Well, the specific caller in question aside, a fall from 8⁄10 to 4⁄10 (on a happiness or life satisfaction 0 to 10 scale) is plausible for a significant minority of people, e.g. if you’re elderly and live alone and have nothing much to occupy you indoors. In the UK (more so in some other countries) you’re not allowed out to relax; you need to be exercising, e.g. walking, not sitting on a bench or whatever (and police in my area are enforcing this); and the guideline is max 1 hour per day. And many with underlying health conditions in the UK are being told not to go out at all.
If this tipped you into depression, which it might with some, that could easily cause a fall from 8⁄10 to 4⁄10 or 6⁄10 to 3⁄10.
Of course the precise numbers are not really the point—I was just wanting to illustrate that the loss in quality of life can be large and of a similar scale to loss of longevity, so far from negligible.
I suspect also that if you’re elderly and may only have a few years of life left then you put a very high value on maintaining your regular activities, maybe weighting quality of life rather higher than quantity (no doubt there is research on this). Hence why when very ill they sometimes forego treatment, choose to die sooner at home rather than be kept alive in hospital, etc.
Do you have data or expert analyses to back up that loss of utility? I agree that people might fill out surveys saying their happiness has halved, but I think that’s because they lack perspective on how much worse life could be. This is something that calls for some hard analysis of the factors that contribute to quality of life, from experts (economists, psychologists, public health people, I’d accept anyone in the general vicinity).
Yes there’s lots of research & data on this, particularly in recent years. The best summary is the new book Can We Be Happier? by Richard Layard. The largest factors (from memory) are health (especially mental—much larger than physical health), not being unemployed, having a partner, income. The most common measures are happiness and satisfaction with life, on a 0-10 self-reported scale.
Indeed people may lack perspective; so there’s lots of work on how objective these self-reports are, what precisely they measure, whether they are absolute or relative to other people (in the same city or country) or relative to people’s own past or whatever. I think the current consensus is that they are largely absolute measures.
Not sure (without looking up) what magnitude of changes to someone’s life it would take to halve these numbers, but I have little doubt depression could do it.
Also (on a slightly technical point) most people reckon there are states worse than death, so death should be located not at 0⁄10 but maybe around 2⁄10. Which means halving your quality of life as compared with death (as an alternative) would only require a reduction from say 8⁄10 to 5⁄10 (since 5⁄10 to 2⁄10, the same distance, is a reduction to death).
Indeed the Guardian review of the book was dreadful. I almost wrote a point-by-point refutation of it (but no-one would read it). Turns out the reviewer is a self-described Marxist with a website called ‘Leninology’ so has a political axe to grind. As is hinted at towards the end of the review—for Layard advised the Blair government (on increasing mental health funding), and Blairites are the enemy.
Quite why a national newspaper would commission & publish such a misleading, bilious, partisan piece is beyond me.
Well, the specific caller in question aside, a fall from 8⁄10 to 4⁄10 (on a happiness or life satisfaction 0 to 10 scale) is plausible for a significant minority of people, e.g. if you’re elderly and live alone and have nothing much to occupy you indoors. In the UK (more so in some other countries) you’re not allowed out to relax; you need to be exercising, e.g. walking, not sitting on a bench or whatever (and police in my area are enforcing this); and the guideline is max 1 hour per day. And many with underlying health conditions in the UK are being told not to go out at all.
If this tipped you into depression, which it might with some, that could easily cause a fall from 8⁄10 to 4⁄10 or 6⁄10 to 3⁄10.
Of course the precise numbers are not really the point—I was just wanting to illustrate that the loss in quality of life can be large and of a similar scale to loss of longevity, so far from negligible.
I suspect also that if you’re elderly and may only have a few years of life left then you put a very high value on maintaining your regular activities, maybe weighting quality of life rather higher than quantity (no doubt there is research on this). Hence why when very ill they sometimes forego treatment, choose to die sooner at home rather than be kept alive in hospital, etc.
Do you have data or expert analyses to back up that loss of utility? I agree that people might fill out surveys saying their happiness has halved, but I think that’s because they lack perspective on how much worse life could be. This is something that calls for some hard analysis of the factors that contribute to quality of life, from experts (economists, psychologists, public health people, I’d accept anyone in the general vicinity).
Yes there’s lots of research & data on this, particularly in recent years. The best summary is the new book Can We Be Happier? by Richard Layard. The largest factors (from memory) are health (especially mental—much larger than physical health), not being unemployed, having a partner, income. The most common measures are happiness and satisfaction with life, on a 0-10 self-reported scale.
Indeed people may lack perspective; so there’s lots of work on how objective these self-reports are, what precisely they measure, whether they are absolute or relative to other people (in the same city or country) or relative to people’s own past or whatever. I think the current consensus is that they are largely absolute measures.
Not sure (without looking up) what magnitude of changes to someone’s life it would take to halve these numbers, but I have little doubt depression could do it.
Also (on a slightly technical point) most people reckon there are states worse than death, so death should be located not at 0⁄10 but maybe around 2⁄10. Which means halving your quality of life as compared with death (as an alternative) would only require a reduction from say 8⁄10 to 5⁄10 (since 5⁄10 to 2⁄10, the same distance, is a reduction to death).
Never heard of Layard, but the Guardian hates him despite him being Labour Party, so I take that as a strong signal that he’s credible.
Layard is one of the top happiness economists.
Indeed the Guardian review of the book was dreadful. I almost wrote a point-by-point refutation of it (but no-one would read it). Turns out the reviewer is a self-described Marxist with a website called ‘Leninology’ so has a political axe to grind. As is hinted at towards the end of the review—for Layard advised the Blair government (on increasing mental health funding), and Blairites are the enemy.
Quite why a national newspaper would commission & publish such a misleading, bilious, partisan piece is beyond me.