Life Satisfaction

Background

Measuring feelings can be very subjective, but is nonetheless a useful complement to more objective data when comparing quality of life across countries. The data can provide a personal evaluation of an individual’s health, education, income, personal fulfilment and social conditions. Surveys, in particular, are used to measure life satisfaction and happiness.
Life Satisfaction
Life satisfaction measures how people evaluate their life as a whole rather than their current feelings. It captures a reflective assessment of which life circumstances and conditions are important for subjective well-being. When asked about their life, nearly 59% of people in OECD countries say they are satisfied with their life at present and 68% believe that their life will be satisfying five years later. The Netherlands, Denmark and Finland all have the highest amount of people satisfied with their life (85% or more); in Hungary, Estonia, the Slovak Republic, and Turkey, less than 35% of people are satisfied with their life at present.

Happiness, or subjective well-being, is defined as the presence of positive experiences and feelings, and/or the absence of negative experiences and feelings. Across OECD countries, 72% of survey respondents reported having more positive experiences in an average day (feelings of rest, pride in accomplishment, enjoyment, etc) than negative experiences (pain, worry, sadness, boredom, etc). From 2006-2009, Iceland had the highest rate of positive experiences in the OECD area; Mexico and Canada also ranked high. Western and central European countries made up the bottom half of the list. Japan and Korea also reported low positive experiences.

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