There are a lot of problems in the world—from the effects of climate change, emerging zoonotic diseases, strife and war, and more. But we also need to recognize that humanity has never had it so good. Today, most of us expect access to food, medicine, and education. We expect to live to old age, and we expect our children to outlive us—expectations that only emerged in the last century. For most of human history, people expected famine, and half of all children to die before the age of five.
We are not very good at comparing our lives with those of past generations, but we are very good at comparing ourselves to wealthier people or to dreams of lavish living. Happier countries are those where people trust one another, feel fortunate, and genuinely want others to succeed. My sense (with many assumptions and caveats) is that happier societies tend to be governed by more rational, less ideological governments—ones that place greater value on science and evidence-based policymaking.
In the U.S., it seems fair to say that the Republican Party has grown more hostile to science, favoring ideology over evidence on issues like climate change and vaccines. This is a broad generalization, but evidence suggests that Democratic administrations more often support and consult science. I say this, not as partisan advocacy—I am generally anti-party politics*. My goal here is to explore how happiness connects to political outcomes.
Measuring happiness and politics
Happiness is not easy to measure. Here, I use a happiness ranking of US states based on 30 different metrics, including life expectancy, commute times, economic well-being, and leisure. I then turned this ranking into an index where happier states had higher scores**, and compared that to each state’s political leaning.
To determine political control, I looked at six elected offices: the 2024 presidential vote, governor, state senate, state house, both U.S. Senate seats, and the U.S. House delegation. If one party held five or six of these, I classified the state as either Republican or Democratic. If neither party held at least five, I classified it as “mixed.”
The results were clear. States that voted more often for Democrats were happier on average (slope = 0.867, F1,48 = 7.57, p = 0.008). When grouped by party control, Republican-led states were less happy (F2,47 = 3.11, p = 0.05). These findings suggest that happier states tend to elect a government more inclined to value evidence and science.
Correlation, not causation
This is not likely a causal relationship. Instead, in places with lower literacy, weaker schools, fewer economic opportunities, and less job satisfaction, people are more drawn to simple and emotional political narratives. These often take the form of an “us versus them” story, where the “us” are righteous and the “them” are blamed for hardship and unfair control of the political system. This may explain why Republican voters tend to be less trustful of democracy.
It is important to highlight the caveat that these indices do not actually measure “happiness”, which is a complex thing to quantify. These indices are composites built from socio-economic indicators, but there is strong evidence that these conditions shape how people feel about their place in society, their sense of fairness, and whether they believe they are receiving the rewards they deserve.
Why happiness matters for evidence-based policy
If we want governments to ground decisions in evidence rather than ideology, we need to ensure that voters are happy. That requires investment in education, which drives innovation and economic growth, along with infrastructure, health care, and a high quality of life.
Raising the standard of living in places like Alabama and Mississippi should be a priority, regardless of political outcomes. People there deserve the same world-class education and health care as those in New York or California. But as a side effect, happier citizens are also more likely to support rational leaders who value science—and that leads to better outcomes for everyone.
*Political parties by their very nature, in both their objectives and methods, will try to subvert democracy and bias it in their favour. I want to see a world without parties – see first footnote in https://evol-eco.blogspot.com/2020/12/politics-and-biodiversity-crisis-call.html#edn1.
**absolute(max.happiness rank-state.happiness rank) + 1
No comments:
Post a Comment