The first World Happiness Report (WHR) was published in 2012 by The Earth Institute, led at the time by economist Jeffrey Sachs. Since then, the WHR has expanded in scope and detail, and is now published by the Wellbeing Research Centre at Oxford University. Many economists have been involved, but they have also relied on experts from other disciplines such as psychology — an essential contributor. Happiness might seem to be a fuzzy concept, but surveys that ask people to report their life satisfaction on a numerical scale make it at least partially measurable. The Gallup World Poll conducts this survey across many countries, and it is the basis for country averages and rankings. The WHR supplements this data with more transitory, but still important, measures of positive and negative emotional states (“affect”).
According to the life evaluation ranking based on 2021-23 averages, India ranks 126 out of 143 countries, not much changed from earlier although its numerical score has recovered from the lows of a few years prior. In order to understand the sources of life satisfaction, the WHR also estimates the extent to which other factors (measured independently) are correlated with the happiness measure. In general, material well-being, as measured by GDP per capita, is the most important correlate with happiness, but several other factors are also significant. These include social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, and reduced corruption. Surprisingly, India’s economic growth over time does not show up in an improved happiness score and ranking. Among countries, its happiness ranking is lower than would be implied by its GDP per capita, other things being equal.
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This year’s WHR investigates the relationship between happiness and age for the first time, and, in a first such exercise, has a whole chapter on the life satisfaction of older people in India, using more detailed country-specific data. In the overall data, there are differences in the age profile of happiness, with the young being less happy than the old in North America, a sharp change from the past. In many countries, the more typical result of the young being happier still holds. The differences are not necessarily large, but trends can still be informative. In India, adults below 30 are the happiest, while the 30-44 age group is significantly less satisfied with their lives. The other two age groups, 45-60 and 60 and above, have similar scores, close to the average across all ages.
Also Read The giant has arrived: India’s rise as a global power creates a tightrope of domestic and international aspects The next wave of co-lending partnerships Measuring progress: Factors that can accelerate GDP growth The India-Bhutan story: India understands the urgency and needs of its neighbour In some ways, we might care most about understanding the determinants of happiness for young people, because that may guide policy measures that change their life trajectories. But the experiences of older adults can provide guidance as well, since the longer-run effects of early life factors can be identified. The India study in the WHR uses a subset of the Longitudinal Ageing Study in India (LASI, 2017-19), which has information on demography, health, household socioeconomic status, family and social networks, and life expectations for over 70,000 adults aged 60 years and above.
Unmarried women had the lowest levels of reported life satisfaction, perhaps indicative of biases in traditional social structures. Those without formal education were also less satisfied than their educated counterparts. Poor living situations, being retired, and not being concerned about religion all were associated with lower scores. Good health was, not surprisingly, associated with higher scores. Past experiences of ill treatment or discrimination had lingering impacts, in the form of lower reported scores.
There are many more nuances and complexities in the results for the happiness of older people in India. The implications for policy are not always immediate. Even multivariate regressions do not capture the interactions of various socioeconomic factors in determining life satisfaction, so there can be no rush to any kind of social engineering. Many of the general results for older Indians are probably similar to what one would find in other countries. But if one can pick out a couple of issues that ought to be salient for Indian policy-making, beyond the pursuit of economic growth, the WHR study reminds one of the disadvantaged position of women in India, especially when they are not married. Equally striking are the results on caste inequalities. Caste-based discrimination leads to pervasive disadvantages throughout life, and has direct and indirect effects on life satisfaction. Indian policy debates about economic growth have often focused around the term “inclusive”.
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Inclusion most obviously refers to whether the poorest in society improve their material conditions when the economy grows overall. But inclusion also applies to women and lower-caste groups, or to others who may be in disadvantaged situations. Often, the data on incomes for national accounting purposes is not collected in a manner that permits more detailed analysis. Recently, indicators that feed into indices of human development have become an important source for measuring well-being. The WHR, both overall and in its specific exploration of the LASI data, provides another source for guiding economic and social policies in India, and in judging their outcomes.
(The author is Professor of economics, University of California, Santa Cruz)
The first World Happiness Report (WHR) was published in 2012 by The Earth Institute, led at the time by economist Jeffrey Sachs. Since then, the WHR has expanded in scope and detail, and is now published by the Wellbeing Research Centre at Oxford University. Many economists have been involved, but they have also relied on experts from other disciplines such as psychology — an essential contributor. Happiness might seem to be a fuzzy concept, but surveys that ask people to report their life satisfaction on a numerical scale make it at least partially measurable. The Gallup World Poll conducts this survey across many countries, and it is the basis for country averages and rankings. The WHR supplements this data with more transitory, but still important, measures of positive and negative emotional states (“affect”).
According to the life evaluation ranking based on 2021-23 averages, India ranks 126 out of 143 countries, not much changed from earlier although its numerical score has recovered from the lows of a few years prior. In order to understand the sources of life satisfaction, the WHR also estimates the extent to which other factors (measured independently) are correlated with the happiness measure. In general, material well-being, as measured by GDP per capita, is the most important correlate with happiness, but several other factors are also significant. These include social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, and reduced corruption. Surprisingly, India’s economic growth over time does not show up in an improved happiness score and ranking. Among countries, its happiness ranking is lower than would be implied by its GDP per capita, other things being equal.
This year’s WHR investigates the relationship between happiness and age for the first time, and, in a first such exercise, has a whole chapter on the life satisfaction of older people in India, using more detailed country-specific data. In the overall data, there are differences in the age profile of happiness, with the young being less happy than the old in North America, a sharp change from the past. In many countries, the more typical result of the young being happier still holds. The differences are not necessarily large, but trends can still be informative. In India, adults below 30 are the happiest, while the 30-44 age group is significantly less satisfied with their lives. The other two age groups, 45-60 and 60 and above, have similar scores, close to the average across all ages.
In some ways, we might care most about understanding the determinants of happiness for young people, because that may guide policy measures that change their life trajectories. But the experiences of older adults can provide guidance as well, since the longer-run effects of early life factors can be identified. The India study in the WHR uses a subset of the Longitudinal Ageing Study in India (LASI, 2017-19), which has information on demography, health, household socioeconomic status, family and social networks, and life expectations for over 70,000 adults aged 60 years and above.
Unmarried women had the lowest levels of reported life satisfaction, perhaps indicative of biases in traditional social structures. Those without formal education were also less satisfied than their educated counterparts. Poor living situations, being retired, and not being concerned about religion all were associated with lower scores. Good health was, not surprisingly, associated with higher scores. Past experiences of ill treatment or discrimination had lingering impacts, in the form of lower reported scores.
There are many more nuances and complexities in the results for the happiness of older people in India. The implications for policy are not always immediate. Even multivariate regressions do not capture the interactions of various socioeconomic factors in determining life satisfaction, so there can be no rush to any kind of social engineering. Many of the general results for older Indians are probably similar to what one would find in other countries. But if one can pick out a couple of issues that ought to be salient for Indian policy-making, beyond the pursuit of economic growth, the WHR study reminds one of the disadvantaged position of women in India, especially when they are not married. Equally striking are the results on caste inequalities. Caste-based discrimination leads to pervasive disadvantages throughout life, and has direct and indirect effects on life satisfaction. Indian policy debates about economic growth have often focused around the term “inclusive”.
Inclusion most obviously refers to whether the poorest in society improve their material conditions when the economy grows overall. But inclusion also applies to women and lower-caste groups, or to others who may be in disadvantaged situations. Often, the data on incomes for national accounting purposes is not collected in a manner that permits more detailed analysis. Recently, indicators that feed into indices of human development have become an important source for measuring well-being. The WHR, both overall and in its specific exploration of the LASI data, provides another source for guiding economic and social policies in India, and in judging their outcomes.
(The author is Professor of economics, University of California, Santa Cruz)
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