Why did India’s happiness ratings consistently drop so much over time even as its GDP per capita rose?
Epistemic status: confused. Haven’t looked into this for more than a few minutes
My friend recently alerted me to an observation that puzzled him: this dynamic chart from Our World in Data’s happiness and life satisfaction article showing how India’s self-reported life satisfaction dropped an astounding −1.20 points (4.97 to 3.78) from 2011 to 2021, even as its GDP per capita rose +51% (I$4,374 to I$6,592 in 2017 prices):
(I included China for comparison to illustrate the sort of trajectory I expected to see for India.)
The sliding year scale on OWID’s chart shows how this drop has been consistent and worsening over the years. This picture hasn’t changed much recently: the most recent 2024 World Happiness Report reports a 4.05 rating averaged over the 3-year window 2021-23, only slightly above the 2021 rating.
A −1.20 point drop is huge. For context, it’s 10x(!) larger than the effect of doubling income at +0.12 LS points (Clarke et al 2018 p199, via HLI’s report), and compares to major negative life events like widowhood and extended unemployment:
Given India’s ~1.4 billion population, such a large drop is alarming: roughly ~5 billion LS-years lost since 2011, very roughly ballparking. For context, and keeping in mind that LS-years and DALYs aren’t the same thing, the entire world’s DALY burden is ~2.5 billion DALYs p.a.
But – again caveating with my lack of familiarity with the literature and extremely cursory look into this – I haven’t seen any writeup look into this, which makes me wonder if it’s not a ‘real issue’? For instance, the 2021 WHR just says
Since 2006-08, world well-being has been static, but life expectancy increased by nearly four years up to 2017-19 (we shall come to 2020 later). The rate of progress differed a lot across regions. The biggest improvements in life expectancy were in the former Soviet Union, in Asia, and (the greatest) in Sub-Saharan Africa. And these were the regions that had the biggest increases in WELLBYs. In Asia, the exception is South Asia, where India has experienced a remarkable fall in Well-being which more than outweighs its improved life expectancy.
That’s it: no elaboration, no footnotes, nothing.
So what am I missing? What’s going on here?
A quick search turned up this WEF article (based on Ipsos data and research, not the WHR’s Gallup World Poll, so take it with a grain of salt) pointing to
increased internet access → pressure to portray airbrushed lives on social media & a feeling that ‘their lives have become meaningless’
covid-19 mitigation-induced isolation curtailing activities that improve wellbeing (employment, socializing, going to school, exercising and accessing health services)
urban migration to seek work → traffic congestion, noise and pollution, demanding bosses → less sleep and exercise → higher anxiety and worsening health
But I’m not sure these factors are differential (i.e. that they, for instance, happen much more in India than elsewhere s.t. it explains the wellbeing vs development trajectory difference over 2011-24)?
Interesting! I think figure 2.1 here provides a partial answer. According to the FAQ:
“the sub-bars show the estimated extent to which each of the six factors (levels of GDP, life expectancy, generosity, social support, freedom, and corruption) is estimated to contribute to making life evaluations higher in each country than in Dystopia. Dystopia is a hypothetical country with values equal to the world’s lowest national averages for each of the six factors (see FAQs: What is Dystopia?). The sub-bars have no impact on the total score reported for each country but are just a way of explaining the implications of the model estimated in Table 2.1. People often ask why some countries rank higher than others—the sub-bars (including the residuals, which show what is not explained) attempt to answer that question.”
India seems to score very low on social support, compared to similarly ranked countries.
I did some googling and found this, which shows the sub-factors over time for India. Looks like social support declined a lot, but is now increasing again.
I haven’t checked whether it declined more than in other countries and, if it has, I’m not sure why it has.
Your second link helped me refine my line of questioning / confusion. You’re right that social support declined a lot, but the sum of the six key variables (GDP per capita, etc) still mostly trended upwards over time, huge covid dip aside, which is what I’d expect in the India development success story.
It’s the dystopia residual that keeps dropping, from 2.275 − 1.83 = 0.445 in 2015 (i.e. Indians reported 0.445 points higher life satisfaction than you’d predict using the model) to 0.979 − 1.83 = −0.85, an absolute plummeting of life satisfaction across a sizeable fraction of the world population, that’s for some reason not explained by the six key variables. Hm…
(please don’t feel obliged to respond – I appreciate the link!)
Could this be related to the rising level of inequality in happiness levels in Asia? (See the graph on page 44 of the WHR2024). It can be assumed that the benefits of GDP growth are not evenly distributed, and increasing inequalities trigger frustration and a decrease in well-being in the majority of the population (since to a certain extent, the sense of welfare is relative).
This is how Our World in Data explains a similar phenomenon in the US:
“Income inequality in the US is exceptionally high and has been on the rise in the last four decades, with incomes for the median household growing much more slowly than incomes for the top 10%. As a result, trends in aggregate life satisfaction should not be seen as paradoxical: the income and standard of living of the typical US citizen have not grown much in the last couple of decades.”
