Sunday, July 25, 2004

Serious political commentary, continued: Democrats don't have as much fun as Republicans

 
A survey conducted by the Washington Post (read about it here) confirms earlier findings suggesting that Republicans spend their leisure time in ways that are more satisfying, while Democrats fret and worry more and, in general, do less on the week-end that would lead to  personal happiness. (The paper notes: “a majority of Democrats said they wished they had more fun on weekends, a complaint expressed by fewer than half of all GOP partisans.”)

The WashPost commentator notes this about previous research on the politics of leisure and happiness:

Political scientist and wit Lee Sigelman of George Washington University, in a study he did a decade ago of national trend data collected over the previous 20 years, discovered that Democrats, on average, didn't live as long as Republicans, were less likely to marry, more likely to divorce if they did get married and more likely to commit suicide.
He also found that Democrats were less likely to say in national public opinion polls that they were "very happy." "Compared to respectable Americans, i.e. Republicans," Sigelman concluded impishly , "Democrats can be expected to inhabit a Hobbesian state of nature, a world in which life is poor, short, solitary, brutish and nasty."