Good Government Means Happier Citizens

The happiness of the average person varies from country to country, and the variations can be both extreme and surprising. Recent research published in the the Journal of Happiness Studies suggests that good government contributes to the happiness of its citizens.

The new study takes up questions that were raised recently by a report of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development that showed the wide variations in average levels of personal happiness, based on a poll of citizens of 140 countries.

That study, which measured people’s self-reported level of daily enjoyment, general satisfaction with life, and expectation of happiness in the future, had some predictable results: In general, people in wealthier countries are happier than people in poorer countries.  People in countries with lower unemployment are, on average, happier.

Economics can not explain all the variations in national levels of happiness.  Although wealthy countries did well in the study, the U.S. did not even make the top ten.  Other countries in which we might expect economic and even cultural conditions to be very similar had very different outcomes in terms of average happiness:  Slovenians, for example, are significantly happier than Romanians, who are in turn happier than Armenians.

The study published last month, by Dutch researcher Dr. Jan Ott, tested the idea that these variations in happiness might be controlled in part by the quality of government. Measuring good government, of course, is harder than measuring happiness.  People can be counted on to report their own levels of happiness.  To measure the quality of government, Dr. Ott relied on data from the World Bank that measure the quality of services provided by the government, political stability, control of corruption, and the extent of citizens’ voice in government.

Dr. Ott found that the quality of government helped to explain the average happiness of citizens.  Separating out the characteristic of democracy, Dr. Ott found that in poorer countries, the level of democracy had little effect on levels of happiness, while in wealthier countries greater citizen participation improved overall happiness.

The study suggests that, although happiness is an individual state, environment, including government, has a lot to do with creating conditions that are favorable to individual happiness.