Adam Okulicz-Kozaryn

Urbanism and happiness: A test of Wirth’s theory of urban life

Social scientists have long studied the effects of cities on human wellbeing and happiness. This article demonstrates that people in cities are less happy, confirming a long-standing argument in the literature. But it had not yet been tested whether it is urbanism that negatively affects happiness, or if urban problems such as crime and poverty are to blame. Wirth posited that urbanism itself led to negative effects, but Fischer noted the necessity of empirical tests of Wirth’s ideas. This study uses a happiness measure to provide a new look at the old question of urban unhappiness. Using the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we aim to untangle the effects of the city itself and urban problems on happiness in the USA. We find that the core characteristics of urban life (in particular size and density) contribute to urban unhappiness, controlling for urban problems. Urban unhappiness persists regardless of urban characteristics.

Work Hours and Worker Happiness in the US: Weekly Hours, Hours Preferences and Schedule Flexibility

This research explores the relationship between three different dimensions of work hours with individuals’ reported level of happiness — its duration, mismatch with preferences and flexibility over its timing. Using pooled data from the US General Social Survey (1972-2012) and two of its modules, we find many nuances in the association of the weekly duration of work hours and happiness level among those employed. This includes patterns by occupation, such as managerial-administrative vis-a-vis others, income levels and size of geographical location of work. Working hours just below 40 hours per week tends to be associated inversely with happiness, and also in the shortest hours of work bracket, depending on control variables. Happiness is also frequently lower at the level of weekly hours just above the 40-hour standard. In contrast, working very long hours is associated positively with happiness. However, this is virtually all attributable to the income level of the worker. Alternative indicators of work hours duration largely reinforce these findings. In addition, being underemployed — below one’s preferred workweek, willing to work longer, regardless of hours duration — is consistently associated with reduced happiness level. We offer possible explanations for these “underemployed worker” and “happy worker” effects in the US institutional context. Finally, indicators of flexibility employee-centered, such as setting of one’s work schedule, are strongly associated with greater happiness, robust through all control variables. The findings may provide support for public policies that are intended to curb both the incidence and extent of worker underemployment and to promote a legal right of employees to request and receive a preferred minimum workweek and/or reconfiguration of the duration, timing and flexibility of their work hours or schedule, in the pursuit of individual and national happiness.

U.S. Religious Landscape on Twitter

Religiosity is a powerful force shaping human societies, affecting domains as diverse as economic growth or the ability to cope with illness. As more religious leaders and organizations as well as believers start using social networking sites (e.g., Twitter, Facebook), online activities become important extensions to traditional religious rituals and practices. However, there has been lack of research on religiosity in online social networks. This paper takes a step toward the understanding of several important aspects of religiosity on Twitter, based on the analysis of more than 250k U.S. users who self-declared their religions/belief, including Atheism, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism. Specifically, (i) we examine the correlation of geographic distribution of religious people between Twitter and offline surveys. (ii) We analyze users’ tweets and networks to identify discriminative features of each religious group, and explore supervised methods to identify believers of different religions. (iii) We study the linkage preference of different religious groups, and observe a strong preference of Twitter users connecting to others sharing the same religion.

Is tourism conducive to residents’ social trust? Evidence form large-scale social surveys

Purposes This paper aims to understand the character of the relationship between tourism growth and residents’ social trust. Design/methodology/approach The study uses large-scale data to model the effect of tourism on generalized trust attitudes Among advantages to analyzing data from large-scale social surveys, extensive content and representative coverage of the population are probably the most appealing. The broad coverage of the population of the large-scale social surveys allows for a broader generalization of the study results as well as comparison of areas with very different tourist activity. Findings This study offers two key findings. First, the effect of tourist arrivals (as per capita) on social trust attitudes is stronger in poorer regions than in wealthier regions. Second, only domestic tourism positively affects trust. Research limitations/implications This study delivered a straightforward analysis of large data to be able to generalize findings and make a significant theoretical contribution to tourism discipline. This goal was pursued at the expense of complex or in-depth explanation of the observed phenomenon. Practical implications Findings from this study indicate that there are at least two crucial criteria for tourism to be able to strengthen residents’ social trust. First, domestic tourism should be encouraged in destination regions in their early development stages and in more homogeneous regions. Perhaps, focus on domestic tourists before internationalization of a tourism product is the most effective way to promote tourism development that is supported by local residents. Second, tourism is likely to have stronger positive effect on social trust in poorer regions. Thus, tourism policy makers should take into consideration the actual economic need for tourism. Residents in wealthier regions may show less support for tourism simply because they don’t need it and they have no economic incentives to be involved. In fact, tourism in wealthier regions is likely to diminish residents’ social trust, and thus it disrupts local social and political processes that rely on high social trust. Originality/value Social trust is considered an important measure of social cohesion and it enables modern societies to thrive. Social trust has not been problematized in the context of contemporary tourism growth. This is the first study that uses large data social survey to model the effect of tourism on social trust in European destination regions.

No urban malaise for Millennials

ABSTRACT Urban malaise or unhappiness with city life is common in developed countries. City dwellers, particularly those in the largest metropolitan areas, are reported to be the least satisfied with their lives. Using the US General Social Survey (1972–2016), this paper explores the latest happiness trends. The results confirm earlier findings of urban malaise: Americans in general are happiest in smaller cities and rural areas. However, the advantage of rural living is declining – rural Americans are becoming less happy relative to urbanites. Most interestingly, the results show that the latest generation, termed ‘Millennials’ (1982–2004), as opposed to earlier generations, are the happiest in large cities (an estimated magnitude larger than earning an additional US

Happiness is Flextime

100,000 in family income annually). The possible reasons for this trend are explored and directions for future research are discussed.

Urban Malaise: Explorations of Problems and Dissatisfaction with City Life

We study how working schedule flexibility (flextime) affects happiness. We use a US General Social Survey (GSS) pooled dataset containing the Quality of Worklife and Work Orientations modules for 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, and 2014. We retain only respondents who are either full-time or part-time employees on payrolls. For flextime to be associated with greater happiness, it has to be more than just sometimes flexible or slight input into one’s work schedule, that is, little flextime does not increase happiness. But substantial flextime has large effect on happiness–the size effect is about as large as that of household income, or about as large as one-step increase in self-reported health, such as up from good to excellent health. Our findings provide support for both public and organizational policies that would promote greater work schedule flexibility or control for employees.

Summary, Conclusion, Discussion and Future Research

This key chapter discusses city problems building on classical sociological theory, and presents evidence of city unhappiness.

Urbanization Is Here

This chapter summarizes the main argument and concludes. It also lists some ideas for future research. It recommends public policy actions and includes a broader policy discussion (especially about inequality and redistribution).

Biophilia: Need for Contact with Nature

This chapter overviews and discusses urbanization and some good sides of it, notably freedom. It introduces the city fetish—an idea that cities allure by a promise of power, prestige, greatness, etc.