Although we know a little about influences on the happiness of individuals within a population, we know next to nothing about what determines national average levels of happiness. What does it mean that as a nation we score 7 out of 10 for happiness? If you're asked "How satisfied are you with your life nowadays?" or "How happy did you feel yesterday?" – what would you answer? "Mustn't complain … not so bad … could be worse," perhaps?
But if we don't know how to make everyone happier, it's no better guide to policy than asking people how much sunshine they've had recently. The release of official figures on happiness makes it sound as if the government is concerned with our wellbeing, and that it recognises that our wellbeing might not be synonymous with that of the economy. The ONS data shows that on average people currently rate their "life satisfaction" at 7.4 out of 10, despite the fact that the economy probably isn't doing more than about 3 out of 10.
When it comes down to what makes some people happier than others, research suggests that it is links with other people which matter – good relationships, voluntary work, charitable giving, a sense of purpose. That's rather different from the invisible hand of material self-interest and consumerism that is supposed to drive the economy forward.
Although richer people do seem to be happier than poorer people, that effect seems to have less to do with your material living standards in themselves than how your rank compares to others. The populations of much poorer countries are less happy than people in the rich developed countries. But above some threshold that Britain passed a generation ago, further economic growth doesn't seem to help. Although economic growth is what has transformed the quality of our lives over the last 200 years, it looks as if the real social and human benefits of growth are subject to diminishing returns. Perhaps growth has largely done its most important work.
Rather surprisingly, health – and probably other indicators of wellbeing – continued to improve in the great depression of the 1930s. This is likely to have been partly because that period saw the most rapid sustained increase in equality on record. Studies suggest that societies with narrower income differences do tend to be a little happier. But in the present economic crisis all the indications are that government policies will widen income differences even further. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies has recently shown, child poverty is likely to increase and most people's real incomes are likely to decrease substantially. Meanwhile the government has done nothing to control top salaries and bonuses or to curb tax avoidance.
The effect of inequality on the happiness of whole societies is likely to be bigger than most of the research shows. In our book The Spirit Level, we suggested that one of the costs of greater inequality is that people become less modest about their abilities and achievements. As social status differences become bigger, they become even more important. We worry more about how we are seen. Not only do money and consumerism become more crucial as ways we show what we're worth, but people also show more of a kind of narcissistic self-aggrandisement.
We are all familiar with the idea that most people think they are better drivers than average, but a recent study showed that compared with people in more equal countries, those in more unequal ones systematically score themselves more highly compared with average on a wide range of attributes.
People often rate their health as better in more unequal countries even when objective measures like death rates show it is worse. Perhaps an American who does not claim to be happy is admitting failure, whereas someone in Japan might feel that claiming to be happy was tantamount to bragging. So before we rush to conclude from the ONS data that Britons are happier than people in other countries, it's worth bearing in mind that there are still plenty more objective measures around.
