There was a time when countries appeared to be taking seriously proposals to measure esoteric things such as happiness as opposed to hard economic factors, such as GDP. The financial crisis coupled with the surge in populism has largely put paid to such efforts, in the west at least, but a recent study from McGill University highlights the vital role non-material factors actually play in our happiness.
Instead, the study finds that things such as social networks, freedom and fairness tend to play a much bigger role in our happiness. The findings emerged after examining a number of global wellbeing surveys conducted over the last decade. The authors believe their findings underline the importance of focusing on non-financial matters when it comes to improving the wellbeing of citizens.
“Long-run policies that are overly focused on economic growth will have limited effects on well-being,” they explain. “If human well-being is the main goal of governments, their resources would be more wisely spent based on what really matters most for human experience.”
Making us happy
The researchers developed a model that took account of both material indicators (such as GDP and life expectancy), and social indicators, such as freedom and perceived levels of corruption.
On average, people rated their level of wellbeing at 5.24 out of 10, and the researchers looked at historic changes in this figure to extrapolate potential changes in evaluations out to 2050.
These projections suggest that possible future changes in material variables are likely to yield fairly modest improvements in global wellbeing, with the most optimistic projections yielding a 10% improvement on current levels, whilst the most pessimistic seeing 0% impact.
With scenarios projecting growth in non-material variables however, the impact was much greater, from a 30% boost in the most optimistic scenario to a 35% fall in the most pessimistic scenario
“Feasible changes in GDP are very unlikely to play an important role in changes in life self-evaluations within 30 years,” the authors conclude. “Our results show that the greatest benefits to be potentially made over the next decades, as well as the most dangerous pitfalls to be avoided, lie in the domain of social fabric.”
