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Happiness and Longevity: Unhappy People Die Young, Otherwise Happiness Probably Makes No Difference

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Abstract

Based on analysis of long-running panel surveys in Germany and Australia, we offer a revised assessment of the relationship between subjective well-being (happiness, life satisfaction) and longevity. Most previous research has reported a linear positive relationship; the happier people are, the longer they live (Diener and Chan in Appl Psychol Health Well-Being 3:1–43, 2011. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-0854.2010.01045.x). Results from these two panels indicate that, if a linear model is assumed, the standard positive relationship between life satisfaction and longevity is found. However, an alternative viewpoint merits consideration. It appears that the relationship between happiness and longevity may be non-linear. The evidence is strong that unhappy people die young. Otherwise, across the rest of the distribution, happiness appears to make no difference to longevity. Our findings are consistent using alternative methods of estimation, and are robust with or without controlling for a range of variables known to affect longevity, including socio-economic variables, behavioral choices (e.g. exercise, smoking) and health status.

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Notes

  1. Respondents were asked whether they were ‘happy most of the time’ (39%), usually happy (44%) or unhappy (17%).

  2. Data on obesity (body-mass index) were not collected until 2005 in HILDA. Too many deaths would be lost to analysis if obesity were to be included in Australian results.

  3. The alternative would have been to use ‘years’ (1984, 1985…). However, it is clear that death is more likely to be due to the non-linear effects of aging than to the effects of being alive for one more year, then two, then three, and so on.

  4. Church attendance is not included in the Australian results. The relevant question is only asked intermittently in HILDA. Too many deaths would be lost to analysis if the measure were to be included.

  5. The index correlates 0.46 with LS.

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Acknowledgements

The German panel data used in this publication were made available to us by the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), Berlin. The Australian panel data came from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. The HILDA Project was initiated and is funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services (DSS) and is managed by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research (Melbourne Institute). The findings and views reported in this paper, however, are those of the authors and should not be attributed to DIW, DSS or the Melbourne Institute.

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  1. Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne, L5, 111 Barry Street, FBE Building, Parkville, VIC, 3010, Australia

    Bruce Headey & Jongsay Yong

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  1. Bruce Headey
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Correspondence to Bruce Headey.

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 7.

Table 7 Detailed German and Australian results for the base model, extended model I and extended model II: Cox proportional hazard estimates (p values in parentheses)
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Headey, B., Yong, J. Happiness and Longevity: Unhappy People Die Young, Otherwise Happiness Probably Makes No Difference. Soc Indic Res 142, 713–732 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-018-1923-2

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