The Metrics of Societal Happiness

Growing interest in the measurement of subjective well-being (SWB) has also been accompanied by scientific debate on the optimal method for measuring SWB. The momentary perspective, which is represented by the ecological momentary assessment (EMA) and day reconstruction method (DRM), emphasizes the momentary experiences and aims to measure SWB in an objective manner via the aggregation of happiness levels over time and activities. The global reporting perspective emphasizes the subjective evaluation of life experiences and aims to capture the overall evaluation using retrospection or global evaluations. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these different perspectives and methods by examining conceptual, methodological, and practical issues. We propose adopting a multi-method assessment approach to SWB that uses both perspectives and the corresponding methods in a theory-driven and complementary manner. For the purposes of measuring and tracking SWB of societies, we also call for more research on the reliability and validity of EMA and DRM.     

Steering Towards Happiness in The Netherlands

As in many other countries, the economic crisis is being felt in the Netherlands. Is that a good moment for a government to develop a policy to increase happiness? Is it actually possible to raise the level of happiness in the Netherlands? The Dutch are after all already happy, and the objective quality of life in the Netherlands is also high, so there would seem to be little scope for making them even happier. It is also questionable whether the government should be playing the role of a ‘happiness machine’, which seeks to promote individual happiness, or whether it would do better to act as a ‘misfortune mitigator’ which seeks to minimise the negative elements in people’s lives. In this article we attempt to answer these questions on the basis of Dutch initiatives designed to promote happiness in the areas of municipal policy, welfare, health care, work and education. We come to the conclusion that happiness policy is already deeply embedded in Dutch society. The Dutch government is indeed a happiness machine. It could act rather more as a misfortune mitigator, given the gains to be made at the bottom of the ‘happiness ladder’, in particular. Mental resilience emerges in all initiatives as an important factor in increasing happiness. Programmes to boost mental resilience can be started as early as primary school.     

The Impact of Economic Crisis on Happiness

There is a common belief that economic crisis will lead to a decrease in subjective wellbeing. Previous studies indicate that income is correlated with happiness and unemployment with unhappiness. The relationship between increased income and happiness is well documented while the impact of decreased income has been less explored. The aim of this paper is to study how the economic downfall in Iceland, followed by reduced income and increased unemployment, affects happiness as well as to explore which groups are most vulnerable to changes in happiness and which are most resilient. The study is a longitudinal, nationally representative postal survey which assessed 5,918 individual’s aged 18–79. A total of 4,092 (77.3%) answered again in 2009. The relationship between economic factors and happiness was explored using multiple linear regression to find out how much they explain of the happiness variance and the changes in happiness, together with demographic factors, health and social relationships. Results indicate that income and unemployment did not predict happiness but financial difficulties did. A decrease in happiness was detected after the collapse. The change in happiness from 2007 to 2009 was normally distributed, 40% had the same score in both years and an equal number increased as decreased. The explored factors did not explain the changes in happiness. The economic crisis had a limited affect on happiness. Those with financial difficulties were hardest hit. Changes in happiness need to be studied further since they are not well explained by the factors which influence cross-sectional levels of happiness.     

The Pursuit of Happiness and the Globalized Tourist

The most problematic issues that characterize western society is the crisis of the subject and the difficulties of interpersonal relationships, leading to situations of deep distress and increasing the fragility of human beings. This behavior of the contemporary man also depends on flexibility rules in all areas of society and particularly inside the work, causing a significant impact on the character of individuals, reducing the expectations and hopes for the future, making flexible affective relationships. It is a fragile, insecure, unsatisfied self that waits all the year round for holiday and concentrates on it great expectations and hopes: the conquest of a new social identity, the self-realization, the development of communicative relations. Tourists prefer places with a strong link with nature, where it is possible to do open air activities, play sports and enjoy the beauties of the surrounding landscape. But in practical terms it must be said that holidays not always turn into such a perfect experience: individuals can barely satisfy their wishes and needs because of the difficulty in cutting themselves off from the routine life; moreover the pervasive machinery of tourist facilities tends to wrap in the consumer spiral even holidays’ places and times. Furthermore, the relation with the otherness reveals not to be exclusive only to the festive or vacation time, but it rather involves the whole existence of a person in his ethical and social dimension. The difficulties in fulfilling the wish for happiness through tourism depend perhaps on the impossibility of completely telling everyday life from spare time, which means that acting changes its modes, but not its substance.     

