Factors that Influence the Life Satisfaction of Women ... - Springer Link

Soc Indic Res (2014) 115:1071–1085 DOI 10.1007/s11205-013-0265-3

Factors that Influence the Life Satisfaction of Women Living in the Northern Cyprus Ozge Gokdemir • Emine Tahsin

Accepted: 28 January 2013 / Published online: 4 February 2013 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract The main aim of this paper is to evaluate the life satisfaction among women living in the Northern Cyprus by focusing on socio-economic and gender related factors. Within this context, we aim to analyze the influence of socio-personal characteristics of Northern Cypriot women in regard to life satisfaction. To fulfill these objectives, a questionnaire survey has been applied to 510 women living in the major cities of Northern Cyprus. Applying an ordered logit model, this paper examines the role of several factors such as normal and social reference income, employment, and savings, health, and education, participation in the household expenditures, being a full-time housewife, domestic violence, political preferences, and perception of government performance on life satisfaction. The results demonstrate that good health, high education, high income, saving, high household income has positive effects on life satisfaction whereas domestic violence, being a full-time housewife, unemployment and social reference income has negative effects on life satisfaction. Keywords Life satisfaction Women in Northern Cyprus Turkish Cypriots Ordered logit model

O. Gokdemir (&) E. Tahsin Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics, Istanbul University, Beyazit Yerleskesi, 24452 Beyazit, Eminonu, Istanbul, Turkey e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] E. Tahsin e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] O. Gokdemir Department of Economics (AE1), Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands E. Tahsin Institute for the Study of the Americas, University of London School of Advanced Studies, Second Floor, Senate House (South Block) Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU, UK

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O. Gokdemir, E. Tahsin

1 Introduction Although the meaning of happiness1 may differ from one culture to another, it generally seems an ultimate goal of life (Veenhoven 2004). In history many philosophers had argued that people live to be happy.2 In the literature most of the findings confirmed that at any given point in time in a specific country, people with higher incomes are happier than people with lower incomes. As economic growth has been considered the most important aim of economic policy, economists generally assume high income leads directly to greater well-being. However it is now by and large recognized by researchers that we must move beyond GDP. For example Easterlin stated that for countries with sufficient income to meet basic needs, there is no link between economic growth and happiness (Easterlin 1995). Easterlin’s work has been followed by other studies focusing on the relationship between income and happiness. For this reason governments all over the world started to introduce policies to increase happiness. Studies show that in addition to economic determinants other factors such as health, religion, marital status, age etc. have influences on happiness. However the subject as it relates to gender studies, has received very little attention. Based on the concepts of gender and gender relations; gender and development literature analyzes how development reshapes the socially constructed pattern of relations between men and women (Momsen 2010). Beginning from Boserup (1970), it is clearly known that development processes affect women differently than men so that the goal of eliminating inequalities among the different sexes has been defined as one of the priority for development processes. It is observed that among all societies the division of labor is determined by sex. On the other hand, in order to understand gender roles in the production, we also need to understand gender roles within the household. Simply, gender division of labor, the integration of women’s reproductive and productive work within the private sphere of home and in the public sphere outside are the main parameters to be considered given that gender roles that are socially constructed differ according to society (Momsen 2010). As women’s status is considered one of the important priority in development, it is also important to provide an inward analysis of self-reported subjective well-being from a gender perspective. Although gender variable has been investigated in several studies, only a few focused on gender differences in terms of life satisfaction levels. Some cross-country studies have found women to be happier than men (Di Tella et al. 2003; Blanchflower and Oswald 2004). But, over the cohorts, women’s happiness declines relative to men’s (Easterlin 2001a, b). Others also state that the life satisfaction among women and men does not differ so much (Veenhoven 1997). However, only few studies have focused on the relationship between gender equality, domestic violence, being a full-time housewife and life satisfaction (Sousa and Lyubomirsky 2001; Bjørnskov et al. 2007; Santos 2007). In this paper, we aim to find out the determinants of life satisfaction among women in the case of Northern Cyprus for a better understanding of the society as a whole, since women’s status itself is an important indicator of the societies development level itself. Cyprus (the 3rd largest island in the Mediterranean) has been classified among one of the conflict zones historically. Since then, academic studies on Cyprus mostly have been focusing on political and geo-political perspectives. The studies on socio-economic 1

We take the terms happiness, satisfaction, and subjective well-being interchangeably throughout the paper. The importance of using those terms interchangeably is that they do not explain a mood but a global assessment of satisfaction.

