Thus, governments are being urged to give more importance to happiness in policy making. Every individual has the right to be happy in life. Achieving such a society is an objective to aim at. But, why happiness? Surveys show happy people are generally found to be more sociable, flexible, and creative and beneficial for society at large. Objectively measured happiness should gradually emerge as the yardstick of performance of the economies.Īfter all, the ultimate objective of economic activities is to bring happiness to the life of people on earth. Life would be very unpleasant in a country with the world’s lowest incomes, lowest life expectancy, lowest generosity, most corruption, least freedom and least social support. War-torn countries, which include countries perturbed by civil war, conflict and ethnic cleansing are the unhappiest. These reports also suggest modern world people suffer from poor health infrastructure, lower standard of living, fragile governance and freedom despite having high income. Interestingly the World Happiness Reports suggest that the most economically advanced countries or the fastest growing economies are not the happiest countries. Thus ‘life satisfaction’ is a standard measure of wellbeing” (WHR 2023). This allows people to evaluate their own happiness without making any assumptions about what causes it. People are asked to evaluate their life satisfaction these days “on a scale, called the Cantril Ladder, of 0- 10 (0 – completely dissatisfied and 10 – completely satisfied). A natural way to measure people’s well-being is to ask them how satisfied they are with their lives.

Hedonic happiness