A cross-national investigation on subjective well-being has noted that, globally, religious people are usually happier than nonreligious people, though nonreligious people can also reach high levels of happiness.
Interestingly, cross-national statistical studies on working poverty suggest that generous welfare states have a larger impact on working poverty than strong labor movements.
Some scholars object because this kind of research involves comparing dissimilar countries and cultures, while others argue that cross-national quantitative analysis requires unrealistic assumptions.
From the mid-1990s, the field has expanded, in part aided by new cross-national data sets that allow tests of hypotheses on comparative economic systems and institutions.
