What Really Makes People Happy

Money and fun are not everything: this study analyzed who is especially happy in which countries. Unfortunately, the general trend is that young people are less satisfied.

What is happiness to me? Gaining some sort of love? A family? A job?

Gross domestic product cannot tell how people really feel. A mere act of giving cannot bring happiness. Many are lonely and quite dissatisfied in developed nations. But some measure of well-being and security has to be present to enable people to have hope and feel well. Our evaluation of our satisfaction is based on personal assessments or subjective feeling, and that is what varies from one place to another.

The team has gathered new survey data from the “Global Flourishing Study” to study what constitutes a happy life and identifies which countries have particularly happy citizens. Flourishing here is meant to say that one is striving for a life filled with meaning, joy, and self-development.

Scientific quest of the fulfilled life

Contrary to what one might expect, the published findings of the study in the journal “Nature Mental Health” reveal considerable variations from country to country. The researchers emphasized that they were not ranking countries, since placements in such ranking lists depended as much on individual responses from each country as on the country itself. Also, results from the 22 countries do not offer an exhaustive picture of the world.

However, certain general claims apply almost everywhere: people who have a job, who live in a partnership, or who regularly participate in religious ceremonies tend to have a more fulfilled life.
“Gender differences are small, those who are married report a higher degree of flourishing compared to people of other marital and family statuses. Employed and retired people are better off than unemployed people. A higher level of education as well as more frequent participation in religious ceremonies is associated with a greater sense of satisfaction,” explained Leonie Stückemeier, professor of applied sociology at the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau, who did not participate in the research.

This research contradicts the World Happiness Report

Additionally, life conditions, health, subjective well-being, the meaning of life, personal characteristics, relations with others, and financial issues were taken into account.

A “flourishing index” was distilled from all of these. The idea of flourishing tries to encompass the quality of every aspect in a person’s life. For this reason, more than 200,000 people across 22 countries were surveyed, including Germany. These surveys will be repeated annually with the same participants in the coming years in order to analyze changes with time.

According to Dr. Hilke Brockmann, professor of sociology at Constructor University in Bremen, the researchers mainly emphasize the strength of the extensive data set from this study, which in many aspects differs significantly from those in the annual World Happiness Report:

“This ranking of countries does not coincide with this year’s World Happiness Report (WHP), which (always) puts rich Scandinavian countries at the top of the list. In contrast, Indonesia took first place, while in the WHP it is only in 83rd place.”

Happiness in old age, worries in youth

Quite surprisingly, the findings about “flourishing” throughout the life span contradict much of the established literature. Most happiness researchers assume that life satisfaction has a U-shape – higher in youth and old age, and lowest in middle age.

Subjective experiences of well-being throughout life do, in fact, very much depend on the country: in Australia, Brazil, Japan, Sweden, and the USA, “flourishing” increases with age. In Indonesia, Kenya, and Turkey, it remains stable throughout life, while it goes downward with age in India and Tanzania.
“This is both interesting and puzzling. The authors cannot offer an explanation other than the assumption that a new tendency may be emerging here.”

Generally speaking, the new study does not offer many explanations for the possible causes. Nor does it contain any recommendations.

“The various specific differences between countries also remain puzzling. This is because the concept of ‘flourishing’ speaks very generally about the context, without elaborating on it in more detail,” explains Stückemeier. However, the collected data can help to precisely break down national differences and explain them causally.

Youth builds the entire life structure

Younger ones lagging significantly behind the level of previous generations in both subjective and mental well-being is highly unfortunate and concerning”, asserts Leonie Stückemeier.

In general, “a surprisingly low level of flourishing was observed among younger people. This is, as the authors of the study themselves note, surprising from a scientific perspective, and worrying from the perspective of policy-making.”

The new study clearly shows how much life satisfaction is related to mental and physical health, close social relationships, as well as financial and material stability.

It also shows that “stressful life circumstances in childhood are associated with weaker ‘flourishing’ in adulthood,” says Stückemeier – for example, the relationship with parents, the financial situation in the household, or one’s own health in early adolescence.

“The long shadow of events from early childhood – such as child abuse – also becomes visible here,” says sociologist Hilke Brockmann.