Paper presented at the 30th NISPAcee annual conference, Bucharest, Romania June 2-4 2022
Serkan Akili, Bekir Celic & Ruut Veenhoven
In this presentation we present a research synthesis on the observed effects of public policies using World Database of Happiness (WDH) to introduce a practical solution for extracting evidence which could be used by policy makers and researchers. We first present an overview of the rising interest in happiness research during the last two decades and highlight the role of happiness as a policy aim. Then we explain the aims and structure of World Happiness Database as an evidence source. Using a simple summary table and links to relevant pages in the World Happiness Database, we present 35 correlational findings derived from 17 studies to overview effects of policy interventions on happiness in diverse policy areas and we discuss how these findings may be used by researchers and policy makers. The findings suggest that policy interventions should take influential contextual and demographic variables into account as evidenced by research findings, and increased individualization of programs may provide more effective results in increasing the happiness within the target groups.