{"id":82451,"date":"2022-11-04T13:09:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-04T17:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=82451"},"modified":"2022-11-08T16:34:33","modified_gmt":"2022-11-08T20:34:33","slug":"the-world-happiness-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-world-happiness-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Questioning the Validity of the World Happiness Report"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What is the World Happiness Report? How accurately do the WHR rankings reflect national standards of living? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The World Happiness Report aims to rank national happiness based on respondents&#8217; answers about their quality of life. According to Vaclav Smil, the author of<em> Numbers Don&#8217;t Life<\/em>, we shouldn&#8217;t take the survey&#8217;s results at face value. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s why the World Happiness Report isn&#8217;t fully accurate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-the-problem-with-the-world-happiness-report\"><strong>The Problem With the World Happiness Report<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>According to Vaclav Smil, we should always take reports of a country\u2019s happiness with a grain of salt, as happiness is difficult to measure. He argues against the validity of the <em>World Happiness Report<\/em>, which the media regularly cites as an accurate measure of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/quality-of-life-meaning\/\">the quality of life<\/a> in different countries.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This report calculates happiness using several variables: GDP per capita, social support, life expectancy, freedom to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/making-life-choices\/\">make life choices<\/a>, generosity, and perception of corruption. GDP, as we&#8217;ll discuss further, is not a good indicator of quality of life. Other variables, like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/freedom-to-choose-2\/\">freedom of choice<\/a> and perception of corruption, depend too heavily on subjective answers that are difficult to compare across cultures.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Use of the World Happiness Report<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Since its inception in 2012, the <a href=\"https:\/\/worldhappiness.report\/\"><em>World Happiness Report<\/em><\/a><em> <\/em>(WHR)<em> <\/em>has gained traction among the scientific community, something Smil might disapprove of. The WHR is made every year by experts in economics, psychology, and statistics. Researchers note that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedaily.com\/releases\/2013\/09\/130909093118.htm\">the report was created to measure worldwide happiness and to help make important policy decisions<\/a>. Because happy people live longer, are more productive, and earn more money, the argument goes, when politicians focus on happiness, society as a whole benefits.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We should be careful, however, to not put too much weight on self-reported <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/world-happiness-data\/\">statistics on happiness<\/a>, as <a href=\"https:\/\/ourworldindata.org\/happiness-and-life-satisfaction#are-happiness-averages-really-meaningful\">these statistics can sometimes be misleading<\/a>. For example, most <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/seth-stephens-davidowitz-happiness\/\">happiness statistics<\/a> are based on national averages and don\u2019t account for <em>happiness inequality<\/em>. A country may have relatively high happiness levels, but there could be a big gap between its most happy and least happy citizens.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is the World Happiness Report? How accurately do the WHR rankings reflect national standards of living? The World Happiness Report aims to rank national happiness based on respondents&#8217; answers about their quality of life. According to Vaclav Smil, the author of Numbers Don&#8217;t Life, we shouldn&#8217;t take the survey&#8217;s results at face value. Here&#8217;s why the World Happiness Report isn&#8217;t fully accurate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":74548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,24,25],"tags":[783],"class_list":["post-82451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economics","category-society","category-statistics","tag-numbers-dont-lie","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Questioning the Validity of the World Happiness Report - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"According to Vaclav Smil, we shouldn&#039;t take the World&#039;s Happiness Report at face value. 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Here&#039;s why the WHR results aren&#039;t fully accurate.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-world-happiness-report\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-11-04T17:09:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-11-08T20:34:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/smile-smiley-face-happiness.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Darya Sinusoid\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Darya Sinusoid\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-world-happiness-report\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-world-happiness-report\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Darya Sinusoid\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/0421cce75bc249b11e2517b3a91f9c46\"},\"headline\":\"Questioning the Validity of the World Happiness Report\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-11-04T17:09:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-11-08T20:34:33+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-world-happiness-report\/\"},\"wordCount\":348,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-world-happiness-report\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/smile-smiley-face-happiness.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Numbers Don&#039;t Lie\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Economics\",\"Society\",\"Statistics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-world-happiness-report\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-world-happiness-report\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-world-happiness-report\/\",\"name\":\"Questioning the Validity of the World Happiness Report - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-world-happiness-report\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-world-happiness-report\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/smile-smiley-face-happiness.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-11-04T17:09:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-11-08T20:34:33+00:00\",\"description\":\"According to Vaclav Smil, we shouldn't take the World's Happiness Report at face value. 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