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12 September 2007

Enlightened business leaders have been aware for some time of the importance of monitoring how happy the people in their organisation are.

Our political leaders are now getting in on the act and the government says that life satisfaction in England measures 7.3 out of 10.

A recent government survey conducted by DEFRA (the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) has found that, despite our national temperament, most of us are happy. In England life satisfaction ranks as 7.3 out of 10.

Over 3,600 people were surveyed form all social classes. However, large discrepancies were found with professionals (doctors, lawyers, teachers, police officers) rating their happiness as 7.6/10 and saying that they regularly felt happy, engaged and energised by their lives. Least content were those in social class E, which includes pensioners, labourers and the unemployed, who rated their happiness at 6.7/10 and were more likely to have experience negative emotions such as loneliness, depression or the feeling of unsafety.

As well as different classes of people ranking their happiness and contentment differently, it seems that we are more satisfied with some areas of our lives than others. Over 85% of people were happy with their relationships while 65% felt part of a greater community.

In addition the age of the respondents played a part in how happy they felt about different aspects of their lives. Older people worried less about money but were more concerned about health issues. In younger respondents, the opposite was true. Among people aged over 65, 92% were fairly or very satisfied with their standard of living and 80% were happy with measures in place for their future financial security.

Commenting on the results, environment minister, Phil Woolas said “These show, in line with previous research , that most people are generally satisfied with their lives. But is will come as no surprise that this is not uniform across the population, the most disadvantages are clearly less satisfied with their circumstances than the rest of the population.”

The publication of this research reflects the increasing importance of happiness and general well being to government and policy makers. Being able to identify “pockets of misery” and monitor how contentment changes relative to different external factors can offer valuable insights.

However, happiness levels have barely changed for 50 years across the developed world, despite the huge increases in prosperity that have been seen over the same time period.