Happiness Around the World

Taking as its point of departure the paradox of happy peasants and miserable millionaires, this book represents a considerable advance on earlier popular studies with its wider cross-cultural scope. Many studies have stemmed from the so-called Easterlin paradox revealing that while within countries wealthier people are on average happier than the poor, there is little relationship across countries between increases in per capita incomes and average happiness levels. This field is at the intersection between psychology, sociology and economics and has become a major focus of attention in the UK since the publication of Richard Layard's book in 2005. The author discusses the economics of happiness, and reports that the determinants of happiness around the world are very similar. She then considers various aspects of happiness in relation to health, inequality and poverty and ways in which friends, freedom, crime and corruption affect happiness. She is cautious in drawing practical implications from her study, although she does stress the importance of non-income variables in the overall formulation of policy. If one combines the three recognised components of contentment, welfare and dignity, then they can form a basis for policy proposals and the development of more adequate indicators of well-being; finally, one should not neglect resilience, since the author highlights the remarkable human capacity to adapt to the most extreme of circumstances.