Very good article. Re marriage, and also the Easterlin Paradox:
Re fig 1, marriage, more recent research shows the apparent reversion of satisfaction to singlehood level (or less) a few years after marriage actually just results from not controlling for age properly. Specifically, from the U-shaped happiness curve during the life course - people tend to marry before middle age, so get less happy as they approach middle age, not because of the marriage. (I think this may be mentioned in the recent Origins of Happiness book.)
Re fig 3 for UK, actually if you look at a longer time-series e.g. Eurobarometer (since 1973), UK life satisfaction has gone up significantly—from around 7.1 in the 1970s to 7.7/10 in 2018 (after transforming to 0-10 scale); and rather more since the only older survey I could find, 5.7/10 in 1948.
Also re China, you say elsewhere ‘it’s SWB seems to have gone down been 1990 and 2015, even though per capita GDP increased by 5 times’. I haven’t read the report you refer to, but I the World Value Survey on happiness (as opposed to life satisfaction) shows the proportion of Chinese who are happy rising from 67% in 1993 to 85% in 2014. (You can check it on the second chart here: https://ourworldindata.org/happiness-and-life-satisfaction# )
So maybe the Easterlin paradox does not exist, or at least, is limited.
I am really puzzled by those graphs, mm. But as to the Easterlin paradox, it’s still alive: http://repec.iza.org/dp7234.pdf Happiness has been increasing, and so has GDP, but the rates of increase still don’t seem to have much of a relationship.
Thanks for this. There’s been quite a bit more research since that paper, including by Easterlin, so not sure how relevant it is now. The latest I know FWIW is from last year’s book by Richard Layard, Can We Be Happier?, which says it’s unclear but maybe economic growth often increases happiness but not always.
Very good article. Re marriage, and also the Easterlin Paradox:
Re fig 1, marriage, more recent research shows the apparent reversion of satisfaction to singlehood level (or less) a few years after marriage actually just results from not controlling for age properly. Specifically, from the U-shaped happiness curve during the life course - people tend to marry before middle age, so get less happy as they approach middle age, not because of the marriage. (I think this may be mentioned in the recent Origins of Happiness book.)
Re fig 3 for UK, actually if you look at a longer time-series e.g. Eurobarometer (since 1973), UK life satisfaction has gone up significantly—from around 7.1 in the 1970s to 7.7/10 in 2018 (after transforming to 0-10 scale); and rather more since the only older survey I could find, 5.7/10 in 1948.
Also re China, you say elsewhere ‘it’s SWB seems to have gone down been 1990 and 2015, even though per capita GDP increased by 5 times’. I haven’t read the report you refer to, but I the World Value Survey on happiness (as opposed to life satisfaction) shows the proportion of Chinese who are happy rising from 67% in 1993 to 85% in 2014. (You can check it on the second chart here: https://ourworldindata.org/happiness-and-life-satisfaction# )
So maybe the Easterlin paradox does not exist, or at least, is limited.
I am really puzzled by those graphs, mm. But as to the Easterlin paradox, it’s still alive: http://repec.iza.org/dp7234.pdf Happiness has been increasing, and so has GDP, but the rates of increase still don’t seem to have much of a relationship.
Thanks for this. There’s been quite a bit more research since that paper, including by Easterlin, so not sure how relevant it is now. The latest I know FWIW is from last year’s book by Richard Layard, Can We Be Happier?, which says it’s unclear but maybe economic growth often increases happiness but not always.