Happiness, Lottery Winners,
and Your Heart
Andrew Oswald
Warwick University
* Much of this work is joint with coauthor Nick Powdthavee. I
also owe a great debt to the work of David G Blanchflower,
Andrew Clark, Paul Frijters, and Justin Wolfers.
I would like to address 3
issues.
#1
#1
st
21
In the
century, should
our society’s goal be
happiness rather than
GDP?
#2
#2
What actually happens to
a person when they get a
lot of money (say by
winning the lottery)?
#3
#3
Could physiological
measures, like heart rate
and blood pressure, be
used as proxies for wellbeing?
So is modern society going
in a good direction?
So is modern society going
in a good direction?
Are we getting happier?
The Easterlin Paradox
2.2
1.8
15000
2
18000
21000
Mean Happiness
2.4
24000
2.6
Average Happiness and Real GDP per Capita
for Repeated Cross-sections of Americans.
1975
1980
1985
Year
Real GDP per Capita
1990
1995
Mean Happiness
Life-Satisfaction Levels in European Nations
Italy
Ireland
Germany
Netherlands
3.8
3.6
3.4
3.2
3
2.8
2.6
1974
1982
1990
1998
2.4
2006
What kind of data do we use in
research on well-being?
The types of sources
British Household Panel Study (BHPS)
German Socioeconomic Panel
Australian HILDA Panel
General Social Survey of the USA
Eurobarometer Surveys
Labour Force Survey from the UK
World Values Surveys
NCDS 1958 cohort
Various statistical methods
Some cheery news:
Some cheery news:
In Western nations, most
people seem happy with
their lives
The distribution of life-satisfaction levels
among British people
35
Percentage of Population
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Self-rated Life Satisfaction
Source: BHPS, 1997-2003. N = 74,481
7
But obviously life is a mixture of ups
and downs
Statistically, wellbeing in
panels is strongly correlated
with life events
..good and bad.
Big effects
Unemployment
Divorce
Marriage
Bereavement
Friendship networks
Health
[No effects from children]
Happiness is also U-shaped
over the life course
The pattern of a typical person’s
happiness through life
Average life satisfaction score
5.6
5.5
5.4
5.3
5.2
5.1
5.0
4.9
15-20
21-30
31-40
41-50
Age group
51-60
61-70
This holds in various settings
This holds in various settings
For example, we see the same
age pattern in mental health
among a recent sample of
800,000 UK citizens:
[Blanchflower and Oswald, Social Science & Medicine, 2008]
New
Perspectives
The
probabilityon
ofJob
depression by age
Satisfaction
Well-Being
Males, LFS data and
set 2004-2006
0.02
DTI’S FOURTH
LABOUR MARKET RESEARCH CONFERENCE
ORGANISER: EMPLOYMENT MARKET ANALYSIS & RESEARCH (EMAR)
Regression coefficient
0.015
0.01
0.005
0
-0.005
-0.01
1938
1942
1946
1950
1954
1958
1962
1966
Year of birth
1970
1974 1978
1982
1986
1990
New
Perspectives
onamong
Job females: LFS data
Depression
by age
Satisfaction
and Well-Being
2004-2006Q2
DTI’S FOURTH
LABOUR MARKET RESEARCH CONFERENCE
0.002
ORGANISER: EMPLOYMENT MARKET ANALYSIS & RESEARCH (EMAR)
Regression coefficient
0
-0.002
-0.004
-0.006
-0.008
-0.01
-0.012
-0.014
1942
1946
1950
1954
1958
1962
1966
Year of birth
1970
1974
1978
1982
1986
1990
Now what about money?
Now what about money?
The data show that richer
people are happier and
healthier.
For example
Di Tella et al REStats 2003 and
Luttmer QJE 2005 show income is
monotonic in happiness equations
for 11 industrial countries.
But is there really good
causal evidence?
