I dream of Gini
The relationship between wealth, happiness and inequality
By The Economist online
The relationship between wealth, happiness and inequality
ECONOMISTS, trying hard to dispel a stubborn reputation as a gloomy bunch, have become fascinated with the relationships between wealth, inequality and happiness. There is evidence, at both an individual and a country level, of a relationship between income and happiness. Rich Denmark is happier than poorer China. But there are interesting wrinkles within that. As part of a report on measuring well-being published on October 12th, the OECD has crunched data from the Gallup World Poll, which asked people around the world how satisfied they were with their lives on a scale of one to ten, to reveal that the unhappiest Danes are much jollier than the unhappiest Chinese. But taken as a whole, the happiness gap (the gap between the least and the most satisfied) seems to have a weak relationship with income inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient. That is odd, since many people automatically assume that inequality leads to misery.
More from Graphic detail
After Dobbs, Americans are turning to permanent contraception
More young women are tying their tubes
Five charts that show why the BJP expects to win India’s election
Narendra Modi’s party is eyeing another big victory
By 2100 half the world’s children will be born in sub-Saharan Africa
Fertility rates are falling faster everywhere else