Monday, October 18, 2004
Science discovers money really doesn't buy happiness
Economists have started looking at surveys that basically ask people how happy they are. An important finding: Money spent on "stuff" - tangible status symbols like bigger homes and cars - doesn't increase a society's happiness.
"If we use an increase in our incomes, as many of us do, simply to buy bigger houses and more expensive cars, then we do not end up any happier than before," wrote Robert Frank, professor of economics at Cornell University, in a recent essay.
On an individual level, there's no denying that money does do some good. A recent Associated Press poll showed that people who make more than $US75,000 a year are far more likely than those who make $25,000 or less to say are "very satisfied" with their lives - 56 per cent of the higher-income group compared with 24 per cent of the lower-income group.
However, average incomes have more than tripled in the last 50 years, while average life satisfaction has held steady. The economy has grown substantially, but somehow it left happiness behind.
"The evidence thus suggests that if income affects happiness, it is relative, not absolute income that matters," Frank wrote. In other words, more money will make you happier, but only as long as those around you don't also earn more. Also, you get used to earning more money, so after a while it doesn't cheer you up as much as it did at first.
Economists have started looking at surveys that basically ask people how happy they are. An important finding: Money spent on "stuff" - tangible status symbols like bigger homes and cars - doesn't increase a society's happiness.
"If we use an increase in our incomes, as many of us do, simply to buy bigger houses and more expensive cars, then we do not end up any happier than before," wrote Robert Frank, professor of economics at Cornell University, in a recent essay.
On an individual level, there's no denying that money does do some good. A recent Associated Press poll showed that people who make more than $US75,000 a year are far more likely than those who make $25,000 or less to say are "very satisfied" with their lives - 56 per cent of the higher-income group compared with 24 per cent of the lower-income group.
However, average incomes have more than tripled in the last 50 years, while average life satisfaction has held steady. The economy has grown substantially, but somehow it left happiness behind.
"The evidence thus suggests that if income affects happiness, it is relative, not absolute income that matters," Frank wrote. In other words, more money will make you happier, but only as long as those around you don't also earn more. Also, you get used to earning more money, so after a while it doesn't cheer you up as much as it did at first.