One recent attempt (Gardner-Oswald, Journal of Health Economics
2007):
Studying windfalls is
one approach:.
So what happens to someone who
gets a largish lottery win?
Remarkably
There is no immediate effect on
well-being as measured by
happiness or financial
satisfaction.
In our data
Strikingly, even the person who
receives the equivalent of 1 million US
dollars reports a fall, in time t1, in
financial satisfaction (ie. satisfaction
with the household’s income).
But, after three years, a large effect
on satisfaction suddenly becomes
apparent.
Making sense of it all
Lottery wins raise mental well-being
But the puzzle remains
But the puzzle remains
There is a delay.
The longitudinal lottery work
finds the effect of a win takes
one to two years to show up in
mental well-being scores.
Where will research head
in the future?
An interesting border is between
happiness and medicine
•
Is it possible that we can find
physiological correlates with human
well-being?
•
Perhaps to broaden the standard
policy goal of GDP?
Some of our latest work:
Statistical links between the
heart and income and
happiness.
To clinicians
High blood pressure is
potentially a sign of mental
strain and low well-being
Some regression evidence
Some regression evidence
When we estimate a life-satisfaction equation
LS = f (high blood pressure,
control variables)
Hypertension enters negatively in a 10,000
sample from NCDS cohort and a 15,000
sample from Eurobarometers
But how about high blood
pressure as a national
measure of well-being?
Percentage of citizens very satisfied with their lives
Across nations, hypertension and
happiness are inversely correlated
(Blanchflower and Oswald, forthcoming, Journal of Health Economics)
Figure 2.
The Inverse Correlation Between Hypertension and Life
Satisfaction: 16 European Nations Aggregated into Quartiles
Percentage of citizens very satisfied with their lives
50
40
30
Ireland
Denmark
N'Lands
Sweden
Spain
France
Lux
UK
20
10
Austria
Italy
Belgium
Greece
E. Germany
W. Germany
Portugal
Finland
0
Countries in the
lowest quartile
of blood-pressure
Countries in the
highest quartile
of blood-pressure
Some of our latest work:
It is known that heart rate
rises under stress.
Pulse and Money
We find that for every extra
£30,000 a year, heart rate is
1 beat a minute slower.
We draw a random sample
of 80,000 British individuals,
and study their resting heart
rates.
Heart-Rate Equations
Status and happiness may be
protective.
Success may increase lifespan.
Two Studies of ‘Winners’
Two Studies of ‘Winners’
#1 Redelmeier and Singh, Annals of
Internal Medicine, 2001
Oscar winners live 4 years longer
than those merely nominated.
Two Studies of ‘Winners’
#2 Rablen and Oswald
Nobel scientists live 1.6 years
longer than those merely
nominated.
We took data on
We took data on
All science Nobellists and all nominees
between 1901 and 1850.
Two kinds of test:
(i) Matching test
(ii) Hazard models with time-varying
covariates
We also looked for effects of income
from the Nobel Prize
Real Value (Thousand Kr.)
250
200
150
100
50
0
1901 1911 1921 1931 1941 1951 1961 1971 1981 1991 2001
1-2 extra years
There does seem a longevity
difference between winners and
mere nominees. [No income effect]
Even with the corrections for
immortal time bias that we
attempted.
So there is much to be
understood about the
mind-health links.
Some speculations to end:
#1 In the next century, new
measures of human well-being
will probably be required.
#2 As social scientists, we
need to understand better the
connections between mental
and physical health.
#3 Heart-rate and blood
pressure data have particular
potential.
#4 Social scientists will, I
believe, collaborate more with
doctors and epidemiologists.
Happiness, Lottery Winners,
and Your Heart
Andrew Oswald
Warwick University
Papers downloadable at www.andrewoswald.com
* Much of this work is joint with coauthor Nick Powdthavee. I
also owe a great debt to the work of David G Blanchflower,
Andrew Clark, Paul Frijters, and Justin Wolfers.