World Database of Happiness

The World Database of Happiness is an ongoing register of research on subjective appreciation of life. Its purpose is to make the wealth of scattered findings accessible, and to create a basis for further meta-analytic studies. The database involves four sections:

1. Bibliography of Happiness. Presents all contemporary scientific publications. Detailed subject classification. Current content: 2472 titles, mainly in English.
2. Catalogue of Happiness Correlates. Presents mini-abstracts of correlational research findings. Restricts to selected indicators of happiness. Detailed subject classification. Current content: 6098 findings from 512 studies in 45 nations between 1911–1993.
3. Catalogue of Happiness in Nations. Presents responses on selected survey questions in nation samples. Current content: 689 surveys in 56 nations 1946–1993.
4. Directory of Investigators. Addresses of most authors on the subject.

The World Database of Happiness is available in books and on computer files. Computer files are free available through Internet on the anonymous ftp-server of Erasmus University Rotterdam Netherlands. Ftp-address: ftp.eur.nl (pub/database.happiness).     

Wealth and Happiness Revisited – Growing National Income Does Go with Greater Happiness

Social Indicators Research - ``Will raising the incomes of all increase the happiness of all?'' Intuitionsays `yes' but theories of relative utility caution that the answer may...     

城镇老年人再就业对幸福感的影响——基于吉林省老年人口的调查研究

随着老年人口的不断增长,如何提高老年人幸福感已成为社会热点问题。经济水平是影响老年人幸福感的最直接因素,也最被专家学者所关注。退休后老年人的收入情况是决定老年人经济水平高低的关键因素。数据分析认为退休老年人再就业和幸福感有着较为明显的正相关性,所以多为老年人提供再就业机会对他们身心的健康是有益的,对老龄化所带来的经济压力能够起到缓解、消除的作用,有利于国家的全面发展。     

Education,Happiness and Wellbeing

Answers to the questions ‘Does education influence happiness and if so, how and how much?’ depend on how one defines and operationalizes ‘education’, ‘influences’ and ‘happiness’. A great variety of research scenarios may be constructed from our three essential variables. What public policies one ought to adopt and implement regarding the influence of education on happiness depends minimally on which of the great variety of research scenarios one adopts and maximally on lots of other things as well. My personal preference is for a robust definition of the three terms. Because human beings are complex organisms, an adequate construction of the idea of human wellbeing must also be complex. Therefore, any discipline-driven, reductionist definition that pyschologizes, medicalizes, economizes, geneticizes, socializes or politicizes the idea should be avoided.     

Happiness of the very wealthy

The subjective well-being of very wealthy persons was compared with that of a control group who lived in the same geographical area. One hundred persons from Forbes list of wealthiest Americans were queried, as well as 100 control persons selected from telephone directories. The 49 wealthy respondents reported average levels of subjective well-being which were higher than the 62 control group respondents and any subgroup of respondents in a national sample. However, there were unhappy wealthy people and the average level of this group was only modestly higher than for other groups. None of the respondents believed that money is a major source of happiness. When the major sources of happiness mentioned by the two groups were coded for Maslow's needs, it was found that the wealthy group more often mentioned self-esteem and self-actualization and less frequently mentioned physiological and security needs.     

The Subjective Well-Being of the Homeless, and Lessons for Happiness

The current study assessed the subjective well-being of a broad spectrum of homeless people. One-hundred-and-eighty-six homeless people from the streets of Calcutta (India), California, and a tent camp in Portland (Oregon) were interviewed, and responded to measures of subjective well-being. They answered questions about life satisfaction, satisfaction with various life domains, and their experience of positive and negative emotions. The mean rating of life satisfaction was slightly negative for both American samples but positive for the pavement dwellers in Calcutta. Satisfaction with self-related domains was positive, whereas satisfaction with material related domains was generally negative. Satisfaction with social domains appears to be the area of largest variation among the groups. We discuss the importance of social factors and basic material needs as they relate to overall subjective well-being of the homeless.     

Trading Up the Happiness Ladder

How globalization affects subjective happiness is highly disputed. Several studies use an index that amalgamates globalization’s different dimensions into a single variable. Unlike previous studies and in order to better illuminate its facets, we adopt a disaggregated perspective on trade (policy) data. Distinguishing actual trade flows and the option value of trade, we find the former to slightly depress happiness, the latter to significantly promote happiness. Segmentation of WVS-data shows that the positive connotation is concentrated in low-income countries still in the process of climbing the income ladder, thus backing the notion of a shift in values.     

