Exploring geographies of happiness and well-being in Britain

1
Exploring geographies of happiness and well-being
in Britain

• Dimitris Ballas
• Social and Spatial Inequalities (SASI) research
  group
• Department of Geography
• University of Sheffield
• http//www.sheffield.ac.uk/sasi

ESRC-funded research fellowship Understanding
Population Trends And Processes (UPTAP)
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Aims (1)

• Investigate different definitions of happiness
  and explore the degree to which happiness varies
  over time and space
• Extend existing work on the perception of
  happiness by providing a detailed explanation of
  what are the factors and life events that make
  different types of individuals happy and how
  these affect the overall structure and cohesion
  of society.
• Produce an extensive critical review of existing
  theories of happiness.
• Add a geographical dimension to the existing
  research on happiness.

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Aims (2)

• Build a geographical model of happiness that will
  be capable of providing information on the
  different degrees of happiness attained by people
  in different regions and localities, under
  alternative scenarios and happiness definitions.
• Produce an extensive critical review of existing
  theories of happiness.
• Examine the factors and life events affecting
  happiness during the lifetime of different types
  of individuals, in order to build a model capable
  of predicting the future trends in happiness and
  prosperity for different geographical areas.
• Explore the relationship between what defines
  happiness and socio-economic phenomena, such as
  unemployment and income inequalities

4
Aims (3)

• Use a simulation model to estimate the different
  degrees of happiness attained by people in
  different regions and localities, under
  alternative scenarios and happiness definitions.
• Examine the relationship of happiness and
  capability, on the basis of past relevant
  research (such as the work of Sen, 1993)
• Examine the possible impact of happiness of
  income and wealth redistribution
• Investigate the possible impact on happiness of
  basic income policies which could increase the
  economic independence of all individuals in
  society (Van Parijs, 1997 and 2001).
• Provide projections of how British society will
  look in the next 10 and 20 years, under
  alternative assumptions.

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What is happiness?

• Greece, circa 500 BC
• Socrates, Plato ?
• Aristotle (384-322 BC)
• Nichomachean Ethics (350 BC)
• http//classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html
  
• England, 18th century
• Bentham (1748 1832), the principle of Utility
• John Stuart Mill (1806 1873) Utilarianism
• http//www.utilitarianism.com/

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What is happiness? Can it be measured?

• Human perceptions of happiness vary and depend on
  a wide range of factors
• What is the good life for man? The question of
  what is a full and rich life cannot be answered
  for an individual in abstraction from the society
  in which he lives
• (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics)
• Can happiness be measured?
• Happiness is subjective and no objective theory
  about the ordinary concept of happiness has the
  slightest plausibility
• (Sumner, 1996)

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What is happiness? Can it be measured?

• A person who has had a life of misfortune, with
  very little opportunities, and rather little
  hope, may be more easily reconciled to
  deprivations than others reared in more fortunate
  and affluent circumstances. The metric of
  happiness may, therefore, distort the extent of
  deprivation in a specific and biased way.
• (Sen, 1987 45)
• Can happiness be measured?
• Oswald and Clark (2002) statistical regression
  models of happiness measuring the impact of
  different life events upon human well being

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Happiness and economics

• Happiness is defined as utility
• Utility can be measured and compared across
  people
• Marginal utility of income is assumed to be
  higher for poor people than for rich people
• Hicks and Kaldor proposed a measure of national
  welfare similar to GDP adjusted for leisure and
  pollution

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BUT can Happiness be measured?

• Richard Layard (2005), Andrew Owswald (2002) and
  others argue that it can!
• By happiness I mean feeling good enjoying
• Life and feeling is wonderful. And by
• Unhappiness I mean feeling bad and wishing things
  were different (Layard, 2005)

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General happiness Self Completion (4) Question
Number and Text KS1L Have you recently....been
feeling reasonably happy, all things considered?
Source The British Household Panel Survey, 2001
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General Health Questionnaire (1) Have you
recently

• Been able to concentrate on whatever you are
  doing?
• Lost much sleep over worry?
• Felt that you are playing a useful part in
  things?
• Felt capable of making decisions about things?
• Felt constantly under strain?
• Felt you could not overcome your difficulties?

