The Origins of Happiness

Chapter 6

90

Causes of Misery

Since only a minority of us are sick at any one time, the dis-

tribution of health is not symmetrical— it is highly skewed.

For this reason, we begin this chapter by looking at the causes

of misery, rather than of life- satisfaction over its full range.

We define those in misery (“les misérables”) as all those

over 25 who are at the lowest levels of life- satisfaction. For

example, in the British BHPS it is those with life- satisfaction

of below 4 who amount to 10% of the overall population

of people over 25.^4 And the first question is, What changes

would do most to reduce the number of people in misery in our

society?

Many people would say “End poverty and unemploy-

ment.” This would be very desirable, but, as we shall see, it

would be even more desirable to eliminate ill health, both

physical and mental.

To explore this issue we use data for the United States

(BRFSS),^5 Australia (HILDA), and Britain (BCS and BHPS).

The first three of these have reasonably objective definitions

of mental illness:

The United States and Has ever been diagnosed for

Australia depression or an anxiety

disorder.^6

Britain (BCS) Has seen a doctor in the last

year for emotional problems.

The BHPS uses the GHQ- 12, which consists of a set of 12

self- reported diagnostic symptoms. There is a clear danger

that transitory mood factors will influence both the GHQ

replies and the person’s reported life- satisfaction. For the

GHQ we therefore always enter the previous year’s value.

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