As some of you may have surmised by now, I have a longstanding interest in happiness. Indeed, my book, “Deliberate Happiness,” is coming along nicely. I have found an editor, and I am now seeking a publisher.
Along this same line of thinking, the Gallup organization recently came out with their latest World Happiness Report 2024. This is the latest in their ever-expanding deep dive into happiness on a global scale since 2013. The current authors are John Helliwell, Richard Layard, Jeffrey Sachs, Jan-Emmanual De Neve, Lara Aknin & Shun Wang.
This version is filled with some new data and a fresh look at pre-existing topics. The chapter headings will give you an appreciation of the breadth of the undertaking:
Happiness and Age; Happiness of the Younger, Older and Those in Between; Supporting the Well-Being of an Aging Global Population; Associations Between Well Being and Dementia; and Differences in Life Satisfaction Among Older Adults in India.
In future columns I will include portions of the different chapters, but for today, I am going to focus on Chapter One, Happiness and Age.
The survey asked about 1,000 people from 143 different areas/countries and unestablished countries like Palestine, their opinions about a lot of different topics, which I will discuss below.
I am respectful of the enormous undertaking and the analysis the Gallup organization did for this year’s project, and disappointed as well. They never said in the public version how they screened the 1,000 respondents and did not comment on whether any of the past participants were the same as this current group. I have the same complaint about political polls. A lot of information, but sometimes lacking in specifics, such as what questions were asked and how the pollster accounted for responder bias. Oh well. I do not believe my skepticism about polling will ever be resolved.
Future Crunch, a media company in Australia owned and operated by a data scientist, put pollsters in perspective for me when an opinion piece said, “American pollsters have officially joined economists and epidemiologists in the category of professions that will tell you tomorrow why the things they predicted yesterday didn’t happen today.”
Getting back to the World Happiness Report, it turns out that overall, in the West (including North and South America), the youngest (15 to 24 years old), are the happiest. Older Millennials and Gen Xs are less happy, followed by a substantial recovery and upswing for us Boomers and older generations.
Why have the younger become less happy? Was it the pandemic? Is it technology replacing real time personal contact? Is it where they live geographically? The answer is, a little of all of these phenomena have led to less happiness.
In Central and East Asia there have been large increases in happiness at every age. They had the same issues with the pandemic, and for the younger generation they have as much use of cell phones, but a lot more political uncertainty.
In Russia and East Asia, there have also been large increases in happiness at every age.
In South Asia, the Middle East and in North Africa, happiness has fallen at every age. Could they be less happy due to famine? Civil war?
The Gallup poll asked their responders to evaluate a number of items, some on a scale of 1 to 10, like the rungs of a ladder (it is called a Cantril hierarchy), and other questions were asked in a yes or no response set up. The most general question to be ranked from 1 to 10 was: “How would you evaluate your current life?”
Before reading further, answer that question for yourself now. No worries, I won’t ask you to disclose your response.
Charles Dickens once said about happiness, “Happiness is a gift, and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.”
The findings may surprise you. I won’t give you all 143 countries, but here are how some of them ranked.
Finland ranked first. That is, of the 1,000 responders, their score was closest to a ten.
Israel ranked fifth. Australia ranked 10th. United Kingdom ranked 20th. United States ranked 23rd. Palestine (not a country, I know) ranked 103rd. Ukraine ranked 105th.
The authors of the report made a confession that the survey was not taken at the same time for all the people in the same region, which may have made a difference with the October 7th events. The survey in Palestine took place before October 7th and the survey in Israel took place after October 7th. Perhaps the surveyors will consider taking all of the surveys in the same regions at the same time next year (if they have the staff to do that).
The surveyors also asked the respondents to answer yes or no to whether or not they had most recently experienced laughter or enjoyment, or if the respondents had recently explored a personal interest, like a hobby.
Laughter is easy enough to say yes or no to, but how would you define enjoyment? Answer these questions for yourself and see how you score.
Negative emotions were also tapped. They gave the respondents the opportunity to say yes or no to their having had worry, sadness, and anger. How would you respond?
The surveyors said, “life evaluations provide the most informative measure because it is a more complete and stable reflection than positive or negative emotions.”
In other words, looking at your life as a whole, rather than something that made you feel positive or negative for the moment is more reflective of who you are overall.
I liken it to my asking an inmate how he felt about shooting his significant other, and his response was, “Do you want to know the relief I felt then or the remorse I feel now?”
The surveyors found the following:
“Positive emotions were more than twice as frequent as negative emotions even during the years since the onset of COVID.
“Positive emotions haven’t changed much in the three years (2021 to 2023), and still remain more frequent for the younger (15- to 24-year-old) than the older groups.
“Negative emotions are more prevalent for females than males. The females show an ever-widening higher gap (i.e., more negative emotions) as they reach higher ages.”
Some of the reasons why countries rank differently reflect their underlying economic, cultural and social differences. More stable, more financially successful countries have higher rankings.
The surveyors measured the countries’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (i.e., the cost of a car or dozen eggs), the life expectancy of a new born, and asked the respondents about their personal experiences like, “Do you have the freedom to choose what you want to do with your life? Have you donated money to a charity in the past month? Is corruption widespread in business where you live? If you were in trouble, do you have relatives or friends you can count on?”
In the United States, we are 62nd when respondents below 30 years were asked how happy they were. Do you have a 30-something-year-old you can ask? If so, ask them, “How would you evaluate your current life on a scale of 1 to 10?” See how they answer. For that matter, ask yourself and ask your significant other.
The World Happiness Survey found the following when asking those 15 to 30 years how happy they were:
• Lithuania was #1
• Israel was #2
• Palestine was #102
• Ukraine was #82.”
Did any of these surprise you?
When those 60 years of age and older where asked, “How would you evaluate your current life on a scale of 1 to 10?,” the United States ranked #10.
The World Happiness Survey found the following when asking those 60 years and older how happy they are:
• Denmark #1
• Israel #18
• Russia #66
• Ukraine #115
• Palestine #122
• Afghanistan #143.
Here is how the countries compared by age group (slightly abbreviated due to size) for 2021 to 2023.
photo: Manges chart
Generally speaking, the survey found the following: “Females have more frequent negative emotions at all ages. Negative emotions have fluctuated up and down across regions. Positive emotions are more frequent at lower ages and have changed less then negative emotions over the 2021-2023 time span.”
The survey has also found that generosity and helping others has led to increased happiness.
The survey focused on three areas of helping: helping a stranger, donating to a charity, and volunteering your time.
The likelihood of helping was characteristically different for three different age groups — the Millennials, GenX, and the Boomers.
Interestingly, the frequency of helping others was most likely for Millennials, followed by GenX’s and then the Boomers.
The frequency of donating to a charity was least likely for Millennials, followed by GenX’s, and most likely for Boomers. Do you think it’s tied to the Boomers having more wealth?
Lastly, the frequency of volunteering time was least likely for Millennials, next most likely for GenX’s, and most likely for Boomers. It may reflect retirement or more access to time off for the Boomers.
There are more takeaways from the survey, and I will include them in future columns.
Questions? Suggestions? Send me an email at psychology@americanisraelite.com. Be well. See you here next month.
