Happy Happiness Report

I have enjoyed several hours over the last couple of days reading the 188 pages of the World Happiness Report, a UN and OECD sponsored attempt to analyse drivers and outcomes for life satisfaction globally. Here is a link to where you can download the report: http://worldhappiness.report/ed/2017/.

I love these things. I always enjoy digging into studies of deeper meaning than pure economic data, full of country comparisons and potential learning points for societies and for ourselves. I am amazed at how little attention these reports get. Surely they should be required reading for all politicians, and leaders should be held to account by journalists over the revelations and what can be done to improve things?

There are a few potential reasons for indifference. One is that these reports tend to be complex and nuanced, full of caveats and statistical explanations. Another is that the people politicians truly feel themselves accountable to, donors and corporations, have every reason to feel threatened by such reports. As individuals, maybe they are just too overwhelming for most to spend time on.

Whatever the cause, it is a crying shame. Such reports are jam packed with thought provoking ideas that can make a massive difference to the quality of life of every human. Furthermore, they usually offer joy from celebrating the wonderful advance of humanity over recent generations, an antidote to the constant doom and gloom we usually get to read.

As usual, The Economist highlighted the report in its excellent Espresso daily digest, though even they, usually so rigorous, demonstrated the point about complexity. Their headline was about how Rwanda had dramatically increased the life satisfaction of its citizens over the recent past. In fact, the report shows that Rwanda still sits in the bottom ten globally. Where it has advanced is in all the established drivers of satisfaction. According to the main model in the report, Rwanda should have made strides up the league table. But they haven’t – and that in itself is interesting. Why not?

That sort of thought is my curse with these reports, and I remember the same whenever I commissioned market research at work. The report always seems to be interesting, but then to beg more questions than it answers. That must be a double-edged weapon for market research professionals. Clients are always lured to the possibility of lucrative follow-up research, but then never seem to be satisfied with what they get.

This is especially true of this study, for good reason. The researchers have to pull together disconnected studies from all over the globe and at different times with different words, while trying to account for cultural factors. It is a miracle that they can reach as many solid conclusions as they can. But much of my reading drove my curiosity towards what more I could discover, rather than enjoying what I was just discovering.

As an example, one of the professed key drivers of life satisfaction is GDP at purchasing power parity. I can easily accept that it is a driver. But what related variables might also have an influence? Anticipated future GDP, inequality of GDP, rate of change of GDP, perceived risks to GDP, lagged GDP, how GDP is marketed – all could be powerful sub-drivers, and I’d love to know more about them. The same is true for all six key factors.

The study uses a single main question, called the Cantril ladder. People are asked how they would score their current life on a scale of zero to ten compared with the best possible life for them. It is an interesting question. I’m not sure happiness is a good word for its result; I think I’d prefer contentment or satisfaction.

The authors model factors to best explain the different scores between nations. They come up with six. GDP is one, and healthy life expectancy is another. The other four are more social. Respondents are asked if they have people they can turn to if in trouble, whether they think government and business are corrupt, and how free they feel about making life choices. Finally, they are asked if they have donated to a charitable cause recently.

Between them, these six factors explain about 75% of the differences between nations. The top ten countries are the usual suspects: the five Nordics including Iceland are joined by the Netherlands, Switzerland and the three white commonwealth countries of Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The bottom of the list is dominated by African nations – including Rwanda, despite what the six-factor model would predict. The USA came in at 14, the UK at 18. Once again I was able to feel blessed and a little smug about where I had been able to live myself and about where I have brought up my children.

There are fascinating chapters about China, Africa and the US, and one about satisfaction at work. I had not previously made the comparison between China and the Central European countries I used to visit in the 1990’s. Just like in China, these endured an abrupt liberalisation followed by an economic revival. Tellingly, life satisfaction has followed a U curve, and it cannot be said for sure that people are happier now than before the liberalisation started.

The US chapter is remarkably hard hitting, with little nuance or masking of the opinion of authors. Life satisfaction in the US has been following a steady downward path, and the recommended solutions are a focus on education for all, addressing inequality and rebuilding trust in society and institutions. Of course it is noted that this is the precise opposite of the path advocated by Donald Trump and by the Republicans. If life satisfaction declined under a progressive president, we can only fear its trajectory from now.

Another chapter digs a little into drivers of individual satisfaction within a society. This has few surprises, but is still interesting. Childhood experience matters, as does education, but employment and income, physical and mental health, and being with a partner count for more. Mental health seems to be especially important, offering a signal to give this a greater policy priority. In wealthy societies, relative income and education matters as much as absolute levels. As individuals, it is not easy to influence many of the factors in the short term, though it seems that a life able to balance many of these factors will usually bring more satisfaction.

The report also led me to think what I could do about my own life. I would score a 10 to the Cantril ladder question, so I wondered if the factors helped to explain why, since some years ago I would have scored lower. I have been blessed in all the individual drivers, but what about the national ones?

My personal GDP has declined precipitously, but what might be important is that I have come to feel that I have enough, and a path forward where that is unlikely to change. My healthy life expectancy must be diminishing with age, but I do take a bit better care of myself than I used to, physically and mentally, I feel better now, and the US practice of lots of tests has given me some reassurance about what illnesses I don’t currently suffer from.

It does annoy me to see such corruption and venality among those with power, but perhaps nowadays I can understand it better, deal with it better when it affects me, and also balance my view with how humanity is progressing. I am blessed with people who would help me in a crisis, and more generally feel surrounded by human goodness most of the time. I have learned to be honest with myself, be vulnerable, to give less offence, and to forgive – all from a low base line.

I have always felt a freedom to make life choices, and maybe this has even increased now I have chosen to step off the corporate ladder and now that the kids are getting closer to independence. Perhaps my biggest personal change has been in generosity, to friends and some strangers, and to special people that need help such as those where we volunteer.

So serendipity has led to possible improvements in all the factors, but it also points to things to hold on to and places to develop further. I recommend the report, all 188 pages of it. It will make you feel better about humanity, help you understand some policy dilemmas, and perhaps do something about your own life satisfaction score. Thank you UN and OECD and their donors. I’ll look out for next year’s issue.