2

A detailed literature review of happiness can be found in Kenny and Kenny (2006).

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dynamics and gender related issues seem as one of the most untouchable fields until the last decade. Furthermore, the division of island (North: Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and South: Republic of Cyprus) in 1974 created new socio-economic structures with new problematic concepts such as ethnicity-nationalism, patriotism, conflict3 and the changing patterns of demography due to migration. Addition to these Republic of Cyprus acceded to the EU (2004) as a de facto4 divided island. Northern Cyprus is temporarily exempt from EU legislation. EU has set up a ‘‘Task Force for the Turkish Cypriot Community’’ to deal with the consequences of the unique and complex situation in Cyprus. In addition to the Green Line and Aid regulations, the Commission has proposed a regulation on special conditions for trade with those areas of the Republic of Cyprus in which the government of the Republic of Cyprus does not exercise effective control (European Commission 2012). At this point, it is important to emphasize that Northern Cyprus, with lack of international diplomatic recognition and with its small scale economic structure and mostly dependent to Turkey’s financial aid, has a limited economic and political development. Although significant improvements has been achieved in GDP per capita level5 its level of economic development (regarding GDP, GDP per capita and other socio-economic parameters) is still far lower than the Republic of Cyprus (SPO 2010). Since the position of women is considered to be an important priority in development process, it is vital to provide an inward analysis of self-reported subjective well-being from a gender perspective in Northern Cyprus. Based on this information, this paper tries to evaluate the effects of several economic, non-economic and gender related factors on life satisfaction by using descriptive analyses and regressions, in the case of Northern Cyprus. The results demonstrate that good health, high education, high income, saving, high household income has positive effects on life satisfaction whereas domestic violence, being a full-time housewife, unemployment and social reference income has negative effects on life satisfaction.

2 General View of Women Living in the Northern Cyprus According to 2006 Census Population in Northern Cyprus (SPO 2010), 118.076 people were female (46 %) and 138.568 were male (54 %). Although gender disparities and illiteracy rates are less marked among young adults, the illiteracy rate of women is still higher than men (women: 5.6 %, men: 1.7 %). However, significant improvements have been made with regard to higher education for women. Yet, gender inequality still exists in different aspects. One of the specific characteristics of gender inequality is related with employment conditions. Although equal pay-equal work principal is kept in the labor market nevertheless, women usually find themselves at lower position jobs than men. The female labor-force participation rate is 32.3 % (SPO 2010) which does not correlate to women’s population ratio. What’s more, the participation rate is very low compared to world average of 51.9 % between 2003–2010 (own calculation) (World Bank 2011). Parallel to employment composition in Northern Cyprus where more than half of the labor force is in public sector and other service related sectors (SPO 2010), women are also mostly employed in these sectors. 3

For gender related perspectives on these issues see Cockburn (2004) and Hadjipavlou (2010).

4

De facto is an expression that means ‘‘concerning fact’’.

5

Between 1977 and 2010 the GDP per capita increased from 1.444 to 14.703 US$.

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Furthermore, in service sectors women are employed in low productive and low paid jobs in which labor market segmentation occurs. In addition to these, women are also underrepresented in managerial positions (Gu¨ven-Lisaniler 2003). Also women have higher unemployment rates than men. The 2006 Population Census indicated that women’s unemployment rate is 3 times higher than men’s (women: 19 %, men: 6 %). For 2010 the unemployment rate is 17.5 % for women and 8.9 % for men (SPO 2010). Similarly, women remain out of the labor force more likely than men, and especially the unemployment rate of higher educated women is higher than men (women: 63 %, men: 37 %) (SPO 2010). Apart from the employment conditions, the political participation level of Northern Cyprus women is another basic indicator that reflects the gender inequalities. Although women were given the right to vote and to be elected in 1960 (according to Republic of Cyprus Constitution), the representation of women in the parliament is still strikingly low (Gu¨ven-Lisaniler 2006). Women constitute only 8 per cent of members in the parliament. Although Cypriot women carry out effective bi-communal activities that contribute to peace process in the island and support the development of Cypriot feminist movement in the last decades, it is possible to claim that women still lack political power and equality. Another striking point that strongly reflects the dimensions of gender inequality is the position of women within the family. As being a full-time housewife determines the division of labor within the household, and the social roles within the society, this causes inequalities. The issue domestic violence is another indicator of gender inequality. In almost every country, there is limited data available on the issue of domestic violence. Some countries like Northern Cyprus have no data at all. The issue is somehow kept hidden. There isn’t any quantitative or qualitative study about domestic violence in Northern Cyprus. Only Scott (2003) indicated that gambling is a major cause of divorce and domestic violence in Northern Cyprus. Besides these, there is only one study examining the life satisfaction levels of Northern Cyprus. Researchers have found relatively low life satisfaction levels among women. According to the results; life satisfaction of women is 6.77 whereas life satisfaction of men is 7.26. The sample contained 742 men and 566 women, and women made up nearly 43 % in 2008 World Values Survey.6 According to our survey results, life satisfaction of Northern Cyprus women is 5.85, which is even lower than World Values Survey results. To measure life satisfaction, respondents were asked to grade their over-all satisfaction on a 10-point scale. The study is based on 510 questionnaire survey results which took place in major districts between December 2011 and January 2012.

