Happiness And Human Progress

Happiness is an emotional state of joy and contentment that emanates from fulfilling the conditions required for a better life; it is characterised by the culmination of positive feelings, satisfaction, and a sense of achievement.  Overall, happiness is a perception human beings form when their basic economic, social, and psychological expectations are met.  Happiness is not a concrete object; it is an abstract notion which can be approached, understood and analysed only as a subjective socio-psychological factor to measure the level of contentment of individual members of society.

In modern times, there is a practice of measuring happiness globally and publishing the findings as the World Happiness Report. However,   its contribution in enhancing society's quality of life is still not convincingly established. The concept of happiness as an index of human development is said to have emerged in the 1970s. Economist Richard Easterlin and psychologist Ed Diener are credited with having popularised the notion of "happiness economics" as a subjective area of economic research.  The economic principle developed by Esterline is known as the "Easterlin Paradox," which says that richer people are generally happier than poorer people but average happiness does not increase with the overall increase in the income of the society.

Average happiness 

 In most developed countries, the average happiness of the society is not found to align with per capita economic growth. The experience of many developed countries, namely the USA, Japan, Israel and Singapore, shows that the happiness level of the society has remained much lower despite the sharp increase in the economic prosperity of their societies. The general concept of happiness is mostly linked with economic prosperity, societal peace, family union, social recognition and spiritual solace. However, the human stories of rich and prosperous countries of the world are not the same. According to World Happiness Index reports, the Nordic countries, Switzerland and Denmark top the list of the happiest countries of the world, while the level of happiness does not appear to be the same in other highly developed countries despite scoring high economic Growth.