IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ems/eurisd/50509.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Social Development and Happiness in Nations

Author

Listed:
  • Veenhoven, R.

Abstract

The term "social development" is used rhetorically in pleas for less focus on "economic development". In that context it is commonly assumed that social development will add to human happiness and more so than economic development does. These claims are checked in an analysis of 141 contemporary nations. Social development is measured using five ISD "Indices of Social Development": a) civic activism, b) participation voluntary associations, c) harmony among groups, d) harmony among individuals and d) gender-equality. Average happiness in nations is measured using responses to survey questions on life satisfaction, available in the World Database of Happiness. Comparisons across nations in 2010 and analysis of change between 1990-2010 show mixed effects. Civic activism and gender equality seems to add a bit to happiness, possibly more so that economic growth. Yet more involvement in associations and less conflict among individuals rather goes together with less happiness. Intergroup conflict appears to be unrelated to average happiness. So not all things called "social development" add to happiness, some work out positively, some negatively and some do not affects happiness at all. Future research should look for contingencies.

Suggested Citation

  • Veenhoven, R., 2012. "Social Development and Happiness in Nations," ISD Working Paper Series 2012-03, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS), The Hague.
    • Handle: RePEc:ems:eurisd:50509
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repub.eur.nl/pub/50509/ISD-WP-2012-3.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Verma, Ritu & Ura, Karma, 2022. "Gender differences in gross national happiness: Analysis of the first nationwide wellbeing survey in Bhutan," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    2. Doris Sommer & Pier Luigi Sacco, 2019. "Optimism of the Will. Antonio Gramsci Takes in Max Weber," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-31, January.
    3. Thomas Woodson & Sophia Boutilier, 2022. "Impacts for whom? Assessing inequalities in NSF-funded broader impacts using the Inclusion-Immediacy Criterion [The Role of Governance in Mobile Phones for Inclusive Human Development in Sub-Sahara," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 49(2), pages 168-178.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ems:eurisd:50509. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: RePub (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/issssnl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.