3 Sample and Methodology In several studies, it has been found that individual attributes (such as gender, age, marital status, income and education), and other characteristics (GDP, human development and environmental indexes, religiosity, social capital and quality of institutions) are significant predictors of life satisfaction (Diener 2009). In this paper, we investigate the role of 6

This data has been gathered from Birol Yesilada’s paper which was prepared for presentation at the Cyprus Congress Social Values of the Greek and Turkish Cypriots: 2005–2011 World Values Survey, Mersin University, October 12–14, 2012.

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economic, non-economic and gender related factors to explain the life satisfaction levels of women living in the Northern Cyprus. Our data also contains further information about political preferences and perceptions of government quality. The data we have analyzed to answer the research questions were gathered as part of a survey about life satisfaction and socio-economic factors in five main cities of Northern Cyprus in December 2011 and January 2012. Northern Cyprus has 5 cities: North Nicosia, Kyrenia, Famagusta, Morphou and Iskele. North Nicosia (capital city), the most populated city, is followed by Famagusta, Kyrenia, Morphou and Iskele. According to de jure7 population census data (2006) the population of Northern Cyprus is given as 256.644. In the population data (2006) the share of women living in Northern Cyprus is %46.3 (118,076). Since then regarding the de jure population, the sample is expected to have %95 confidence interval with maximum ±%3.89 standard error. All survey interviews were carried out face to face and door to door. In each house, one woman8 that is older than 18 years is interviewed by trained female interviewers. Moreover, since the sensitive nature of the survey only female interviewers interviewed female respondents. The questionnaire of the study consists of five sections, which are (a) social and economic status, (b) social values and perception of life, (c) trust in institutions and social groups, (d) identity, (e) demographic information. The questionnaire contains 50 questions in total. Finally the survey was conducted in Turkish.

4 Definition of Variables In this section, we would like to introduce the variables of the model. Since women’s selfratings of their life satisfaction are measured by an ordered categorical variable, our estimation is based on ordered logit regression. The dependent variable is composed of women responses to the question: All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days? Respondents were asked to check where they were on an ordinal scale ranging from 1 (completely dissatisfied) to 10 (completely satisfied). Our measures of economic conditions include income (normal income and social reference income). Data set also contains further information about a large set of control variables (age, education level, religion, marital status, and health), gender related variables (gender discrimination, domestic violence, participation in the household expenditures), and financial status. In order to show the relationship between gender related variables and life satisfaction; participation in the household expenditures, domestic violence, gender discrimination, being a full-time housewife variables have been included in the questionnaire survey. As mentioned above, we took these parameters in order to reflect the gender roles and gender discrimination that emerges from dual characteristics of women’s reproductive and productive work within the household and social life. 4.1 Normal and Social Reference Income As economic growth has been considered as the most important aim of economic policy, economists generally assume that having high income leads directly to greater subjective well-being. In recent years, some have begun to argue whether there is a correlation 7

De jure is an expression that means ‘‘concerning law’’.

8

Last birthday method (interviewer select a person in the household who had the most recent birthday) has been used in the survey.

