Do Determinants of Happiness Vary across Demographic Groups?

This thesis examines relationships between subjective well-being of individuals and various factors (determinants of happiness) using the ordinary least squares (OLS) method separately for each of the major religious denominations, world regions, and sizes of municipalities. The results are then compared across the specified groups in order to find out if there are any significant differences. Based on the output of the analysis it can be inferred that there are remarkable differences especially across religious denominations and world regions where the most notable differences are found in case of relative income, unemployment, gender and marital statuses. On the other hand, the differences across various municipality sizes are not so frequent or substantial and the most significant variations are found for variables representing GDP per capita and marital statuses. Key Words subjective well-being, determinants of happiness, religious denominations, world regions, municipality sizes, comparison, difference