Measuring subjective happiness

In the January 29, 2010 issue of Science (available online only to subscribers), Richard Layard considers whether subjective reports are valid ways of measuring the well-being of a population. After all, we've been hearing some rather extraordinary findings of studies over the years based upon subjective happiness. For instance, studies consistently show that higher national income does not increase "quality of life," (defined by subjective happiness). In fact, based on studies relying on subjective judgment, there has been no increase in happiness over the past 50 years in the United States. Layard asks a fundamental question: "Can subjective well-being really be measured well enough to be used in policy analyses?" Even though the science of measuring happiness is "very young," Layard indicates that subjective measures of happiness are well correlated with at least five relevant sets of variables:

The reports of friends; the possible causes of well-being; some possible effects of well-being; physical functioning, such as levels of cortisol; and measures of brain activity.

There is good reason to be optimistic that we will get better at measuring happiness. "Fifty years ago, there was considerable debate on how to measure depression, but by now this has become much less controversial in all likelihood, the measurement of happiness will become similarly less controversial." As we fine-tune our methods of measuring of subjective happiness, Layard believes we will be better able to monitor trends of happiness, we will deal to identify problem groups within populations and we will be better able to determine why some people are happy and others are not. Better measurements will certainly allow us determine quality of life better than the many efforts to do so in terms of money. What's at stake according to Layard? As we leave behind our crude financial measurements of the quality of life and continue to develop better methods of measuring subjective happiness, "it will produce very different priorities for our society."

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The twelve countries with the highest quality of life

The twelve countries with the highest quality of life do not include the United States. We come in at number 13, which means that we''re not doing badly as a whole. But we're not doing as well as we should be doing, assuming (as many conservatives insist without reference to any metric) that there is no greater country than the United States. We were beaten in the rankings by many "socialist" countries, such as Norway, Canada, Sweden and France. The U.N.'s measurement system is the Human Development Index, a complex objective formula, not a subjective determination. Some of the many dozens of factors that go into the HDI include the following:

  • Adult illiteracy rate
  • Asylum seekers by country of asylum
  • Average annual change in consumer price index (%)
  • Children underweight for age (% under age 5)
  • Combined gross enrolment ratio in education (%)
  • Earned income (estimated), ratio of female to male
  • Female adult literacy rate (% aged 15 and above)
  • Female estimated earned income (PPP US$)
  • Female life expectancy at birth (years)
  • GDI rank
  • GDP per capita (PPP US$)
  • Government expenditure on health as a percentage of total government expenditure
  • Government expenditure on health per capita (PPP US$)
  • Healthy life expectancy at birth (years)
  • Human development index value
  • Human poverty index (HPI-1) rank
Consider, also, this recent news from the Commonwealth Fund:

Although the United States now spends $2.4 trillion a year on medical care — vastly more per capita than comparable countries — the nation ranks near the bottom on premature deaths caused by illnesses such as diabetes, epilepsy, stroke, influenza, ulcers and pneumonia

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