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between income growth and happiness. Most of the findings have the same result with general economic theory: people with high income are happier than those with low income. In other words, at any given point in time, individuals with higher incomes are happier than individuals with lower incomes. However, empirical studies on subjective well-being have shown that in countries with income sufficient to meet basic needs, there was no link between economic growth and happiness. This paradox has been explained by Easterlin (1974, 2001a) and also by Frank (1997) in terms of rising aspirations and social comparison. The importance of social comparison was found earlier by Dusenberry (1949). His relative income hypothesis was that people with higher income are happier, but raising everybody’s income does not increase everybody’s happiness, because in comparison to others income has not improved. As recent empirical works demonstrated, a person’s happiness or life satisfaction not only depends on absolute income but also depends, to a large degree, on relative income (Easterlin 1974, 1995, 2001a; Stutzer 2004; Diener et al. 1993; McBride 2001). Individuals usually have a drive to evaluate themselves by looking towards other people. They can be satisfied in absolute terms, but their level of happiness or satisfaction depends also on what they see around. They most likely compare themselves to others such as neighbors, colleagues, friends etc. The social status of an individual plays an important role in the determination of his/her subjective well-being. The notion of income comparison may be seen in two ways. Individuals can compare themselves with other people or groups (social comparison) or individuals’ own income in the past (adaptation). These comparisons may concern others, or oneself in the past, suggesting the possibility that individuals adapt their changing income (Easterlin 2001a). In cross-section studies, researchers find that overall life satisfaction of individuals negatively depends on the average income in their social reference groups. The differences between their income and social reference income become an important determinant of individual life satisfaction (McBride 2001; Stutzer 2004; Ferrer-i-Carbonell 2005). In Northern Cyprus, women have a lower status economically, educationally and socially in comparison to EU averages. This degradation affects particularly their life satisfaction. As gender inequality prevents women’s aspirations and enables equal partnerships with men, it is a lifelong burden on women’s self-esteem. In the literature, selfesteem tends to be correlated with social comparison choices. Wood (1989) indicates that individuals may make comparisons to improve their self-esteem. Upward comparisons may also contribute to self-improvement goals. In this case, living within an unequal environment, women may choose upward comparison targets as a means of setting the standards they wish to obtain. Our measures of normal and social reference income are both derived from responses of 510 women of the survey. For normal income, mean household income has been used for women. We asked every respondent to report their total household income. Following the social reference income framework, we asked questions to respondents in regard to downward and upward comparison: ‘‘Which of the following group do you compare yourself with?’’: People who have lower economic status than mine (score of 1), people who the same economic status with me (score of 2), and people who higher economic status than mine (score of 3). 4.2 Financial Status As an economic factor, a new variable is introduced in this study. People usually derive pleasure from their own consumption, but on the other hand, they want to consume a part

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of their current income and save the rest. However, the amount of money that individuals want to save depends largely on their income and financial needs. Therefore, this study also focuses on the relationship between financial status and life satisfaction. It is also controlled, whether women were able to save or borrow some money in the preceding year. The question asked is the following: ‘‘Which one describes your financial status in preceding year?’’: I got into debt (score of 1), I didn’t get into debt but I used my savings accounts as money (score of 2), I didn’t get into debt, I didn’t use my savings accounts as money but I couldn’t save money (score of 3), I saved money (score of 4). 4.3 Domestic Violence For domestic violence, although an emerging body of scholarly work is giving voice to abused women, only few studies look at the effect of domestic violence on life satisfaction. Varma et al. (2007) observed that women who reported intimate partner violence were more likely to report lower life satisfaction than non-abused women. Kabasakal and Girli (2012) found that students who were a victim of a domestic violence or witnessed domestic violence have meaningfully lower life satisfaction levels than those who did not. In this paper, our approach requires data on life satisfaction, a measure of violence victimization and a measure of witness experiences. As the issue of domestic violence has been kept hidden and never been analyzed in any quantitative and qualitative terms in Northern Cyprus, this will be the first study to estimate the domestic violence and its effects on life satisfaction. In general, victims of domestic violence often do not report incidents. Yet the survey was anonymous it was less likely that respondents may misreport their domestic violence experiences. Data set includes two separate questions on whether the individual has ever been a victim of or has ever witnessed domestic violence. Domestic violence was defined as an assault, threat, or intimidation by a male partner or a family member. The actual wordings are as follows: ‘‘Have you ever been a victim of domestic violence?’’: No (score of 0) Yes (score of 1) and ‘‘Have you ever known anyone personally who was the victim of domestic violence?’’: No (score of 0) Yes (score of 1). 4.4 Gender Discrimination In order to show the relationship between gender discrimination and life satisfaction, a question has been included to the survey. The question asked is the following: ‘‘Do you feel any gender discrimination in general?’’ The dummy takes on the value one if yes and zero otherwise. 4.5 Being a Full-Time Housewife and Being Unemployed Since the role of ‘‘being a full-time housewife’’ reflects dual characteristics of women in production process, this determinant has also been included in the study. In the literature, some of the findings found full-time housewives less satisfied than working wives (Nye 1963) while some studies found women, who work part-time, more satisfied than women who work-full time or full-time housewives (Ferree 1976). Existing studies generally focus on the life satisfaction of working women and housewives. This study examines the effects of being an unemployed and being a full-time housewife on life satisfaction. Dummy

