EHERO Working paper 2023-3
Ruut Veenhoven and Silke Kegel
ABSTRACT
Question: Is life getting worse as all the bad news in public media suggest?
Approach: We assessed changes in average happiness in nations over the last decade. Happiness was conceptualized as the subjective enjoyment of one’s life-as-a-whole, which can be measured using self-reports.
Method: We took stock of responses to questions on happiness in representative surveys of the general population in nations, drawing on findings gathered in the World Database of Happiness. We limited to time series that cover at least 20 years and 10 data-points, which yields 200 time series in 50 nations over the years 1946-2021. For only 1 nation (the USA) we have data on this entire period, most of the time series start in the 1990s or 2000. We focussed on change up to and including 2019, that is before the onset of the COVID 19 pandemic in the year 2000.
Results: Average happiness rose significantly in 26 nations and declined in 11 nations: so twice more rise than decline. The average size of rise and decline was similar. No significant change in average happiness took place in 35 nations.
Discussion: These findings go against the widely held belief that life is getting worse contemporary societies. Firsthand knowledge about one’s own happiness differs from hearsay about decline of quality of life in the country.
Keywords: Happiness, Social progress, Trend analysis, World Database of Happiness