Can money buy happiness? There are various answers to this long-standing question. It all depends on who you ask.
As noted by Jeff Dejardens of Visual Capitalist, this issue can now be explored with evidence. On their basis, we can draw the following conclusion: happiness can indeed be bought for money - but not entirely.
Money and happiness
Let's imagine two people. One of them is named Beff and he is a billionaire. The other is a woman named Jill, and her income is much more modest. Which of them do you think will be happier if his (her) fortune suddenly doubles?
Buff might be glad he has more money in his bank account now. However, his lifestyle is unlikely to change significantly - after all, he is already a billionaire. In turn, Jill will not only increase the amount on the account, but also have an opportunity to improve the living conditions of her family, pay off debts, and work less.
Thus, in Jill's case, the additional wealth translates into real change, increasing satisfaction with life.
Statistics show that the situation with different countries of the world is the same as with our two imaginary characters.
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Statistics
The researchers created a table to compare the GDP per capita of different countries, adjusted for purchasing power parity, and the level of happiness of citizens of these countries, according to their personal estimates. The data was borrowed from the World Bank and the 2017 annual World Happiness Report published by the United Nations.
The numbers show that the direct relationship between money and happiness for entire countries can only be traced using the most generalized data. If, when determining the level of happiness, we take into account different levels of the hierarchy of needs ("Maslow's pyramid"), the results become difficult to predict.
This means that if the national wealth of a country increases from $ 10,000, which is the average for each of its citizens, to $ 20,000, you can be sure that the happiness curve will go up. If this happens in a country where an average citizen has an average of $ 30,000 (that is, he now has 60,000), the level of happiness will continue to rise - but in this case, different options are already possible. It is in these options that the most interesting lies.
Regional specificity
The most notable exceptions are the countries of Latin America and the Middle East.
In Latin America, people rate their level of happiness higher than the wealth data would suggest.
Costa Rica stands out especially, where GDP per capita is $ 15,400, and the level of happiness on the "Country ladder" is 7.14 points out of 10. Maybe these are the features of the local culture, but, be that as it may, the level of happiness of citizens Costa Rica is higher than the residents of the USA, Belgium and Germany - countries with much higher living standards.
But in the Middle East - in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates - the situation is exactly the opposite of Latin America.
National specifics
Variety also reigns within each region.
We just mentioned the Middle East, where residents are not as happy as they might seem given their level of well-being. However, if we take separately such a country as Qatar, which ranks first in the world in terms of per capita wealth (127 thousand dollars per person), then its indicators stand out even from the average for the Middle East. Qatari citizens are happy with only 6.37 points of the "Country Ladder". In Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, neighboring Qatar, citizens enjoy less wealth than Qataris, but feel happier at the same time. Omanis, on average, rate their level of happiness at 6.85, despite the fact that their well-being is more than 3 times lower than in Qatar.
There are other anomalies: the people of Thailand, Uzbekistan, and Pakistan are significantly happier than would be inferred from their level of well-being or even from the regional average money-happiness ratio. At the same time, in Hong Kong, Ireland, Singapore and Luxembourg, citizens' happiness rates are lower than expected.
Andrey Kholomin