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variables take on the value one if the respondent is a full-time housewife or currently employed. 4.6 Participation in Household Expenditures Gender inequality is also linked to women’s unequal bargaining power with their partner over issues within the household (Seguino 2006). As women’s participation in household expenditures affects the decision-making process and improves levels of power at home, we wanted to see its effect on life satisfaction. Question asked is: ‘‘Do you participate in the household expenditures?’’: Non-participation (score of 1) Full participation (score of 4). 4.7 Perceptions of Government Performance There are also studies about the relationship between perceptions of government performance and life satisfaction. In general, the quality of government has a positive effect on life satisfaction (Bjørnskov et al. 2007; Helliwell and Huang 2008). Especially, women suffer particularly in conflict zones. For this reason, the government has to improve women’s status and needs to effectively promote gender equality policies. Although significant improvements have been made with regard to higher education for women in Northern Cyprus, inequality still exists in different aspects. In this sense, this determinant becomes important to analyze the life satisfaction of women living in the Northern Cyprus. Question asked is the following: ‘‘How is the performance of the government in general?’’: Very bad (score of 1) Very good (score of 4). 4.8 Political Preferences Political preference also has an effect on life satisfaction with a greater tendency for those on the right of the political spectrum to declare a higher level of life satisfaction. Researchers found that right-wing Europeans are not unhappy because of inequality, whereas left-wing Europeans are unhappy about the inequality (Alesina et al. 2004). As gender inequality exists in Northern Cyprus, we also analyze the relationship between life satisfaction and political preferences of women. The question was phrased as follows: ‘‘In political matters people talk of the ‘left’ and ‘the right’. How would you place your views on this scale?’’: Extreme Left (score of 1), Extreme Right (score of 10). 4.9 Control Variables (Religion, Marital Status, Health, Education and Age) We use a number of additional variables from the survey to control for factors other than income and gender related variables that previous studies have shown to affect life satisfaction. In order to cover the function of religion, importance of religion was used as an indicator of religiosity for women. The four-point scale runs from 1 (not at all important) to 4 (very important) as the highest value. For marital status dummy variable takes on the value one if the respondent is currently single or living with a partner and zero otherwise. To measure self-reported health, following item was used: ‘‘In general, would you say your physical health is very poor (score of 1), excellent (Score of 5)?’’. For education, we used categorical variables ranging from 1 (no level of education completed) to 7 (post graduate studies). Also we asked respondents to report their age and date of birth.