Yeah rising inequality is a good guess, thank you – the OWID chart also shows the US experiencing the same trajectory direction as India (declining average LS despite rising GDP per capita). I suppose one way to test this hypothesis is to see if China had inequality rise significantly as well in the 2011-23 period, since it had the expected LS-and-GDP-trending-up trajectory. Probably a weak test due to potential confounders…
Why did India’s happiness ratings consistently drop so much over time even as its GDP per capita rose?
Epistemic status: confused. Haven’t looked into this for more than a few minutes
My friend recently alerted me to an observation that puzzled him: this dynamic chart from Our World in Data’s happiness and life satisfaction article showing how India’s self-reported life satisfaction dropped an astounding −1.20 points (4.97 to 3.78) from 2011 to 2021, even as its GDP per capita rose +51% (I$4,374 to I$6,592 in 2017 prices):
(I included China for comparison to illustrate the sort of trajectory I expected to see for India.)
The sliding year scale on OWID’s chart shows how this drop has been consistent and worsening over the years. This picture hasn’t changed much recently: the most recent 2024 World Happiness Report reports a 4.05 rating averaged over the 3-year window 2021-23, only slightly above the 2021 rating.
A −1.20 point drop is huge. For context, it’s 10x(!) larger than the effect of doubling income at +0.12 LS points (Clarke et al 2018 p199, via HLI’s report), and compares to major negative life events like widowhood and extended unemployment:
Given India’s ~1.4 billion population, such a large drop is alarming: roughly ~5 billion LS-years lost since 2011, very roughly ballparking. For context, and keeping in mind that LS-years and DALYs aren’t the same thing, the entire world’s DALY burden is ~2.5 billion DALYs p.a.
But – again caveating with my lack of familiarity with the literature and extremely cursory look into this – I haven’t seen any writeup look into this, which makes me wonder if it’s not a ‘real issue’? For instance, the 2021 WHR just says
That’s it: no elaboration, no footnotes, nothing.
So what am I missing? What’s going on here?
A quick search turned up this WEF article (based on Ipsos data and research, not the WHR’s Gallup World Poll, so take it with a grain of salt) pointing to
increased internet access → pressure to portray airbrushed lives on social media & a feeling that ‘their lives have become meaningless’
covid-19 mitigation-induced isolation curtailing activities that improve wellbeing (employment, socializing, going to school, exercising and accessing health services)
urban migration to seek work → traffic congestion, noise and pollution, demanding bosses → less sleep and exercise → higher anxiety and worsening health
But I’m not sure these factors are differential (i.e. that they, for instance, happen much more in India than elsewhere s.t. it explains the wellbeing vs development trajectory difference over 2011-24)?
Interesting! I think figure 2.1 here provides a partial answer. According to the FAQ:
“the sub-bars show the estimated extent to which each of the six factors (levels of GDP, life expectancy, generosity, social support, freedom, and corruption) is estimated to contribute to making life evaluations higher in each country than in Dystopia. Dystopia is a hypothetical country with values equal to the world’s lowest national averages for each of the six factors (see FAQs: What is Dystopia?). The sub-bars have no impact on the total score reported for each country but are just a way of explaining the implications of the model estimated in Table 2.1. People often ask why some countries rank higher than others—the sub-bars (including the residuals, which show what is not explained) attempt to answer that question.”
India seems to score very low on social support, compared to similarly ranked countries.
I did some googling and found this, which shows the sub-factors over time for India. Looks like social support declined a lot, but is now increasing again.
I haven’t checked whether it declined more than in other countries and, if it has, I’m not sure why it has.
Thank you for the pointer!
Your second link helped me refine my line of questioning / confusion. You’re right that social support declined a lot, but the sum of the six key variables (GDP per capita, etc) still mostly trended upwards over time, huge covid dip aside, which is what I’d expect in the India development success story.
It’s the dystopia residual that keeps dropping, from 2.275 − 1.83 = 0.445 in 2015 (i.e. Indians reported 0.445 points higher life satisfaction than you’d predict using the model) to 0.979 − 1.83 = −0.85, an absolute plummeting of life satisfaction across a sizeable fraction of the world population, that’s for some reason not explained by the six key variables. Hm…
(please don’t feel obliged to respond – I appreciate the link!)
Could this be related to the rising level of inequality in happiness levels in Asia? (See the graph on page 44 of the WHR2024). It can be assumed that the benefits of GDP growth are not evenly distributed, and increasing inequalities trigger frustration and a decrease in well-being in the majority of the population (since to a certain extent, the sense of welfare is relative).
This is how Our World in Data explains a similar phenomenon in the US: “Income inequality in the US is exceptionally high and has been on the rise in the last four decades, with incomes for the median household growing much more slowly than incomes for the top 10%. As a result, trends in aggregate life satisfaction should not be seen as paradoxical: the income and standard of living of the typical US citizen have not grown much in the last couple of decades.”
Yeah rising inequality is a good guess, thank you – the OWID chart also shows the US experiencing the same trajectory direction as India (declining average LS despite rising GDP per capita). I suppose one way to test this hypothesis is to see if China had inequality rise significantly as well in the 2011-23 period, since it had the expected LS-and-GDP-trending-up trajectory. Probably a weak test due to potential confounders…