As regular readers of this blog may know, I like graphs! Especially when they let us look at the world around us in a slightly different way. Here is one I found today:
Source: Modernization and Postmodernization (Princeton, 1997).
This is a plot of the percentage of the population who are either satisfied or happy with their lives against the GNP of that country. It is pretty clear that money buys happiness (well, unless we want to argue correlation and causation again! but I think this one is probably sound).
I think what we are seeing here is that in poor countries, a tiny boost in GNP brings great benefits to quality of life (and hence happiness), as previously unaffordable conveniences (electricity, running water, a good sewage system) become affordable and life becomes much more pleasant. After some point, people have all the things needed to make them comfortable, and further increases in GNP go towards luxuries (cars, televisions, etc.), which increase happiness by a small amount.*
If I were rich I'd surely be too busy firing money out of my solid gold cannon, eating diamonds for breakfast and killing and eating endangered animals to be sad. Also I could probably buy some really good friends :)
*late edit: On further viewing I think my initial assessment may be wrong, most of the countries on the tail to the left of the graph are the ex-soviet republics, maybe the collapse of the USSR and subsequent fragmentation of these countries has something to do with it. Most of the african nations seems pretty happy. Maybe the correlation between GDP and happiness is not that strong after all. That said, I still want to be a millionaire, just to find out!
Source: Modernization and Postmodernization (Princeton, 1997).
This is a plot of the percentage of the population who are either satisfied or happy with their lives against the GNP of that country. It is pretty clear that money buys happiness (well, unless we want to argue correlation and causation again! but I think this one is probably sound).
I think what we are seeing here is that in poor countries, a tiny boost in GNP brings great benefits to quality of life (and hence happiness), as previously unaffordable conveniences (electricity, running water, a good sewage system) become affordable and life becomes much more pleasant. After some point, people have all the things needed to make them comfortable, and further increases in GNP go towards luxuries (cars, televisions, etc.), which increase happiness by a small amount.*
If I were rich I'd surely be too busy firing money out of my solid gold cannon, eating diamonds for breakfast and killing and eating endangered animals to be sad. Also I could probably buy some really good friends :)
*late edit: On further viewing I think my initial assessment may be wrong, most of the countries on the tail to the left of the graph are the ex-soviet republics, maybe the collapse of the USSR and subsequent fragmentation of these countries has something to do with it. Most of the african nations seems pretty happy. Maybe the correlation between GDP and happiness is not that strong after all. That said, I still want to be a millionaire, just to find out!