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5 Descriptive Statistics Before giving the results of the model it is useful to see some descriptive statistics of the study. Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics in terms of socio-economic and gender related variables. Our measures of economic conditions include income (normal income and social reference income). Also data set contains further information about a large set of non-economic variables (age, education level, religion, marital status, and health), gender related variables (gender discrimination, witnessing domestic violence and being a victim of domestic violence). As health seems one of the dominant concerns in individual’s lives in the literature (Veenhoven 1997; Ruhm 2003), our results demonstrate that healthy women are much more satisfied than unhealthy women. Many studies find a positive impact of religion on subjective well-being, joy, and mental health (Levin and Chatters 1998; Myers and Diener 1995). We found the same results in accordance with the literature. Women who find religion to be very important report higher levels of satisfaction than others. In the literature, higher level of education is related to higher income, which affects happiness positively. Yet, aspirations may rise with education and the effect on happiness may as well be negative. In our sample, women who graduated from post-high schools are the most satisfied women. Although in the literature, married people are generally found to be happier than single people (Argyle 1999; Oswald 1997), we found the opposite. Single women are the most satisfied women. The relationship between age and happiness is found to be U-shaped (Gerdtham and Johannesson 2001; Oswald 1997). In our sample, the most satisfied women are between the age of 18–22 and the least satisfied women are the women who are older than 55. Our measures of normal income and social reference income are both derived from responses of 510 women of the survey. For normal income, mean household income has been used for women. We asked every respondent to report their total household income. On average, women with high income are satisfied than those with low income. The most satisfied women are the women whose household income is between 2,000 and 2,500 Turkish Liras. Following the social reference income framework, we asked questions to respondents in regard to downward, linear and upward comparison: Which of the following group do you compare yourself with: people who have lower economic status than mine (downward comparison), people who have the same economic status with me (linear comparison), and people who have higher economic status than mine (upward comparison). The results showed that women who usually make upward comparison are the least satisfied individuals. Gender related variables are introduced in Table 1. In the life satisfaction literature, it has been found that overall men and women are more satisfied with their lives when societies become more equal (Bjørnskov et al. 2010). In our sample, women who perceived gender discrimination are much less satisfied than women who have not ever perceived any gender discrimination. The issue of domestic violence has a very strong negative effect on life satisfaction. Women, who are a victim of domestic violence, are incredibly less satisfied than women who are not a victim of such an event. We also asked respondents if they really know a woman (from family, close friends or neighbors) who is a victim of domestic violence. From the results, it can be seen that women whose relatives or friends are a victim of domestic violence are less satisfied than others.

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Table 1 Descriptive statistics of the sample

Mean

SD

Very important

6.06

2.28

Rather important

5.44

2.59

Not very important

6.03

2.39

Not at all important

5.82

2.32

Very poor

4.33

3.44

Poor

4.93

2.39

Moderate

4.88

2.53

Good

6.05

2.00

Very good

7.63

1.80

Never educated

5.11

2.14

Elementary

5.26

2.28

Secondary

5.35

2.17

High school

5.73

2.43

Post-high school

7.33

1.49

University

6.44

2.36

Post-graduade

6.40

2.56

Single

6.18

2.41

Married

5.68

2.34

Under 22

6.65

2.17

23–35

5.84

2.47

36–45

5.48

2.21

46–55

5.90

2.40

56–65

5.26

2.46

65 more

5.23

2.27

Lower than 1,000

4.66

3.20

1,000–1,500

4.72

2

1,500–2,000

5.53

2

2,000–2,500

6.38

2.23

2,500–3,000

6.28

2.21

More than 3,000

6.27

2.24

Upward

4.07

2.55

Linear

5.96

2.39

Downward

5.21

2.45

Yes

4.96

2.04

No

6.04

2.40

Religion

Health

Education

Marital status

Age

Income

Social reference income

Gender discrimination

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Mean

SD

No

6.12

2.36

Yes

4.86

2

Domestic violence (victim)

Domestic violence (witnessing) No

6

2.45

Yes

5.50

2.14

6 Results This section tries to provide possible explanations of disparity in life satisfaction levels. Regression analyses are estimated in order to analyze women’s subjective well-being taking into account other sets of co-variables: religion, health, education, marital status, age, normal income, social reference income, savings, participation in the household expenditures, domestic violence, employment, savings, gender discrimination, being a fulltime housewife, employment, political preferences, and perception of government. Women in Northern Cyprus feel and define dimensions of gender discrimination independently from their income level and education. Although women have equal rights with men, they face gender discrimination in job and within the household. While gender discrimination is often put forward as a possible explanation of the lower life satisfaction level of women in several studies, the relation between perceived gender discrimination and life satisfaction can hardly be considered as directly causal. As expected, the perceived health status is an important factor in determining life satisfaction among women in Northern Cyprus because those with a positive perceived health status showed a higher degree of life satisfaction than those with a negative perceived health status. Also women show positional concerns regarding to education. Women with high education reported higher levels of satisfaction than those with low education. For women, normal household income is positively correlated with life satisfaction; however, the correlation is significantly very low. On the other hand, life satisfaction and social reference income show a higher correlation coefficient. As gender inequality prevents women’s aspirations and enables equal partnerships with men in the Northern Cyprus, this may lead women to compare themselves with people who have the standards that they wish to obtain which, at the end, reduce their life satisfaction. Since women’s participation in household expenditures affects the decision-making process and improves levels of power at home, we found statistically significant and positive relationship between life satisfaction and participation in the household expenditure. Women who don’t participate in the household expenditures are less satisfied than women who participate. It is also clear in the case of being a full-time housewife and being unemployed. Both have a negative and significant effect on life satisfaction. Women who are full-time housewives reported low levels of life satisfaction. Unemployment also displays a negative effect. Strikingly, being a full-time housewife has a stronger negative effect on life satisfaction than being unemployed. The coefficient of being a housewife is almost twice as high as the coefficient of being unemployed.9 9

From the results it is seen that around 30 % of women are housewives, 10 % are currently unemployed, and 60 % are currently employed.

