With the increasing availability of cross-national data, more attention has been given to the issue of comparability. But while a lot of emphasis has been directed to the assessment of measurement invariance, there has been substantially less concern on how measurement error can affect the results of measurement invariance testing. In this study, we show how correction for measurement error can be applied to measurement invariance analysis. We illustrate this using the concept of “Perceived ethnic threat” measured in the European Social Survey Round 3 (2006). The measurement invariance results before and after correction for measurement error are compared. We show that correction for measurement error offers a viable way to ensure that non-invariant parameters are actually caused by differences in the data and not caused by the measurement method.

In this paper we discuss how the comparability of different types of social indicators based on subjective and objective variables can be tested using invariance testing. This is a relevant issue because the existing testing procedure is designed for only one type of social indicators and this test is not directly applicable on the other types of social indicators.

Does political participation make individuals more satisfied with their lives? Scholars of classical philosophy and participatory democracy suggest that participation in political activities is indeed a fundamental tenet of individual wellbeing. However, even though political participation is one of the most intensively studied topics in political science for decades, the relationship with individual wellbeing only recently started to gather some attention. So far, the existing empirical research has come to inconclusive results. In this study, we first re-examine the theoretical relationships between political participation and wellbeing. Secondly, using panel data from the Netherlands, we assess empirically the causal relations between taking part in political activities and individual life satisfaction.

Is there a relationship between political participation and individual life satisfaction? The idea that political participation makes people more satisfied with their lives has long been debated. However, the existing empirical research has not been very successful in demonstrating that such a relationship exists while some studies show that instead it is individual life satisfaction that impacts political participation. This paper aims to shed some light on the issue of causality between political participation and individual life satisfaction. Unlike former studies, we resort to panel data and apply a three wave model which allows us great flexibility to test several hypotheses. Also unlike previous studies, after correcting for measurement error, our analysis shows no compelling evidence of a causal relationship between political participation and life satisfaction.