Original article by Mutha Bob
Yesterday, CNN informed me that in addition to being the
first day of Spring, it was also the 2014 United Nations International Day Of
Happiness. Pretty cool, I thought, but
how does one measure such a thing? And
Curious being that I am, I did a bit of research (my sources
will be cited). The first thing that I
thought of was income inequality. In
other words, what percentage of a nation's wealth goes to the top 10% (or even
1%) compared to, say, the "middle class" (whatever that is). What impact does this have on
happiness? I thought back to an
interesting 2013 documentary I'd seen on Netflix, Inequality For All. In it,
former US
Secretary of Labor Robert Reich makes a strong case about why the average
American is screwed due to the rapidly widening economic gap. Worth watching; a good way to spend an hour.
But wait, I thought.
There's got to be a lot more
to "happiness" than just how well or poorly the average citizen earns
compared to the "top 1%" in their country. What about things like war? Climate?
Government? Education?
It turns out that the UN also tracks and ranks countries by
a thing called the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI). Simply stated, the IHDI measures health,
education, and income. There's also a version that's not adjusted
for inequality, but all things considered, IDHI seemed like the best meter I
could find. The results of a comparison between
national happiness and IHDI didn't surprise me:
2013 Top Ten Happy Countries
1. Denmark
2. Norway
3. Switzerland
4. Netherlands
5. Sweden
6. Canada
7. Finland
8. Austria
9. Iceland
10. Australia
2012 Top Ten IHDI Countries
1. Norway
2. Austria
3. Sweden
4. Netherlands
5. Germany
6. Ireland
7. Switzerland
8. Iceland
9. Denmark
10. Slovenia
In other words, seven
out of the world's ten happiest countries also score in the top ten for health,
education, and income. The US ? 17th for happiness, 16th for IHDI. Mexico
beats us in happiness at 16th despite an IHDI of 55th (?) BTW, the US
moves up to 3rd place if income inequality is taken out of the equation (HDI,
2013).
Conclusions? For the US, the answer to greater happiness comes back to my first thought. REVERSE the income inequality that has become our plague since the late 70's. How to do that will be another topic. I
suppose that if you want to be happier in America (as it is), you could decide to be a CEO, sports, or entertainment star. That, or occupy Wall
Street , Hollywood
Sources:
World Happiness Report (http://unsdsn.org/resources/publications/world-happiness-report-2013/)
Favorite Pic/Meme/Vid Of The Day:
II too feel that a lot of America's unhappiness is caused by the inequality of the have and have nots. If people had more equality of wealth and opportunities then I feel that there would be less frustrations and general unrest. I think that America is growing more unhappy because their human rights are slowly being taken away, or worried (with good reasons) about their rights being taken away, and that causes stress and unrest for sure. Also I think that people are losing confidence with their leadership and becoming more suspicious of motives for actions taken by the leadership, and reasons that are given for going to war. I think people are just sick of the mindset of war, and the feeling that the country is more concerned about foreign countries and not concerned at all about the poor here in our own country. And worry and unhappiness causes stress to the body and poor health comes hand in hand....as for education, so much weight is put on it, yet the average or below average incomed people cannot afford college, so this also causes unhappiness....all adds up to low IDHI for America as well as the income inequity divide.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Marique. I plan to expand on this topic in the coming days, but not at the expense of sharing good old-fashioned obnoxious humor until then.
ReplyDeleteMy own opinion is this: If more people communicated better, except people for who they are, stop corporate greed (or at least stop worrying), just love one another, get along with others, people might be more happy in the end. It just seems hippies seem to know more about happiness than others. Now this is only my own opinion, everyone has the right to free speech while it is still around. This is Lori Vision.
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