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The Origins of Happiness seeks to revolutionize how we think about human priorities and to promote public policy changes that are based on what really matters to people. Drawing on a range of evidence using large-scale data from various countries, the authors consider the key factors that affect human well-being, including income, education, employment, family conflict, health, childcare, and crime. The Origins of Happiness offers a groundbreaking new vision for how we might become more healthy, happy, and whole.
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THE ORIGINS OF HAPPINESS
The Origins of Happiness T h e S c i e n c e o f Wel l - B ei n g ove r t h e L i fe C ourse Andrew E. Clark, Sarah Flèche, Richard Layard, Nattavudh Powdthavee, and George Ward With a ne w pre fa ce by t h e a ut h ors Princeton University Press Princeton & Oxford
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Copyright © 2018 by Princeton University Press Preface to the paperback edition, copyright © 2019 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR press.princeton.edu Cover image courtesy LZT / Alamy Stock Vector All Rights Reserved First paperback edition, 2019 Paperback ISBN 978-0-691-19633-6 Cloth ISBN 978-0-691-17789-2 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available This book has been composed in Sabon and Scala Sans Printed on acid-free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of America
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To Gus o’Donnell champion of well-beinG
CONTENTS
ix 1
Preface to the Paperback Edition Introduction: The New Paradigm 1. Happiness over the Life Course: What Matters Most?
15
parT i. whaT makes a happy aDulT? 2. Income
33
3. Education
51
4. Work and Unemployment
61
5. Building a Family
77
6. Health of Mind and Body
89
7. Crime
105
8. Social Norms and Institutions
115
9. Happiness at Older Ages
129
parT ii. whaT makes a successful chilD? 10. Family Income
153
11. Working Parents
161
12. Parenting and Parents’ Mental Health
169
13. Family Conflict
179
14. Schooling
187
vii
Contents
parT iii. so whaT? 15. Measuring Cost-Effectiveness in Terms of Happiness
197
16. The Origins of Happiness
211
Our Thanks
235
Contents of Online Materials
237
Sources and Notes for Tables and Figures
239
Notes
257
References
281
Index
301
Cartoon Credits
325
viii
P r e fa c e to t h e Pa p e r b a c k E d i t i o n
Since we wrote this book, the need for it has become steadily more apparent. More and more policy makers now believe that the aim of policy should be to improve the well-being of the people. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which first published the internationally comparable measures of GDP, advocates in its June 2016 meeting report, Strategic Orientations of the Secretary-General: For 2016 and Beyond (https://www.oecd.org/mcm/documents /strategic-orientations-of-the-secretary-general-2016.pdf), that we should “put people’s well-being at the centre of governments’ efforts.” And in October 2019, the OECD will hold a major conference of governments interested in making subjective well-being an operational target of their policies. Meantime, New Zealand has already