In March this year, the United Nations’ International Day of Happiness was celebrated. As part of the day’s activities, the newest edition of the World Happiness Report was released. As part of the Transition movement, which aims for everyone to live well and healthily, it seems like a good time to delve into local statistics on happiness.
Stroud statistics
Sadly, there are no statistics specific to Stroud. The most locally available are for the South West as part of the UK’s Office of National Statistics (ONS) Wellbeing Dashboard. The latest data is for July 2024-September 2024 and covers a range of wellbeing issues, including respondents’ self-reported life satisfaction. ONS surveyors asked 20,160 people in the UK, “Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays? Where zero is ‘not at all satisfied’ and 10 is ‘completely satisfied'”.
The average answer for the South West was 7.6 out of 10, and the UK average was 7.7 out of 10. On the face of it, this seems quite good (see international comparison below), but there is still room for improvement. Of course, averages hide a lot of detail, and the data release does allow a bit of interrogation.
There are no significant differences between males and females, but the data does reveal regional differences. For instance, the % of people who rate themselves 9 or 10 out of 10 for the South West is shown below, and the chart also shows how we compare with the rest of the UK.
For the UK as a whole, there are noticeable differences between age groups:
The ONS release does not attempt to explain differences or offer potential solutions. This may be a topic of further exploration.
International comparison
Comparing statistics with other nations may offer insights to see if something better is possible. The World Happiness Report is an excellent data source. Based on the latest release from 2024, other nations have happier people than the UK, with 19 other nations scoring higher. There are slight differences in statistics:
- A time lag
- Only 1,000 people asked via the Gallup World Poll
- The question was slightly different [see note 1]
Here is an excerpt from the latest report:
Comparison with the rest of the country
It is well known that Scandinavian countries tend to score highly on wellbeing, which is reflected in this dataset. Given the events in the Middle East, it may be surprising to see Israel so high up in the chart, but this may be due to the time lag. This report attempts to explain the differences via various regression analyses. At a country level, factors analysed include:
- GDP per capita
- Social support
- Healthy life expectancy at birth
- Freedom to make life choices
- Generosity
- Perceptions of corruption
What Next?
As always, with these kinds of statistics, the key question is, “So what?” Here are some thoughts:
- On an individual level, the NHS has a “five-a-day” guide for individual wellbeing, which is very easy to implement.
- On an organisational level, why not try a staff wellbeing survey to establish a baseline, consider some interventions that may help improve the situation, and then measure again to see if they worked?
- At a council level, get hold of more granular data specific to Stroud and set about maximising the wellbeing of 100% of the people in the district.
This author has written “Happiness by Numbers,” which goes into far more detail on the science of measuring wellbeing and how environmental protection is crucial for maximising our long-term happiness.
- The question was, “Please imagine a ladder, with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?”