Does money buy happiness? This is one of humanity’s most pressing questions, and for some time I’ve wanted to do an in-depth, long-term study to resolve this one way or the other. I think the empirical method is best, and like all great scientists who are also humanitarians, I would first test it on myself. The idea is that for the rest of my life a foundation would give me large amounts of money every year and I would monitor my mood and report for posterity on how happy the money made me each year. (Even at the stately Mead manor in glamorous Queens we could use a little extra long green; I know some of the housemaids feel overworked and there’s a spot under the colonial oak in the sculpture garden that cries out for a Henry Moore.) I think we could learn a lot from a well organized trial; I am also recruiting members of the control group if there are any volunteers.
I am not the only one interested in this topic. The Gallup organization has released a new poll based on interviews with people in 155 countries. The question? They asked people to state how well they were doing and what they expected from the future on a scale of 1 (bad) to 8. They then divided up the respondents: if you felt that your present life rates a 7 or above and your future prospects look like an 8, Gallup describes you as “thriving.” If your present AND your future rate only a 4 or worse, Gallup classifies you as “suffering.” If you fall somewhere in between, you are “struggling.”
On Gallup’s data, the relationship between money and happiness seems mixed. Regionally, Africa has the lowest percentage of people who are thriving, but the Americas (including Central and South America) are doing better than Europe by this measure. Within the Americas, more Costa Ricans than US citizens say they are thriving (63 percent versus 57 percent), but Haiti reports the lowest scores in the Americas, with only 4 percent thriving there. (The Haitian data dates from well before the last earthquake.)
One interesting correlation: it looks as if Communism is bad news. The socialist paradise of Cuba has the second-lowest percentage of thriving people in the Americas. The formerly communist countries of Europe are generally speaking less happy than the ones who never benefited from strong central governments dedicated to ensure the happiness of the workers; 20 of Europe’s bottom 21 countries formerly enjoyed the blessings of Marxist planning. On the other hand, Venezuela (at 50 percent) edges out Columbia, where 46 percent of the respondents qualified as thriving.
The “melancholy Dane” is an endangered species; 82 percent of Danes are thriving, the highest figures anywhere in the world. The Scandinavians are generally pretty upbeat; Finland, Norway and Sweden round out the top four countries in Europe. At the opposite end of the scale are Cambodia where only 3 percent are thriving, the Comoros and Burundi with 2 percent in this category and Togo where only one person in 100 is doing well.
Some of the numbers aren’t surprising. The French are relatively morose despite their high standard of living with only 35 percent thriving, lower than Italy (39 percent) and Germany (43 percent). Egyptians (10 percent) are unhappier than Saudis (27 percent). Israelis at 63 percent are much happier than their neighbors; Syria is at 10 percent, Iraq at 11 and Jordan is at 24.
One slight surprise: slightly more Palestinians (14 percent) say they thriving than either Egyptians or Syrians, though overall Palestinians report a lower quality of daily life than almost anybody in the world. (Only Togo, Iraq and Albania report lower scores for ‘daily experience’. Israelis and Egyptians are almost as hassled as Palestinians; Turks, Georgians, Armenians, Libyans, Haitians, Congolese and Cubans report similarly poor day to day quality of life.)
There are two numbers which stand out and should provide us all with food for thought. Only 9 percent of Indians and 10 percent of Chinese say they are thriving; between them, the world’s two most populous countries account for almost a third of the human population. This has a lot of implications for the way the people in those countries will feel about both their domestic systems and the international system in the years to come. As a species, we have a long way to go, however happy they are in Denmark and Costa Rica.
Another way to look at the data is to ask where the dynamite is: in which countries do the highest percentage of the population tell pollsters they are “suffering”? By this measure, the unhappiest place in the world is Burundi, where 40% describe themselves in this way. Bulgaria at 36 percent is second-worst. Haiti and Georgia come next at 35 percent; again, Haiti’s numbers would likely be significantly higher post-quake. Hungary (34 percent), Armenia (33), Macedonia (32) and Togo (31) round out the list of countries in which more than 30 percent of the population is suffering. Some of these countries are desperately poor, but others are those where the economic crisis has hit particularly hard or where rising expectations have been frustrated.
A larger group of countries report that more than 20 percent of the population is suffering; these, along with those with ‘misery’ scores above 30 percent, may be the ones to watch for potential explosions. By this measure, Pakistan (at 23 percent) is only slightly worse off than India (21); ensuring domestic tranquility could be a difficult exercise in both countries going forward. By this measure, European countries at risk include Ukraine (26), Russia (23), and Latvia (25). In the Middle East the worry list includes Yemen and Syria at 24 percent each; disturbingly, 23 percent of Bahrainis say they are suffering, along with 20 percent of Turks. In Africa, places to watch include Uganda (23) and Tanzania (24). Sierra Leone (23) and Rwanda (22) are worryingly high. Zimbabwe by this measure looks relatively well off, with only 17 percent reporting that they are suffering.
These numbers should be taken with liberal sprinkles of salt. Culture and expectations vary dramatically around the world; there is no other way to explain the fact that more Nigerians say they are better off (and fewer that they are suffering) than people in either Turkey or China. It is also true that a number of factors affect what answers people give pollsters; only a brave 2 percent in glorious Myanmar told pollsters they were suffering. I suspect that the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea (North Korea, to you ravening hyenas of imperialism out there in cyberland) would be the happiest country in the world if the survey were carried out by a state-licensed polling firm. Nevertheless, if you have some spare time, check the Gallup survey and the cool, interactive map (which has the dates when the surveys were made; sometimes a significant factor). Download the pdf file with the country tables — and you will learn something worthwhile about the state of the world today.
All this information, of course, only emphasizes the importance of the groundbreaking research agenda of my own empirical work on the wealth and happiness issue. Any readers of this post who manage large foundations are encouraged to contact me directly so that we can set up the proper protocols for a rigorous and thorough investigation.