Probing Folk Happiness in Taiwan

This paper examines Taiwan’s folk happiness, which means the subjective well-being of the common people. Subjective well-being of people refers to the judgments people make about their life satisfaction or happiness. Such judgments may include their satisfaction of life as a whole (global life satisfaction) or of specific aspects of life (domain satisfaction). Based on survey data from a large sample, the life satisfaction of people is investigated in two aspects—people’s personal life and their perceived conditions of living in Taiwan, respectively presented as personal well-being and national well-being or societal well-being. The meanings of the well-being findings are interpreted against the socio-political environment of Taiwan. The paper also examines the socio-demographic aspects, including gender, age, marital status, education, income, religion of the folk happiness of Taiwan. It is found that people in Taiwan are moderately happy.     

Happiness and Childbearing Across Europe

Using happiness as a well-being measure and comparative data from the European social survey we focus in this paper on the link between happiness and childbearing across European countries. The analysis motivates from the recent lows in fertility in many European countries and that economic wellbeing measures are problematic when considering childbearing. We find significant country differences, though the direct association between happiness and childbearing is modest. However, partnership status plays an important role for both men and women. Working fathers are always happier, whereas working mothers are not, though mothers?? happiness tends to increase with household income.     

Hedonic Inertia and Underground Happiness

The happiness of people is formulized by an Underground Hedonic Theory taking into account several levels. A formal way to think of and measure Underground happiness passes through the idea of Hedonic Inertia. This is the “residual happiness”, the “substratum of feeling” given by our experiences lived in each different moment of our days. The concept of happiness as the temporal integral of momentary utility is focused, pointing out the role that one or more events in our day can influence our mood throughout the entire day. We also refer to the underground happiness coming from our general situation (love, career, money, national politics, etc.), and from the underground scenario of our daily activities (urban beauty, noisiness, comfort, etc.). Finally we summarize the logical steps to design a certain Profile of Hedonic Response for a certain person, or personality typology, as a set of particular Curves of Hedonic Ponderation. This is also explained in a mathematical way by an “equation of happiness”.     

Project Happiness BringsHope to Mothers

Since 1995, Project Happiness has initiated 337programs covering most of China's provinces andautonomous regions. The organizers have alreadyraised almost RMB100 million to help underprivilegedmothers, one of the most vulnerable groups of society."Poor mothers are a social group who shoulder theheaviest burden of a family," said Wang Guangmei,chairperson of the China Population WelfareFoundation. "They often sacrifice themselves for theirchildren and family by doing both household choresa…     

The Hedonic and Eudaimonic Validity of the Orientations to Happiness Scale

The orientations to happiness scale (OTH) was designed to measure three routes to happiness: pleasure (hedonia), meaning (eudaimonia) and engagement (flow). Past research utilising the scale suggests that all orientations predict life satisfaction, with meaning and engagement the stronger predictors relative to pleasure. However, these findings are inconsistent with other research; one plausible explanation being that the OTH scale lacks validity. This was tested by having participants (N = 107) complete the OTH scale and the Satisfaction with Life scale, prior to completing an online diary reporting actual instances of hedonic and eudaimonic behaviour. Although meaning predicted eudaimonic behaviour, the pleasure orientation was unrelated to hedonic behaviour. Further, hedonic behaviour was more strongly related to life satisfaction than eudaimonic behaviour; inconsistent with OTH scale results. These findings challenge the validity of the OTH scale, and subsequently bring into question those conclusions drawn from past research utilising the OTH scale.     

Assessing Happiness Inequality in the Welfare State: Self-Reported Happiness and the Rawlsian Difference Principle

The effect of the size of the welfare state on the average happiness level in a nation has often been discussed—but the same effect on happiness inequality has been explored much less. Rooted in divergent philosophical disciplines, utilitarianism and egalitarianism respectively, scholars have discussed the merits of policies as they effect each of these two criteria for justice. John Rawls’ difference principle, on the other hand, philosophically justifies a limited trade-off, increasing happiness inequality to benefit the over-all happiness level of the least advantaged. The difference principle—that society should allow inequality insofar as it is to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged—has seldom been discussed empirically in the context of the happiness literature. This paper contributes to the ongoing literature evaluating the welfare state in light of happiness indicators by introducing the difference principle and asking whether the welfare state benefits the least advantaged in society. My empirical analysis shows that self-reported life satisfaction of the least advantaged does not improve from an increase in the size of the welfare state more than the self-reported life satisfaction of the average citizen. In short, the welfare state does not benefit the worst-off in a society in terms of happiness more than the average member.     

Happiness and Longevity: Unhappy People Die Young,Otherwise Happiness Probably Makes No Difference

Social Indicators Research - Based on analysis of long-running panel surveys in Germany and Australia, we offer a revised assessment of the relationship between subjective well-being (happiness,...