In "Happiness and the Human Development Index: The Paradox of Australia," Blanchflower and Oswald (2005) observe an apparent puzzle: they claim that Australia ranks highly in the Human Development Index (HDI), but relatively poorly in happiness. However, when we compare their happiness data with the HDI, Australia appears happier, not sadder, than its HDI score would predict. This conclusion also holds when we turn to a larger cross-national dataset than the one used by Blanchflower and Oswald, when we analyse life satisfaction in place of happiness, and when we measure development using GDP per capita in place of the HDI. Indeed, in the World Values Survey, only one other country (Iceland) has a significantly higher level of both life satisfaction and happiness than Australia. Our findings accord with numerous cross-national surveys conducted since the 1940s, which have consistently found that Australians report high levels of wellbeing.
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Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number
1916.
Find related papers by JEL classification: I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - General Welfare O57 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Comparative Studies of Countries
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David G. Blanchflower, 2007.
"International Evidence on Well-Being,"
NBER Chapters,
in: Measuring the Subjective Well-Being of Nations: National Accounts of Time Use and Well-Being, pages 155-226
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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