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Table 2 Regression results Independent variables Religion

Est. coeff.

SE

z value -0.519

-0.044

0.085

Health

0.836

0.103

8.062*

Education

0.138

0.064

2.135**

Marital status

0.082

0.077

1.060

Age

0.008

0.007

1.024

Normal income

0.001

0.000

2.744*

-0.238

0.073

-3.252*

Financial status

0.255

0.081

3.137*

Participation in household expenditure

0.170

0.082

2.051*

Being a victim of a domestic violence

-0.277

0.080

3.430*

Witnessing domestic violence

-0.279

0.169

-1.651**

0.135

0.089

1.503

Employment

-0.395

0.232

-1.697**

Housewife

Social ref. income

Gender discrimination

-0.784

0.244

-3.203*

Perception of government performance

0.164

0.045

3.614*

Political preference

0.108

0.040

2.709*

Log likelihood (Pseudo R2)

-1,020.127 0.085

* p \ .01; ** p \ .05; *** p \ .10

Predictably, there is a negative and significant relationship between domestic violence and life satisfaction. Not only being a victim of a domestic violence but also witnessing domestic violence reduces life satisfaction of women in northern Cyprus. The coefficients are almost the same for both. It is possible to claim that domestic violence is one of the main parameter which determines the life satisfaction of women living in Northern Cyprus. There is also a significant relationship between perception of government performance, political preferences and life satisfaction. It should be emphasized that while we were applying the survey Northern Cyprus was facing the agenda of austerity measurements due to economic crisis. As economic problems have become even more important for people, Cyprus problem has lost its importance. These factors also determine the perception of government performance and its effect on life satisfaction. Women who view the government’s performance as bad are not satisfied with their lives. Additionally, in a paper ¨ hler (2011) found that left-wing individuals’ happiness is affected by the Dreher and O political orientation of the government. We found the same result in accordance with the literature. In Northern Cyprus left-winged women were not satisfied under the center right government (Table 2).

7 Conclusion In this paper, we investigate the role of economic, non-economic and gender related variables to explain the life satisfaction levels of women living in the Northern Cyprus. As the status of women in Northern Cyprus stayed in the shadow of political studies, women’s satisfaction levels derive a closer look.

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This paper presents empirical evidence for the effect of normal and social reference income on subjective well-being in the case of women living in the Northern Cyprus. For women in Northern Cyprus, their position relative to other individuals matters more than their absolute position. It is found that women tend to make upward income comparisons which, at the end, reduce their satisfaction with life. For women, one explanation could be that, living within an unequal environment, women may also choose upward comparison targets as a means of setting the standards they wish to obtain, which results in more negative feelings about themselves. Since domestic violence, reported as the most traumatic life event by a considerable number of women in several studies, witnessing and being victims of domestic violence both have negative effects on life satisfaction. Women who had an abuse history and women whose relatives or friends were victims of domestic violence were less satisfied than others. In general the dimensions of domestic violence needed to be investigated in more detail apart from the content of this research. Another striking result we have found in this study is that being a full-time housewife has a stronger negative effect on life satisfaction than being an unemployed woman. That’s to say, being employed even once represents a source of independence for women that refers to more satisfaction with life. We did find significant evidence that participation in the household expenditures has positive effects on life satisfaction. This can be a result of bargaining power with the men over issues in the household. Rather than defined only as a housewife, women’s employment is a crucial parameter for life satisfaction. Economic status also determines the decision making process in the household so that the more women participate in decision-making process within the household, the more satisfied they are. Under these circumstances and given results, the life satisfaction determinants of Northern Cyprus women remain as a toolkit in order to achieve equality and subjective well-being in the society. Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank Istanbul University Research Project Department (BAP) for funding and Muharrem Faiz, director of Cyprus Social Research (KADEM) for applying this survey.

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