Abstract
In the eighteenth century ‘Enlightened’ thinkers challenged the belief that happiness exists only in Heaven. They claimed that happiness is possible in earthly life and foresaw that greater happiness would be achieved using reason. Did this promise of greater happiness come true? Several scholars doubt that we have become any happier and some claim that happiness has declined. These critical claims are tested using the time trend data available in the World Database of Happiness, which cover the period 1950–2010 and involve 1531 data points in 67 nations yielding 199 time-series ranging for 10 to more than 40 years. The analysis reveals that happiness has risen in most nations. The average yearly rise in the 67 nations was +0.012 on scale 0–10, which equals a rise of one full point every 83 years. At this rate happiness must have improved by more than two points over the past two centuries and, together with increasing longevity, this denotes an unprecedented rise in happy life years.
Highlights
1.1 Views on Average HappinessThinking about happiness was not very positive in Europe in the ‘dark’ middle ages
Though income per head had doubled in the US, average happiness had remained at the same level
Of the 199 series 67 % showed a rise in happiness and 33 % a decline, which resulted in a ratio of 2.0
Summary
Thinking about happiness was not very positive in Europe in the ‘dark’ middle ages. Thought was dominated by the church, which rather glorified suffering, with the crucified Christ as its main symbol. In the religious perspective happiness had existed in Paradise. Erasmus Happiness Economics Research Organization, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Optentia Research Program, North-West University, Vanderbijlpark, South Africa before the fall and would be bestowed on true believers in afterlife, but was not to be found in earthly life. Happiness was deemed to be impossible, and undesirable. God had not expelled us from Paradise to enjoy life, we were born in sin and suffering was seen as a way to clean our souls from sin and to prepare for entrance to Heaven. Though not all church fathers denounced earthly happiness much, this pessimistic view prevailed, among other things because life was typically short and brutish in this phase of societal development (Maryanski and Turner 1992; Sanderson 1995)
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