From the New York Times
[tags]Happiness, United States, Income[/tags]
Does Higher Income Increases Happiness?
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow, that’s one amazing chart. It looks to me like if you were in the USA or Canada and retiring soon it would be a great chart to find areas that are about 1/4 your GDP per capita yet rate high in life satisfaction. That way if you have a modest amount of retirement assets you can go there and live the ‘good life’ very cheaply as well as helping the local economies and people. It’s jut a win-win all around, I don’t understand why the majority of retirees aren’t doing that.
Very good Article! Thanks!
That’s honestly a bit surprising to me. It looks like Denmark is the way to go.
Remember to be critical about how ‘happiness’ is measured. Being from Denmark I can tell you have to remember to include the worlds highest taxes and a culture that strives towards average rather than excellense. Also with an average without knowing the dispersion you dont really know anything – called the fallacy of the average – or popularly in statistics it is the story of the man who drowned crossing a river where he knew the average depth only. What is to be taken from the graph is only the general trend that welth and happiness seems to have a correlation – although less strong than implied by the chart. Notice how the x-axis is logarithmic in values which overstates the positive angle of the implied trendline. Also notice how all countries are valued equally despite an obvious difference in population which should affect the weight it is given.
Applying the findings to countries that are closely plotted does not make any sense, nor to apply the findings to how individuals should react (move there) as it ignores what make up happinss (such as proximity to relatives and friends, culture, history, etc.).
Dont get me wrong, Denmark can be the way to go – for some countries, however not the US.
An other way to interpret this diagram is that the GDP per ct is about 40 times higher in the OECD:s compared to the fellow men in the poorest countries but the way we value our “life satisfaction” is only slightly more than doubled*, from approx 4 to 8 on the scale…
(* Unless satisfaction is logarithmic)
Also, socialist venezuala and “socialist” denmark and norway are happier than the US. Milton Friedman’s favourite free market haven, Hong Kong is pretty wealthy, but is at the same happiness level as recently war torn Lebanon.
>Milton Friedman’s favourite free market haven, Hong Kong is pretty wealthy, but is at the same happiness level as recently war torn Lebanon.
And communist holdout Cuba! Just goes to show you that there are so many factors, not just income, in determining satisfaction.