I want more details about happiness!

[andrewducker]

There's a piece here looking at the recent results of the government survey into happiness, satisfaction and anxiety. They found that employed people are happier, more satisfied, less anxious, and feel their lives are more worthwhile than unemployed people. Staggering, I know.

But frankly, this irks me. Because the post also points out that ill people are less happy/satisfied/relaxed/etc than working people. And, presumably, unemployed people are more likely to be sick than employed people, what with disabilities, long-term sickness, etc. So I'd like to see some figures comparing employed healthy people with unemployed healthy people.

So I wander off to the data source, and discover that they don't give it to you broken down nearly enough to do that.

And now I have an itch I can't scratch. Dammit.

Comments

[cheekbones3]

This government statistician is pleased that someone's interested enough to go and find some different crosstabs than were published.

It might be worth putting in a request, and while they won't supply raw data, someone might take a few minutes to answer your question.

Given that this is the first release of the data, I wouldn't be surprised if later releases (either more extensive analysis of this data, or next year's) contain more detail, especially if they get an idea of what people are interested in.

I've seen something that separates out economically inactive people, does that get closer to what you're interested in?

[andrewducker]

Thanks! Have done so!

And possibly - how does it separate them out?

[cheekbones3]

I don't have time to look now, but I saw a section showing employed, unemployed and inactive people separately I think, inactive being less happy than employed people.

[chaos-monkey.livejournal.com]

I'd find it interesting to compare unhealthy working people and healthy unemployed people...

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

Indeed. My experience of both is that not being a depressed, anxious, stressed, ill person makes me much happier even if that means being unemployed. Although I'll admit there is a time limit on that, where *still* being unemployed makes me equally as stressed.

[andrewducker]

Me too! I'd like to be able to slice it up in all sorts of ways. Which makes it a shame we can't get our hands on the raw data.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

so, if healthy unemployment proves happier, you'll quit your job, right? :-)

[andrewducker]

Just because unemployed people are happier than employed people doesn't mean that people who are currently employed would become happier if they were to lose their jobs.

But it's a nice thought!

[marrog.livejournal.com]

I would definitely be happier if I could just not have to work, but I would definitely find myriad other productive uses of my time. So maybe the question is less about employment per se and more about productivity?

[andrewducker]

Well, yes, me too.

But I've frequently heard "Unemployment is bad for your happiness." - so I'd like to have some hard facts for that, if possible!

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

I suspect it's mostly because a lot of people seem to be under the impression that if you don't have a job, you don't have a reason to get up in the morning.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

I think it probably depends what sort of person you are and how much your identity is mixed up with what you do for a living. I'd happily never work again because I have a million and one things I could be doing with my time which I see as more valuable and think would make me a better human being, but I know some people who really are what they do.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

FOI ONS?

[andrewducker]

Emailed them :->

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

Don't have cites to hand but I'm fairly sure it's pretty well established that people who have something to do are on average much happier than those that don't, and the effect is large and causal. It's not a perfect correlation with employment status - unpaid work (childcare, volunteering, study, etc) can serve this function, and some people have a job but nothing much to do (which is actually a whole load of no fun for most).

I'm pretty sure that the two things the Govt could do and should do that would have the biggest effect on happiness are:
1) reduce involuntary unemployment
2) redistribute wealth - though that's a separate argument.

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

Agreed, particularly with that first paragraph. I'd be unhappy and bored if I didn't/couldn't work.

[andrewducker]

You couldn't take up a few hobbies, do charity work, etc?

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

In my experience (and I have some), it's not the same level of satisfaction/validation. Volunteer work is, yes, but just hobbies, no.

Keep in mind though that I grew up in America, and quite a lot of us have been ingrained with the mindset of is you're not earning money, you have less worth as a person. Ridiculous but, well, ingrained.

[andrewducker]

I'd go along with both of those.

I've definitely seen things showing that lack of money (below about £30k) correlates with unhappiness, but above that it doesn't scale in anything like the same way. People will still (largely) compete to have more wealth than those around them, or to get access to things they think will make them happy, but by redistributing the wealth so that everyone has enough to not be stressed they'd increase happiness dramatically.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Put in an FOI request?