Nearly all happiness research indicates that high levels of religiosity and having a strong marriage are two factors that lead to increased happiness. But then there's Iceland:
Highest birth rate in Europe + highest divorce rate + highest percentage of women working outside the home = the best country in the world in which to live. There has to be something wrong with this equation. Put those three factors together - loads of children, broken homes, absent mothers - and what you have, surely, is a recipe for misery and social chaos. But no. Iceland, the block of sub-Arctic lava to which these statistics apply, tops the latest table of the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) Human Development Index rankings, meaning that as a society and as an economy - in terms of wealth, health and education - they are champions of the world.
Yes, but - what with the dark winters and the far from tropical summers - are Icelanders happy? Actually, in so far as one can reliably measure such things, they are. According to a seemingly serious academic study reported in the Guardian in 2006, Icelanders are the happiest people on earth. (The study was lent some credibility by the finding that the Russians were the most unhappy.)
My thoughts: Iceland is a happy place despite its high divorce rates and low levels of religiosity. It is a very free country (#14 out of 157 according to the Index of Economic Freedom). As with other nations, rising GPD per capita and better economic opportunity for women makes divorce less costly and therefore more likely. While Iceland may indeed generally be a happy place, I'd expect Icelanders who have solid marriages and attend church regularly are even happier than your average Icelander.While it is true that people in wealthier countries are happier than people in poorer countries, there is only weak correlation inside those countries between happiness and wealth. (In other words, if you live in a wealthy nation, earning a lot of income probably won't buy you a whole lot of happiness relative to a modest income.) My intuition says that a similar relationship may hold true for marriage and religiosity -- cross-country comparisons and intra-country comparisons may lead to two entirely different results. It is entirely conceivable that countries with higher divorce rates and lower levels of religiosity are "happier" than countries with lower divorce rates and higher levels of religiosity, while at the same time people in each country who have higher religiosity and lower divorce rates are happier than their fellow countrymen.
P.S. -- People generally are happier the freer they are. When freedom and wealth both increase, people have greater opportunity and ability to express true preferences about both religion and marriage. This could lead to less preference falsification within society -- potentially leading to higher divorce rates and lower rates of religious participation. (Timur Kuran has some excellent work on preference falsification called Private Truth, Public Lies.) I would expect societies with lower levels of preference falsification to have stronger correlations between happiness, marriage, and religiosity.
(HT Seth Roberts)
5 comments:
Iceland also has no military. That would make me really happy, ceteris paribus.
Jeremy brings up a good point, namely, that there are a multitude of other factors involved besides marriage/religiosity.
Iceland has a relatively small and homogeneous population, and thus doesn't have the social or cultural tensions of a larger and more diverse population base.
Even on the geopolitical front, as jeremy alludes to, the fact that Iceland doesn't really have many burdens on the international or military fronts and that has to reduce social and cultural tension.
Finally, there is the environment; Icelanders seem to have done a good job protecting their environment, and again, a clean environment would do more to reduce social tensions rather than a polluted one.
From the research I've seen, income does not lead to happiness, but rise in income. In other words, those who go from very poor to slightly poor are happier than those to go from very wealthy to moderately wealthy.
Following up Jeremy and thinking bring up an interesting question:
Americans are blessed by having a high-degree of mobility -- both domestically and internationally. If Americans don't like it in the US, why don't they move elsewhere?
I don't mean this as a flippant question. Some possible answers are:
1) America has the best mix of qualities people living here want compared to the rest of the world. (It might not be perfect along every dimension for any particular individual, but it is the optimal choice out of available options.)
2) Risk-aversion tends to keep people in environments they are familiar with.
3) Transportation costs are prohibitive.
4) People value proximity to friends and family more than the improvements they'd gain by moving elsewhere.
5) Cultural differences inhibit international mobility -- particularly where language and customs differ significantly.
Does anyone else have any thoughts on this?
"Thinking" brings up good points on the homogeneity of the Icelandic population reducing social tension. (Homogenous cultures tend to have lower homicide rates compared to heterogeneous cultures as a result of this -- one of the explanations for why the US has higher homicide rates than many other countries in the world.) The same holds true, as “thinking” points out on the lack of political conflict about how to use the military, since the military doesn’t exist.
To follow up on more of "thinking's" comments, there certainly is a multitude of factors involved in happiness, but marriage and religious involvement turn up as two of the strongest correlates in a multitude of studies -- much more frequently than many other factors.
Dr. Nazworth is also correct – once basic needs are taken care of, more happiness tends not to correlate strongly with happiness on an individual level (for individuals within the same country). See my previous posts on happiness for more on this.
Also, be looking for a post in the next day or two with my thoughts on why Iceland doesn’t have a military.
In response to Brian's question about leaving the U.S., I think the answer is implicit in the reasons he offers: marginalism. America is the worst place in the world to live, except for all the countries.
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