Is everybody happy?
New Zealand statistics show our governments shouldn’t worry too much about our happiness. Rob Mitchell 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
nation’s political stability, economic equality and trust in institutions, he’s dismissive of a government’s ability to influence or have an impact on a country’s wellbeing.
‘‘The pursuit of happiness as a goal to guide policy may be akin to the pursuit of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,’’ he said in 2005 research into the ‘‘relevance of subjective wellbeing to social policy’’.
Global research might be stimulating but it ‘‘does not provide strong scientific grounds for predicting that any specific policy is likely to have a measurable effect . . . on wellbeing’’.
Fifteen years on, Duncan’s opinion has not changed. ‘‘OK, so New Zealanders say they are, on average, ‘x’ happy. So what?’’ he says. ‘‘Is the government somehow supposed to make us happier? It probably can’t.
‘‘We have a relatively good, well-governed society; there’s probably not a lot Jacinda and co can do to make us happier.’’
So despite what you might read in the papers, and concerns about crime and climate change, among other things, we are basically a contented lot, among the most happy nations, beyond the euphoric Europeans.
But Duncan sees danger in governments and societies becoming too focused on happiness and what they can do to change it. ‘‘The danger is that governments get into an expectations treadmill problem, where they can’t meet the expectations they might create.
‘‘If our economic standard of living rises, that just becomes the new normal; if government services improve, that just becomes the new normal and we just accept it.’’
What he doesn’t accept is government interference in the personal pursuit of wellbeing.
‘‘I want governments to do things that I value and that matter, but is it my happiness I want them to be concerned about or is it my business and my family’s business?’’
He is also concerned that this new focus on the individual could derail greater goals for the good of all.
‘‘You look at the UN tables: eighth is not bad . . . none of this is getting hospitals fixed, getting wages improved, people with serious mental health problems treated . . . the danger is that it becomes a nice distraction from some very material economic concerns for ordinary people in everyday life.
‘‘All of the researchers would say oh yes, if you could do those things it would contribute to happiness, and I would say forget about happiness and just do them, because we can see that they are just things worth doing. And we really need to do more.’’
Worse still, serving the selfinterest to support greater personal happiness could come at the cost of sustainability.
‘‘To some extent, what supports our standard of living is not ecologically sustainable, so we need to ask ourselves the question – is what sustains our present-day happiness or wellbeing actually going to be sustainable for future generations?’’
Claire Bretherton gives herself an 8 out of 10. ‘‘I enjoy where I live, I enjoy my job, I enjoy my family; it’s just a good life, I suppose, we enjoy being in New Zealand and the lifestyle we have,’’ says Stats NZ’s Wellington-based manager of wellbeing and housing.
It’s why she left Britain in the first place. ‘‘I used to work in
London and commuted two hours each way to work each day, so now I live in Karori, and don’t,’’ she laughs. ‘‘The open space, the fresh air, the beautiful countryside, being able to afford a nice house in a nice area – all of those factors. As a family we are definitely happier here.’’
She’s not alone. According to Stats NZ’s General Social Survey (GSS), a good number of Kiwis give themselves an 8 or above for life satisfaction.
The 2018 poll involved face-toface interviews of nearly 8700 people. They were asked about the make-up of the household and then one person within the house responded to a randomly generated questionnaire to gauge their satisfaction.
They were asked to consider four key aspects of life: loneliness, income, health and housing quality, and give themselves a rating out of 10.
Despite concerns about rising housing costs, falling wages and climate change, to name a few, we are largely a happy lot.
The overall life satisfaction
rating was 7.7, slightly down on 7.8 in 2016 and 2014.
‘‘It is a subjective measure and there are obviously a whole load of factors into how someone will rate their life satisfaction or how worthwhile their life is at a particular level,’’ says Bretherton, ‘‘but we feel that we have been consistent with previous iterations of the survey so we can genuinely compare across those surveys.
‘‘Individual people will have a different perspective, but once you spread that out over 8500 people, then you are getting a reasonable picture of the truth.’’
Not everyone surveyed was a complete picture of happiness; some struggled on one or more of those four pillars. But even they reported healthy levels of satisfaction; two-thirds of respondents with just one ‘‘good outcome’’ reported high overall life satisfaction.
‘‘People are resilient and make the best with what they’ve got,’’ she says. ‘‘I think Kiwis are pretty easy-going and generally a pretty satisfied bunch.’’
That was supported by other data, including from Indicators Aotearoa New Zealand.
Interesting figures included the 83.8 per cent of Kiwis who felt able to express their identity;
82.6 per cent of us who rated how our family was doing at 7 or above; 76.1 per cent who could count on good social support in a crisis; 76.7 per cent satisfied with our jobs; and 85.9 per cent who felt a strong sense of purpose.
Eight, it seems, is enough. Plenty even. According to the World Economic Forum it’s our place in the world of wellbeing, behind only Finland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, Netherlands and Canada.
Of course, that means that one in five New Zealanders is less than thrilled with their lives; the general survey showed household incomes had risen
40 per cent in the past 10 years, but more than a third of Kiwis had only just enough or not enough to get by.
And just 16.5 per cent of us reported being in excellent health, with one-third of our bisexual community experiencing poor mental wellbeing.
For some these statistics present an overall picture of the country and its people; for others it is becoming a solid platform for good policy.
Before the first GSS in 2008, that picture involved the country’s economic health; the census recorded demographic details while trade data and the household labour force survey measured the health of its workforce and what they produced.
‘‘The beauty of the GSS is that there are so many things you can look at . . . and how one impacts another,’’ says Bretherton. ‘‘We are in an era where decisions are made based on data, so the more data you can have in this space has got to be helpful.
‘‘It’s about understanding that there’s more to people’s lives and wellbeing than just how the country’s doing.’’
How we are doing? An 8 out of
10, apparently.
This article is part of the Good Life Guide, an editorial project sponsored by Skoda. We have produced it independently, to the same standards applied to the rest of our journalism.
‘‘Is the government somehow supposed to make us happier? It probably can’t.’’
Grant Duncan