Does Misery Love Company? Multilevel Relationships between Perceived Age Discrimination and Happiness among Older Europeans

The present study examines how contextual age discrimination moderates the individual-level association between perceived age discrimination and happiness among older Europeans. In this endeavor, we test two opposing views: 1) the “social norm” hypothesis that predicts the association between perceived age discrimination and happiness to become weaker in areas with a higher average level of age discrimination; and 2) conversely the “contagion effect” hypothesis that predicts the association to grow stronger in such areas. Using data from the European Social Survey (2008), we estimate two- and three-level mixed effects models to test these opposing hypotheses. Our findings from multilevel analysis lend support to the social norm hypothesis. Specifically, the negative link between perceived age discrimination and happiness is weaker in subnational regions where the proportion of victims of age discrimination is higher.