Happiness and Life Satisfaction

How happy are people today? Were people happier in the past?

How satisfied with their lives are people in different societies?

And how do our living conditions affect all of this?

These are difficult questions to answer;

but they are questions that undoubtedly matter for each of us personally.

Indeed, today, life satisfaction and happiness are central research areas in the social sciences,

including in ‘mainstream’ economics.

1. Surveys asking people about life satisfaction and happiness do measure subjective well-being with reasonable accuracy.
2. Life satisfaction and happiness vary widely both within and among countries. It only takes a glimpse at the data to see that people are distributed along a wide spectrum of happiness levels.
3. Richer people tend to say they are happier than poorer people; richer countries tend to have higher average happiness levels; and across time, most countries that have experienced sustained economic growth have seen increasing happiness levels. So the evidence suggests that income and life satisfaction tend to go together (which still doesn’t mean they are one and the same).
4. Important life events such as marriage or divorce do affect our happiness, but have surprisingly little long-term impact. The evidence suggests that people tend to adapt to changes.

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