The World Happiness Project has some answers.

For nine years an international consortium of economists and statisticians have gathered together data from many countries on how individuals rate their life satisfaction, reporting their findings in a World Happiness Report. Each year they focus on a particular issue; the 2021 report is on the impact of Covid. That is another column – this one is more about some general issues of the determinants of happiness.

People self-rating their happiness/life satisfaction may seem a bit arbitrary. However, there is a lot of evidence that this subjective score can be used for population research purposes even if the individual score may be a bit volatile.

A YouGov poll of people from 22 countries asked almost 10,000 individuals to self-rate their life satisfaction on a 0 to 10 scale. They averaged about 6.5. (Had it been in the survey, New Zealand would have been about 7.5; there would have been a couple of countries above us.)

The econometricians then evaluated some of the factors which determined individual scores. Some were personal factors such as age. The older you were, the happier you were. The difference between an 18-24 year-old and someone over 65 was 0.6 points on the scale so the elderly were about 10 percent happier on a 6.5 score. When I first worked with such surveys, they showed young adults were happier that those in the middle of their lives – say 40-year-olds. That curvature effect seems to be disappearing. Does that mean our young are increasingly more miserable? Why?

The gender factor once more showed males saying they were about 0.1 points less happy than females. This is a common finding.

You may not be surprised that people living alone scored 0.4 points lower. This is found in other surveys which ask about marital status; as a rule, married people are happier than unmarried ones. Remember, these are averages and some people living alone will have communities of families and friends and be quite happy. For others it will be a greater trial. The same averaging applies to the married.

Allow a wry smile that parents are happier than non-parents with reported scores sitting 0.25 points above non-parents. There are times when it may not seem that way but on average ...

The research I am reporting was part of a review on the effects of work on wellbeing, so it was particularly interested in unemployment, finding the unemployed scored themselves a whopping 1.3 points – say 20 percent – lower. Those who ceased to look for jobs and were described as ‘inactive’ were only half that.

We might ponder about a couple of possible conclusions. The first is that if unemployment rises, there is a perceptible reduction in the country’s happiness.

Second, perhaps we could reduce the trauma by making unemployment less stressful. That is one of the purposes of the proposed social unemployment scheme. There are people who are unlikely ever to be unemployed and are vociferously antagonistic towards such a scheme. Not everyone of course, and the objectors also have to ignore that by making the worker move more easily between jobs and upgrading their skills, the scheme will benefit the labour market mobility and productivity. Perhaps those opposed to it have neoliberal attitudes.

Such results depend on what is asked and the quality of the responses. Unfortunately the survey did not ask about income. So I just mention here that when it is asked for, it seems that those with higher incomes are happier. But the effect is not as great as the effects from other factors which I reported above: a higher income does not seem to add as much to happiness as, say, being ‘married’.

The one exception to this income effect is that those really at the bottom – say the bottom fifth – are markedly unhappier and a state income transfer would improve their wellbeing much more that it would reduce the happiness of those who would pay the extra taxation. (Since public policy is not to raise taxes, this option for raising the nation’s happiness is not being contemplated.)

The reason I have focused on this quantitative study is not only because it is the only one in the report – there is plenty of descriptive data – but because it was able to incorporate two other effects which are less commonly investigated.

The first was trust in the health system. Trust it and one is 0.35 points (say 5 percent) happier on average. That is not quite as good as being married, but near enough. (You can have both.)

The second was trust in the government. That scores an extra 0.25 points.

What struck me was that in America – which is in the sample of 22 countries – there are strong political pressures to distrust the government and – as we have seen with Covid – to distrust medical advice. On the standard happiness rankings America is only 19th – ten places behind New Zealand in the Gallup survey of 149 countries. (Those above us are Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Switzerland, Netherlands, Sweden, Germany and Norway – all countries to which we pay little attention when developing public policy.) We could get down to the US level by doubling the unemployment rate and the divorce rate and then some.

The constant redisorganisations of the health system must be reducing our trust in it, for the rhetoric rarely tries to reinforce it. Ironically, at the moment National’s health spokesperson, Shane Reti, expresses more trust in our health system than the Minister of Health, Andrew Little. Perhaps everyone, or their friends, needs a bout in hospital which would enhance their trust in the health system. Certainly that is the feedback I get from those who have engaged with my local one.

There is a stream in our public political rhetoric which discourages trust in government. Admittedly, especially if you are opposed to the current government, it is a fine balance between providing a critique of it and undermining the New Zealand government in general. To go down the latter path is the way to an unhappier nation.