The Politics of Happiness

Are conservatives really happier than liberals?

At first glance, the data seem unambiguous. Yes, conservatives report feeling happier than liberals. It’s not just happiness either. Conservatives are more satisfied than liberals when it comes to their personal lives, employment situations, the number of friends they have, and their spousal relationships. (But not their sex lives, interestingly.) Conservatives also report feeling lonely less often. 

So, what are we to make of this? First, I should note that none of these differences are huge. The liberal-conservative gap on most measures of satisfaction is no more than ten points. Meaningful, but in most other ways the differences between liberals and conservatives are far greater. 

The next question is: why? Thomas Edsall runs through the scholarship on the ideological happiness divide and finds that it boils down to either two things: worldview or lifestyle. 

Is there something inherent in liberalism that makes people miserable? Polls show that liberals tend to be more preoccupied with what’s happening in the world than conservatives. I’ve argued previously that liberal pessimism about politics is driven in part by how they approach it. Liberals, particularly white liberals, are voracious consumers of national political news prone to engage in “political hobbyism,” a uniquely unrewarding activity. Perhaps, for this reason, liberals’ emotional well-being is more closely tied to their views about the national political environment. For liberals, there is a much stronger correlation between how they think things are going in their personal lives and feelings about the state of the country.  

Or, could it come down to lifestyle? Compared to conservatives, liberals are less inclined to prioritize activities that are strongly associated with personal fulfillment. My colleague, Brad Wilcox, made this point recently in the New York Times: “The liberal-conservative happiness gap, then, may not be primarily about political ideology but rather connections to our country’s three core institutions. Self-identified liberals are less likely than conservatives, on average, to be tied to family, faith, and community.”  

For me, this is the far more compelling explanation. Over the past 20 years, liberals have become less closely connected to religious organizations and churches. Only 35 percent of liberals report being a member of a church or place of worship. Marriage rates among liberals have also declined precipitously. Only 37 percent of liberals are currently married, compared to 56 percent of conservatives. 

Whatever your feelings about either institution, their connections to personal well-being are undeniable.  

Is the Happiness Gap Temporary? 

In making comparisons between liberals and conservatives we have to acknowledge a huge possible confounder. We are talking about two groups of people at very different life stages. Liberals are far younger than conservatives. More than six in ten (61 percent) liberals are under the age of 50, including nearly one in three who are under 30. In contrast, only about four in ten conservatives are under the age of 50.  

Age is a huge driver of self-reported feelings of self-doubt and dissatisfaction. Young people are less certain of themselves and their place in the world. They generally have fewer close friends, are less established in their careers, and, consequently, face greater financial insecurity. Older Americans, by contrast, are more likely to be rooted in communities, spend more time with neighbors, and feel more connected to places they live.  

If the past is any guide, younger liberals will eventually settle down. Most will get married and many will have children. They will invite their neighbors over for cookouts or meet up with colleagues after work. Further, there is no evidence that liberals do not care about or desire to build strong community ties—they are more likely than conservatives to spend time at the local library, frequent a favorite coffee shop, or walk around their neighborhoods.  

Still, it’s not clear that young liberals will become more religious as they age. And even after controlling for age, there is still a notable, if reduced, marriage gap between liberals and conservatives. If age does not completely erase this deficit liberals would still be at a disadvantage. 

Is the Happiness Gap an Illusion? 

But a vexing question remains. How do we square higher self-reported measures of personal dissatisfaction among liberals with government data showing that rates of suicide, alcoholism, and drug abuse are so much higher among white men without college degrees? This group is hardly liberal—they voted for Trump in 2020 by a whopping 42-point margin.  

One possibility is that survey measures of happiness are biased. It is, after all, a fairly difficult concept to measure. Liberals could simply be more comfortable telling strangers that they are unhappy, lonely, or anxious. In my work, objective measures of social connection and support reveal little difference between liberals and conservatives. Liberals have at least as many close friends as conservatives and their overall social networks are similarly sized. Liberals are also more likely to receive emotional support from their friends. Despite this, liberals report feeling less satisfied with the number of friends they have and feeling lonely or isolated more often. 

Another possibility is that conservatives are giving more aspirational answers to questions about happiness. A study in Science found that conservatives “self-enhance” when reporting subjective feelings of happiness to “put a positive spin on their lives.” 

The Increasing Importance of Education 

There’s a final piece of the puzzle that we need to work out. New research finds a rising class divide in happiness. Our work bears this out. In a recent report, The College Connection, we find a growing social divide between Americans with a college degree and those without. College-educated Americans are more likely to get married, be civically active, and be socially engaged. They have larger friend groups and spend less time alone. Over the last 30 years, Americans without a college degree experienced a dramatic contraction of their friendship group. In 1990, 64 percent of Americans without a college education had at least 5 close friends. By 2021, this number had dropped to just 34 percent, a 30-point decline. 

How is this relevant? Well, the educational profile of liberals has undergone a rapid transformation. Nearly half (47 percent) of liberals today are college graduates, up from 25 percent roughly two decades earlier. In contrast, only 28 percent of conservatives have a four-year college degree, a very modest shift over the same time period. 

There's little doubt that being married, being connected to a religious community, and going to college all provide social advantages. Americans who participate in these institutions score higher on nearly every metric of social capital that matters. Living a good life does not require all three and it’s certainly possible to live a rewarding, meaningful life without any of these experiences, but statistically speaking, it’s a much steeper and narrower path to climb.