World Happiness Report 2023 2 Executive Summary It has been over ten years since the first World Happiness Report was published. And it is exactly ten years since the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 66/281, proclaiming 20 March to be observed annually as International Day of Happiness. Since then, more and more people have come to believe that our success as countries should be judged by the happiness of our people. There is also a growing consensus about how happiness should be measured. This consensus means that national happiness can now become an operational objective for governments. So in this year’s report, we ask the following questions: 1. What is the consensus view about measuring national happiness, and what kinds of behaviour does it require of individuals and institutions? (Chapter 1) 2. How have trust and benevolence saved lives and supported happiness over the past three years of COVID-19 and other crises? (Chapter 2) 3. What is state effectiveness and how does it affect human happiness? (Chapter 3) 4. How does altruistic behaviour by individuals affect their own happiness, that of the recipient, and the overall happiness of society? (Chapter 4) 5. How well does social media data enable us to measure the prevailing levels of happiness and distress? (Chapter 5) In short, our answers are these. Chapter 1. The happiness agenda. The next 10 years. • The natural way to measure a nation’s happiness is to ask a nationally-representative sample of people how satisfied they are with their lives these days. • A population will only experience high levels of overall life satisfaction if its people are also pro-social, healthy, and prosperous. In other words, its people must have high levels of what Aristotle called ‘eudaimonia’. So at the level of society, life satisfaction and eudaimonia go hand-in-hand. • A t the individual level, however, they can diverge. As the evidence shows, virtuous behaviour generally raises the happiness of the virtuous actor (as well as the beneficiary). But there are substantial numbers of virtuous people, including some carers, who are not that satisfied with their lives. • W hen we assess a society, a situation, or a policy, we should not look only at the average happiness it brings (including for future generations). We should look especially at the scale of misery (i.e., low life satisfaction) that results. To prevent misery, governments and international organisations should establish rights such as those in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). They should also broaden the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to consider well- being and environmental policy dimensions jointly in order to ensure the happiness of future generations. These rights and goals are essential tools for increasing human happiness and reducing misery now and into the future. • O nce happiness is accepted as the goal of government, this has other profound effects on institutional practices. Health, especially mental health, assumes even more priority, as does the quality of work, family life, and community. • F or researchers, too, there are major challenges. All government policies should be evaluated against the touchstone of well-being (per dollar spent). And how to promote virtue needs to become a major subject of study.
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