* * *

Tim Dowling

Spring is here, and the 2017 world happiness rankings are in. The fifth World Happiness Report puts the usual suspects – Norway, Denmark and Iceland – in the top three spots, suggesting that happiness is strongly correlated to having really good underfloor heating. The United States ranked 14th in the report. The UK came in 19th, just above Chile, a poor performance until you factor in the possibility that Britons would have been ashamed to finish any higher – that breaking seven on a one to 10 overall happiness scale would be crowing. A 6.714 will do, thank you.

The Office of National Statistics conducts its own UK happiness measurements. And when asked about life satisfaction, purpose and how happy they felt the previous day, Britons reported average personal wellbeing ratings in the mid-sevens. In the world happiness rankings, a 7.5 would have earned the UK a top-five spot.

There were regional variations, but the real differences sprang up between age groups: personal wellbeing dips in middle age, and recovers sharply thereafter, so that people in their 70s are generally happier than those in their late 40s. But the ratings never dipped below seven out of 10 in any category or age group.

The World Happiness Report and the ONS study aren’t readily comparable – the questions are different and the two studies cover a slightly different range of years – but such a marked disparity raises the possibility that how happy you say you are depends on who’s asking.

The UK was also one of 38 countries showing what the report called a “significant decrease” in its score since the last report but the US fared even worse, dropping more than a third of a point on the one-to-10 scale, and thereby bucking a trend: per capita GDP has been rising the US since the 1960s, but happiness levels are now falling.

On its own GDP isn’t necessarily a good indicator of overall happiness; that’s why we measure happiness separately. But it’s one of half a dozen key variables – including healthy years of life expectancy, trust levels in government, and social support – that account for most of the difference in happiness levels between countries. The US’s happiness crisis is so marked that it’s the topic of a whole chapter. Healthy life expectancy has risen in the US – it’s comparable to the top four happiest countries, and US GDP per capita is higher than any of them – but the other variables have all declined. As a result, the US is, as the president would say, sad!

It’s hard to measure tears in the social fabric, but not impossible. In one experiment cited in the report, addressed and stamped envelopes were dropped all over public spaces, to see how many people would pick them up and drop them in a post box. This type of “helping behaviour among strangers” has declined over a decade in the US in a way that hasn’t been seen in Canada. In Canada, I imagine, people can post letters by flinging them out of the window.

I am also bucking a trend, in that my personal wellbeing levels are gently rising, out of step with both my homeland and my adopted nation. This could be because I’m just emerging from the bottom of the midlife trough in the centre of the UK happiness graph. If I weren’t automatically happier by my next birthday, I’d probably have to seek counselling.

Perhaps I’m simply experiencing the growing relief that comes with living outside the US during Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office. It could be something to do with the arrival of spring. Or maybe I’ve temporarily exhausted my store of complaints (seasonally adjusted to reflect how many people are around to listen to them). In any case, I’m determined to make hay while the sun shines – getting outside, and looking for stamped envelopes on the ground./guardian