Indians and their unhappiness

Indians are deeply unhappy on a global lineup and getting unhappier

Indians have emerged as one of the unhappiest peoples on earth in the UN’s 2019 annual Happiness Report. And their unhappiness has been worsening in recent years. This comes on top of the distressing record on poverty and income distribution (my columns dated October 17, 2017, October 16, 2018, November 13, 2018, January 16, 2019, February 20, 2019, among others). Even aspects that as Indians we have had confidence in, such as strong social/family support, come out poorly in the happiness rankings. The Report has to be perused with a fine-toothed comb. Comprising 156 countries, the range of findings is wide and deep, putting together data from 2005. Space allows me to merely take a quick dip with India as the primary focus.

The reader may take umbrage with the happiness concept as I originally did. But I found the wider literature to possess content which held my attention. I shall address that discussion on another occasion and confine myself here to selected quantitative indicators.

Illustration by Ajay Mohanty

A sample of individuals (find sample sizes in Report Chapter 2A, Appendix 1, Table 1) is taken every year in each country and they are asked to score their happiness on a 1-10 scale. The variation in country scores is then attempted to be explained statistically with six variables comprising social support, freedom, absence of corruption, generosity, per-capita GDP and life expectancy. The first four variables are measured through binary (yes/no) responses to questions such as: Do you have relatives you can count on whenever you need them? Are you satisfied with the freedom to choose what you do with your life? Is corruption widespread in government? And have you donated money last month? Per capita GDP is in PPP $ terms. Life expectancy weights itself with disability to reflect a “healthy” life picture. Obviously the six variables cannot explain the reported happiness score fully — for surely other aspects of life also affect happiness—but they come close.  I shall refrain from further finer details of the estimation process.

Table 1 ranks selected countries pertinent to India for happiness and its underlying factors. Note that the 2019 reported information reflects 2016-18 average data (a procedure common to every annual report). Examining India first, it ranks itself at 140 in happiness out of 156 countries or at the bottom 90th percentile. So India is at the bottom 10 per cent of all countries in unhappiness. In terms of its components, it is even worse for social support, which appears to be the driving force. India is just at the 50 per cent rank for corruption, and at the bottom 58 per cent for generosity. It ranks better for freedom, being within the top 27 per cent. It is not surprising that it is at the bottom 25 per cent for per-capita GDP and longevity.

Second, India’s unhappiness is considerably worse in the ranking than other countries of South Asia and China, and South Africa, and far worse than Latin America. A revelation comprises the closest countries to India’s unhappiness—slightly happier Zambia and Togo, and slightly unhappier Liberia and Comoros.

Table 2 moves from ranking the countries on their self-declared scale as described above to ranking their statistically derived happiness scores. Again India comes out at the bottom in South Asia in the 2019 report (average of 2016-18 data). Table 2 also shows change in the happiness score over 2015-19; again, India’s score deteriorated the most in South Asia. An examination of Table 3 further reveals there has been a steady deterioration in Indians’ happiness scores in recent years.

Over the month, almost a crore of India’s population will vote but will their elected representatives alleviate their worsening state of unhappiness?