those who chose fighting rising prices as a priority are the ones most concerned about inflation, and we use those choosing Protecting freedom of speech as the reference category.
In 2001, the age group between 30 and 49 years old only had some significant correlations between choosing inflation as a first or second priority and unhappy levels. In 2008, younger sectors showed some correlations too for those less than or equal to 29 years old, while in 2012 only youth showed significant correlations.
Despite of the difference in age groups, there is a one common variable that is common in showing the significant correlation between choosing unhappy levels and fighting rising prices as a priority levels in the three years of the study, which is having 1 or more children.
Thus. we suggest that the effect of inflation on happiness of different categories in Egypt is not equal.