Is everybody happy?
New Zealand statistics show our governments shouldn’t worry too much about our happiness. reports.
The Beatles knew it more than 50 years ago. Freddie Mercury sang about it. Even Jeff Buckley understood it before walking fully clothed into a river and forever into folklore.
It’s just our political leaders and societal bean counters who have been slow to pick up the rhythm.
Money can’t buy you love or happiness. Neither will it give you back your lost youth, friends and, ultimately, satisfaction.
But all of a sudden, it seems, governments are fixated on citizens’ happiness and wellbeing. Traditional economic measures and measurements are no longer enough: they want to know if we are warm and dry in our suitable houses, comfortable and connected in our diverse communities, and generally happy with our lot, even if we make just a little.
And, just as importantly, they want to know what they can do about it.
The Labour-led Government has put happiness front and centre, with a sharper focus on poverty, more money for mental health and even a Wellbeing Budget. As part of that campaign, it needs numbers.
Stats NZ started its General Social Survey in 2008, but its first comprehensive attempt to understand what makes us tick happily came in 2014, which is now the base against which most data is weighed.
That followed a 2011 United Nations resolution stating that ‘‘the pursuit of happiness is a fundamental human goal’’ and the release in 2012 of its first World Happiness Report.
Before that New Zealand, like the rest of the world, was more interested in how well the country was doing, rather than its citizens. The census gave some idea of the demographics but details about trade were more important, as were GDP and the unemployment rate in the household labour force survey.
But the bean counters realised something wasn’t right, says Grant Duncan, a political commentator who has spent 15 years studying the pursuit of happiness in politics and government.
‘‘American economists were shocked to discover that although the US had been booming since the end of the war, people were not reporting that they were any happier,’’ he says. ‘‘That’s not what they expected and they thought maybe governments need to do something about this.’’
The rest of the world also realised that a nation’s wealth and the happiness of the individual don’t necessarily go
together. Bhutan established a gross national happiness index in 1972 to measure psychological well-being, ecology, health, education, culture, living standards, use of time, community vitality and good governance.
The United Arab Emirates is one of the wealthiest nations but saw the need to create a minister of state for happiness.
And Venezuela might not have many global friends right now, or avenues for its exports, but it does have a vice-ministry of supreme social happiness, set up by President Nicolas Maduro in 2013.
There is even a Happiness Research Institute, based in Denmark, which applies a scientific approach to the subject.
Duncan is a little dubious about that. He says the subject is too subjective to be considered a science and for its findings to be applied to public policy.
Happiness, claims Duncan, is a ‘‘social scientist wanting to boost their own careers. I am a little bit cynical about the science part’’.
‘‘There’s a big academic industry behind it, lots of surveys and league tables . . .’’
The irony is that the establishment of the Danish institute ended one career and was built on a platform of pain and death.
Chief executive Meik Wiking quit his role with a Danish thinktank six years ago to set up the institute. He was inspired by his own country’s strong history in the happiness rankings.
‘‘It occurred to me that somebody in Denmark should be trying to gather some
intelligence,’’ he says.
But he was also motivated by the deaths, at age 49, of both his mother and a close friend. ‘‘And if I had 15 years left . . . if I was only going to make it to 49 . . why not create something that could be really exciting?’’
What excites Wiking and his colleagues is the strength of the science and the numbers that support it. ‘‘Much of the data on subjective wellbeing has already been measured by a variety of statistical offices across the world and, at the national level, reliability is very high.
‘‘Data on subjective wellbeing produces similar outcomes to the objective data . . . people that we objectively measure to be sick are also reporting levels of happiness.’’
He says if it can be measured, it can be modelled and then moulded. ‘‘Each person can do something individually such as meditation, changing the habits in regard to eating, health, exercise etc in order to increase happiness.
‘‘It is the government that is one of the few agents that are able to increase the wellbeing of a whole population since their measures of distribution could impact those who really need help and where such policies have the largest impact.’’
Duncan, too, has studied those global wellbeing charts. But he’s refusing to drink the Kool-Aid. ‘‘How credible are these lists?’’ he says. ‘‘You don’t need a happiness survey to tell you that life is pretty awful in South Sudan. That’s not exactly surprising, is it?’’ Nor is he surprised to see the countries at the top of the charts for global happiness.
It can be bitterly cold in Finland, Norway, Wiking’s Denmark, and Iceland, and the winter days are often brutally short, but they are the happiest countries, according to the United Nations.
New Zealand is eighth, just ahead of Australia in 10th, with the world’s richest nation, the US, coming in at 18.
‘‘The countries at the top, it’s not to say they don’t have drinking problems and all the rest of it, but all of those countries have a high standard of living, they are relatively small, relatively homogeneous, good social support,’’ says Duncan. Interestingly, they are all not far behind the US as some of the biggest consumers of antidepressants; 106 people in every 1000 in Iceland pop the pill, with the Danes at 85 and Finland 70. And the Happiness Research Institute is supported by Carlsberg Group, one of the world’s biggest brewers of beer. ‘‘You don’t need a happiness survey to know it’s good to get rid of corruption, it’s good to respect human rights, it’s good to have economic prosperity, it’s good to share that around in a reasonable way; we knew all of that, the first Labour government knew that back in the 30s.’’ While Duncan sees obvious links between happiness and a