The World Happiness Report numbers are based only on the Cantril ladder. I don't get why they don't use an average of the Cantril ladder, positive affect, and negative affect.<p>The Cantril ladder asks respondents the following question:<p>"Please imagine a ladder, with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?"<p>Is this what people typically associate with "happiness"? This is more like "life satisfaction" to me. [1]<p>[1]<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/who-happiest-people-world-jon-clifton" rel="nofollow">https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/who-happiest-people-world-jon...</a>
There have been 2 million immigrants from Venezuela to Colombia last 4 years escaping from lack of food, money, toilet paper among many other issues but despite that this data shows Venezuela to be happier than Colombia; it doesn't add up; maybe the people wrongly assumed the quiz was a government initiative and decided to save face saying they are happy.
Interesting that GINI coefficient doesn't seem to be correlated with happiness (except in Europe, for some reason). Reminds me of Taleb's assertion that people don't resent the rich simply for being rich, they resent rich people who have no skin in the game. Perhaps rich Europeans are perceived as having less skin in the game?
Related, I've been fascinated by this plot of 'social thresholds achieved' at the cost of 'biophysical boundaries transgressed' - <a href="https://goodlife.leeds.ac.uk" rel="nofollow">https://goodlife.leeds.ac.uk</a> . I find it a more level-headed analysis to frame arguments around what resource usage it takes to be a 'happy' country, rather than just aggregating various happiness metrics alone.<p>"No country in the world currently meets the basic needs of its citizens at a globally sustainable level of resource use."<p>(summary article: <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-it-possible-for-everyone-to-live-a-good-life-within-our-planets-limits-91421" rel="nofollow">https://theconversation.com/is-it-possible-for-everyone-to-l...</a> )
Here is the full report:<p><a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/happiness-report/2019/WHR19.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://s3.amazonaws.com/happiness-report/2019/WHR19.pdf</a>
The visualization is good, IMHO there's a lot of room for improvement though. There's a big issue which undermines the credibility of the whole report:<p>- Venezuela has a Cantril Ladder value of 6.2577.<p>That's very strange to say the least, and it's hard to believe to be honest. Venezuelans are one of the most unhappy, miserable people in the world.
Is this using the correct data? The happiness measure for the US of 7.28 seems to be the 2008 value. The 2018 Cantril score according to the report was 6.88.
Interesting that Australia is so high up, while SE Asia so low. My experience of both (specifically Cambodia) is exactly the reverse.<p>But I suspect the cultural factors are at play here. Ask an Aussie if they're living the best life and they'll say yes, proud in their Lucky Country and the best beaches in the world (whichever city an Aussie inhabits has the "best beaches in the world").<p>While in Cambodia they're more humble. Obviously this is to certain extent about poverty. But it's also about the cultural tendency against boasting. And an acknowledgement that life isn't perfect, there are things that need to change and improve.<p>Yet, in my experience, obviously a limited sample of anecdata, the average Cambodian is happier, quick to find the joy in life, with strong supportive family connections. While Aussies are comparing ourselves to each other, disconnected from our families, suiciding in record numbers, and angry at the world.
Not sure if anyone saw this...<p>"Is Finland Really The Happiest Country In The World? (HBO)"
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FPU4F-Ajh8" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FPU4F-Ajh8</a>
There was a recent video by VICE/VOX on Finland where it was noticed that people didn't look visibly happy but were more satisfied with their life.<p>To that effect, I am interested to read some study on, like a satisfaction index.
<a href="https://kyso.io/eoin/world-happiness-gdp-per-capita-scaled" rel="nofollow">https://kyso.io/eoin/world-happiness-gdp-per-capita-scaled</a><p>I forked OP's study and graphed out how Happiness vs GINI looks when you scale the markers by GDP per capita, there is a clear trend of increasing happiness with increasing GINI, but it snaps back for the highest GDP per capita countries<p>(disclaimer - I founded Kyso - the company these studies are hosted on)
I wonder in what month the survey itself was answered. Because if it was in the spring, I wouldn't be surprised if the Finns were above average happy at that time. The harsh winter will sure lead to a more extreme sine-wave like happiness pattern than in other countries.<p>Other problems may involve social signaling, because the Gallup world poll, on which this report is based, is conducted via telephone.
I feel like I’ve always led myself astray trying to pursue happiness. Meaning & purpose seem to give me more “contentment” than optimizing my life for constant ecstasy-like highs.
we're likely all aware this is an incredibly difficult thing to quantify; indeed this represents a respectable effort.<p>it's not that i am not interested in raw data over interpretation. usually we don't have access to such data, or we don't know exactly what said data should be.<p>so this to me is a sort of data pornography that i enjoy with a grain of ky jelly.