Personally, I would guess that the last three rows—particularly romantic relationship quality and job satisfaction—would also show improvement, at least in richer countries, if we had good data on them.
This is mostly based on the fact that I think the ability to search out a “good fit” has dramatically improved[...]
It’s also somewhat based on informal impressions (which I admit are unreliable) from e.g. books and TV shows (for example, people seem to treat their romantic partners as more of a burden in older TV shows).
I think I agree with the broad thesis of your post, but I’m less sure about the claim for romantic relationships specifically, as well as the evidence for them. In particular, in addition to the emotional unreliability points you mentioned, I think there’s systematic selection bias when you look at existing relationships, when the proportion of people in relationships have systematically changed over time (US data). So I wouldn’t be surprised if average happiness in relationships have increased (because of better matching, etc), but average happiness about relationships have decreased.
Anecdotally, if I look at my parents’ or especially my grandparents’ generation, being single is almost unheard of in general if you’re in your late 20s/30s, never mind if you’re an emotionally stable nice person in a high-status job. (I think the rate of sex-selective abortion in China probably has not helped for this).
I think there are similar things in the West, if maybe less extreme for some people and with different causal attribution.
To be clear, this is not a refutation for the broad thesis of your post—I’d much rather be single and lonely in California in 2021 than being happily married during the cultural revolution in China, and I’m pretty confident this isn’t just status quo bias talking—just contesting a specific subpoint here.
The second piece in this series is Has life gotten better?: the post-industrial era. I suggest that any comments on it go in this thread.
I think I agree with the broad thesis of your post, but I’m less sure about the claim for romantic relationships specifically, as well as the evidence for them. In particular, in addition to the emotional unreliability points you mentioned, I think there’s systematic selection bias when you look at existing relationships, when the proportion of people in relationships have systematically changed over time (US data). So I wouldn’t be surprised if average happiness in relationships have increased (because of better matching, etc), but average happiness about relationships have decreased.
Anecdotally, if I look at my parents’ or especially my grandparents’ generation, being single is almost unheard of in general if you’re in your late 20s/30s, never mind if you’re an emotionally stable nice person in a high-status job. (I think the rate of sex-selective abortion in China probably has not helped for this).
I think there are similar things in the West, if maybe less extreme for some people and with different causal attribution.
To be clear, this is not a refutation for the broad thesis of your post—I’d much rather be single and lonely in California in 2021 than being happily married during the cultural revolution in China, and I’m pretty confident this isn’t just status quo bias talking—just contesting a specific subpoint here.