Saturday, April 13, 2019

Blanchflower and Oswald (2017) Review Graham’s _Happiness for All?_

David G. Blanchflower and Andrew Oswald, “Unhappiness and Pain in Modern America: A Review Essay, and Further Evidence, on Carol Graham’s Happiness for All?” NBER Working Paper No. 24087, November 2017.

• The authors summarize and respond to a 2017 book by Carol Graham, Happiness for All? 

• Graham’s work centers on subjective well-being (SWB) measures, especially the Cantril ladder question, which, according to the World Happiness Report, "asks respondents to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a 10, and the worst possible life being a 0. They are then asked to rate their own current lives on that 0 to 10 scale." 

• Some of Graham’s claims about happiness in the US: (1) SWB is getting more unequal, and income inequality lowers SWB; (2) people are increasingly unhopeful, especially white Americans and poorer Americans; and, (3) Americans, particularly poorer ones, suffer from high levels of pain and stress. 

• The age-adjusted suicide rate for black American men is one-third the rate for white American men.

• Blanchflower and Oswald point out that almost surely, SWB is not nearly as unequally distributed as is income. 

• It does appear that Americans are becoming less happy, and that reported pain is very high (34% in past 4 weeks) in the US; the international average is 20%. 

• Middle-age Americans are particularly troubled. SWB tends to fall almost monotonically from the late teens until somewhere around age 40-50, and then tends to increase (slowly) for some 40 years.

• Education is associated with higher SWB. 

• There has been significant convergence in SWB among racial groups in the US in the past 45 years.

• Though there is some evidence that women in the US have become less happy in the last 30 years relative to men, reported SWB is quite similar across genders.

No comments:

Post a Comment