Society

The life satisfaction indicator is a subjective proxy measure of quality of life that complements more objective indicators. While income per capita and crime rates, for example, are based on measurable data, this indicator relies on individuals to subjectively rate their own well-being.

Life satisfaction is measured here as the mean value of the responses in each country to the question “On a scale of 1 (dissatisfied) to 10 (satisfied), how satisfied are you with your life?”

The World Values Survey is a project based in Stockholm, Sweden that aims to assess the state of sociocultural, moral, religious and political values of different countries around the world. There have been five waves of surveys from 1981 to 2007. Each country is asked the same questions using a detailed questionnaire in face-to-face interviews.

Canada earns a “B” and ties with Finland and the Netherlands for 5^th place out of 17 peer countries, with a life satisfaction score of 7.8. The Danes and Irish are the most satisfied with their lives overall, while the French and Italians claim the least satisfaction.

Canada has participated in four World Values Surveys: 1982, 1990, 2000, and 2006. Canada’s average life satisfaction score has remained virtually unchanged in each survey.

Despite persistently high levels of poverty in Ireland, the country’s economic boom in the 1990s and early 2000s may have contributed to its improved relative ranking on life satisfaction—it now ties Denmark for 1^st place.

Use the pull-down menu to compare the change in life satisfaction in Canada with that of its peers. (Data were not available for Austria and Finland in the 1980s and for Norway in the 2000s.)

The most recent World Values Survey reported data from 2005 to 2007—a period prior to the global financial crisis. It is likely, however, that the crisis would negatively affect perceptions of life satisfaction. Brookings researcher Carol Graham notes that people value income losses disproportionately to gains—in other words, losing money has a greater negative effect on happiness than gaining money has a positive effect.¹ She also notes that the uncertainty surrounding the crisis has a negative effect on well-being:

“Crises are, by definition, bad for happiness. And they are bad for two reasons; they are bad because of a levels effect—how much does the average person actually lose in a crisis, and they are also negative because of the insecurity effect. We find, for example, in surveys across the world that fear of unemployment has as much of a negative effect on happiness as does unemployment itself, in most contexts. So the uncertainty effect of the current crisis, I think, is very high. And, I think, that’s because the crisis has affected our fundamental industries, not just the auto industry, but Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the banking system, huge industries like AIG. It’s sort of as though the pillars of our system have been rocked. And nobody knows how long it will take to get out of this. Nobody knows how extreme the effects will be. There’s a tremendous amount of, I would say, interconnected psychology as people read more and more about the crisis as the press reports more on the crisis and there is kind of a psychological effect that affects financial markets as well. I think the uncertainty effects in this particular crisis are having probably quite strong effects on a lot people’s well being.”2

Canada got an “A” grade in each decade.

Life satisfaction scores vary by gender, age, marital status, education, income, and work status, according to analysis of the data from the World Values Survey for countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

On average in the OECD, life satisfaction is marginally higher among men, among those under 25 years of age, and among those over 65 years of age. It is significantly higher among those who are married, among those with more education, among those with higher incomes, and among the employed.³

These patterns generally hold true for Canada, except that slightly more Canadian women recorded higher life satisfaction than Canadian men. Canadians aged 51 to 64 years also claimed higher than average life satisfaction.

As the OECD notes, "Subjective measures of well-being are hindered by methodological difficulties. They could reflect different underlying concepts, be influenced by transient factors, or be affected by linguistic or cultural differences."⁴

There is also concern that there may be a disconnect between subjective measures of well-being and the more objective measures. For example, the indicator self-reported health status in the Health category of this website reveals that the Japanese have the lowest self-reported health status and yet have the longest life expectancy, the lowest premature mortality, the lowest rates of mortality due to circulatory diseases, heart disease, diabetes, and mental disorders.

¹ Interview with Carol Graham, “The Financial Crisis and Pursuing Happiness,” November 28, 2008, [online, cited August 31, 2009].

² Interview with Carol Graham, “The Financial Crisis and Pursuing Happiness,” November 28, 2008, [online, cited August 31, 2009].

³ OECD, Society at a Glance: OECD Social Indicators—2006 Edition (Paris: Author, 2006), p. 115.

⁴ OECD, Society at a Glance: OECD Social Indicators—2006 Edition (Paris: Author, 2006), p. 33.

See discussions on other indicators
Jobless Youth	Confidence in Parliament
Disabled Income	Homicides
Elderly Poverty	Burglaries
Child Poverty	Assaults
Working-age Poverty	Life Satisfaction
Income Inequality	Acceptance of Diversity
Intergenerational Income Mobility	Social Isolation
Gender Income Gap	Suicides
Voter Turnout