Wealth + Health = Happiness

This just in from The Economist, in a global study, Gallup’s pollsters asked a standard question: how satisfied are you with your life, on a scale of nought to ten? In all the rich places (America, Europe, Japan, Saudi Arabia), most people say they are happy. In all the poor ones (mainly in Africa), people say they are not.

 Freaking Duh!

Multiple surveys backed it up with other statistics connecting optimism with gross national product growth.

The survey also asked questions about confidence in the future, whether your children will be better off than you are, and so on. Regardless of countries’ current income, there was a close correlation between GDP growth and optimism, with China, India and Russia most optimistic.

There is also statistical evidence according to the article that little happiness is gained once people’s heirarchy of basic needs are met. In other words, extra money doesn’t mean increased happiness.

The studies also correlated happiness with health. If people have enough money to be healthy, they feel happy. Russians, report unhappiness, due to the loss of national health coverage. Apparently if you remember a better, healthier time, then it’s harder to be happy with a less desirable, less stable, less healthy situation.

The studies in the article range from personal reports of happiness to collective ones.

This is evidence that money can buy happiness, or at least it can buy some health which creates happiness.