THE economy is plummeting, the planet could burn to a crisp, and war has just broken out 鈥� again. Believe it or not though, people around the globe are happier today on average than they were 25 years ago. The secret seems to be a combination of rising economic prosperity, democracy and social liberalisation.
Every few years the World Values Survey (WVS), headed by Ron Inglehart, quizzes about 1400 people in each of 52 countries on how happy they are. Last month it pooled 25 years of data and found that since 1981, happiness has risen in 45 countries.
The results challenge earlier studies that happiness levels do not rise along with the economy 鈥� something that had led many to conclude that money can鈥檛 buy happiness. However, these studies often looked at countries that were rich already. The WVS team鈥檚 analysis shows that economic growth only boosts happiness noticeably in countries with per-capita GDP less than $12,000.
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Since the last survey (see New 杏吧原创, 4 October 2003), the top 10 happiest countries, which include Colombia, Denmark, Nigeria and Puerto Rico, have not changed much. Skipping up the happiness charts, however, are former Soviet states such as Ukraine and Slovenia, and emerging economies Brazil and India. Unsurprisingly, politically volatile nations like Zimbabwe or Georgia rank in the bottom 10 (Perspectives on Psychological Science, ).
What democratic progress and burgeoning economies have in common is the personal freedom they bestow, says the WVS team. This explains why many eastern Europeans are much happier even though their economic situation worsened in the transition from communism, says co-author Roberto Foa at Harvard University. Belarus is a notable exception, he says, as it is the eastern European country that had the least political reform. China too seems to be getting unhappier, despite its economic growth spurt, though Foa says this might be because the team only has data for China since the 1990s, which may not reflect the longer term.
What makes for overall well-being is more complicated than it seems at first glance, however. India鈥檚 鈥渟ubjective well-being score鈥�, which collates happiness and life satisfaction, has fallen since the 1980s. It turns out that even though more people report being very happy, far fewer are satisfied with their life. Is this the first sign of 鈥渁ffluenza鈥� 鈥� the consumer-driven ennui that some say is plaguing the west?
Latin American countries often come top in happiness league tables. Though they are not the richest, researchers believe this is partly due to their strong sense of family values and national pride. In the WVS survey, Mexico had the biggest leap in numbers of 鈥渧ery happy鈥� people. Foa says this is due to profound sociopolitical transformation: 鈥淭here has been widespread democratisation, so that people have greater opportunities to work, travel, and express themselves,鈥� he says, plus better protection of women鈥檚 rights.
Latin America also illustrates how cultures vary in how readily their satisfaction can be perturbed. Peter Kuppens at the Catholic University of Leuven (KUL), Belgium, and his team asked 10,000 college students from 46 countries how often they felt positive emotions such as pride and love, or negative ones such as sadness and anger, and how it affected life satisfaction.
In general, positive emotions affected satisfaction much more than negative emotions (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, ). Individualistic nations, especially in the west, were particularly susceptible to negative emotions. Asian or Latin American countries were less troubled by negative emotions 鈥渂ecause they consider their individual feelings less important than the collective good鈥�, explains Kuppens.
He cautions that living in a nation at the top of the happiness league is no guarantee of personal joy: 鈥淵our next-door neighbour in a happy country like Denmark may well be unhappier than the average guy in Zimbabwe.鈥�
