Average happiness is high in modern societies & tends to rise even higher, which contradicts longstanding pessimism about modernization; also, happiness doesn't depend primarily on one’s social position

World Database of Happiness. A ‘findings archive.’ Ruut Veenhoven. Chapter prepared for Handbook of Wellbeing, Happiness and the Environment. Editors: Heinz Welsch, David Maddison and Katrin Rehdanz. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2018. https://personal.eur.nl/veenhoven/Pub2020s/2020a-full.pdf

1.2 Intriguing findings on happiness

The new line of research has produced several unexpected results, such as:

*  The majority of humanity appears to enjoy life. Unhappiness is the exception rather than the rule. This is at odds with common misery counts in the social sciences (Diener & Diener 1996).
*  Average happiness is high in modern societies and tends to rise even higher. This finding contradicts longstanding pessimism about modernization (Cummins 2000, Veenhoven 2005, Veenhoven & Hagerty 2005, Inglehart et. al. (2008).
*  In modern western nations, happiness differs little across social categories, such as rich and poor or males and females. The difference is rather in psychological competence (Headey and Wearing 1992). This result is at odds with the common notion in sociology that happiness depends primarily on one’s social position.
*  Differences in happiness within nations (as measured by standard deviations) tend to get smaller. This contradicts claims about growing inequality in modern society (Veenhoven 2002).
*  People live happier in individualistic societies such as Denmark, than in collectivistic societies such as Japan (Veenhoven 1999, Verne 2009). This contradicts the view that modern society falls short in social cohesion, such as proclaimed in books like ‘Bowling Alone’ (Putman 2000).
*  People do not live happier in welfare states than in equally rich nations where ‘father state’ is less open handed. Inequality of happiness does not appear to be smaller in welfare states either (Veenhoven 2000b). This finding conflicts with political left thinking.
*  Happiness is not just a matter of being better off than the Jones; though social comparison plays a role, it is not the whole story. This finding challenges cognitive theories of happiness and supports affective explanations (Veenhoven 1991, 1995, 2008).
*  Happiness is not very trait like; over a lifetime it appears to be quite variable. This finding does not fit the ‘set-point’ theory of happiness (Veenhoven 1994b, Ehrhardt et al. 2000, and Headey 2006).


Key words: literature review, research synthesis, methodology, research archive,
comparative analysis, happiness, life satisfaction, subjective wellbeing, quality of life,
air-pollution, economic growth