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General Health Questionnaire (2) Have you
recently

• Been able to enjoy your normal day-to-day
  activities?
• Been able to face up to your problems?
• Been feeling unhappy or depressed?
• Been losing confidence in yourself?
• Been thinking of yourself as a worthless person?
• Been feeling reasonable happy all things
  considered?

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Happiness in different activities (after Layard,
2005)
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Happiness in different activities (after Layard,
2005)
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Can happiness be measured?

• Positive and negative feelings are inversely
  correlated
• Happiness can be thought of as a single variable
  (Layard, 2005)

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Happiness and inequality

• A house may be large or small as long as the
  surrounding houses are equally small it satisfies
  all social demands for a dwelling. But if a
  palace arises beside the little house, the little
  house shrinks to a hovel and the dweller will
  feel more and more uncomfortable, dissatisfied
  and cramped within its four walls.
• (Marx and Engels, 1848 268)

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Happiness and inequality

• When we are at home, most of us like to live in
  roughly the same style as our friends or
  neighbours, or better. If our friends start
  giving more elaborate parties, we feel we should
  do the same. Likewise if they have bigger houses
  or bigger cars.
• (Layard, 2005 43)

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Happiness and inequality

• similarly at work, I compare my income with
  what my colleagues get, in so far as I hear about
  it. If they get a raise above inflation and I get
  inflation only, I get mad.
• (Layard, 2005 44)

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Happiness and inequality

• Interviewing single mothers on council estates a
  few years ago it was striking that most spoke
  about their depressing social isolation. They
  couldnt afford to keep up with former friends,
  because they hadnt the money to make even the
  most minimal gestures required of a friendship
  sending birthday cards or buying rounds of
  drinks. As one said at the time My friends will
  offer to buy me a round - but I have to say no,
  because I cant buy the next. As a consequence,
  these womens social circles had shrunk to their
  mothers and their lovers, because these were the
  only relationships which could be maintained
  without the expectation of financial
  reciprocity.
• (Russell, 2006 93)

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The One Percent Is Always The Same (OPIATS) rule

• This rule implies that if my income is 100,000
  and I give 20,000 of it to the poor, my
  well-being falls by a fifth. If I divide my
  20,000 equally between ten people with incomes
  of 10,000 ten peoples well-being will rise by a
  fifth. The gains from this gift will thus exceed
  the losses by a factor of ten. The utilitarian
  case for governmental redistribution almost
  always reflects this logic taxing the rich wont
  do them much harm, and helping the poor will do
  them a lot of good. If you look at the actual
  relationship between income and outcomes like
  health and happiness the OPIATS rule seldom
  describes the relationship perfectly but it comes
  far closer than the One Dollar is Always the
  Same rule, which is the only rule under which
  income inequality does not affect health or
  happiness.
• (Jencks, 2002 57)

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Exploring geographies of happiness

• What is the degree of happiness attained by
  different types of individuals in various
  localities and regions in Britain? Does space
  matter?
• Happiness and inequality and space rethinking
  regional economic policy
• Happiness, prosperity and regional/local GDP
  growth
• Is the source of happiness or unhappiness
  personal or it has more to do with inequalities
  in the distribution of income, wealth, skills and
  capability?
• Rivalry and geography rivalries of place

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Exploring geographies of happiness

• the broad impression is that social class
  stratification establishes itself primarily as a
  national social structure, though there are
  perhaps also some more local civic hierarchies
  for instance within cities and US states. But it
  should go without saying that classes are defined
  in relation to each other one is higher because
  the other is lower, and vice versa. The lower
  class identity of people in a poor neighbourhood
  is inevitably defined in relation to a hierarchy
  which includes a knowledge of the existence of
  superior classes who may live in other areas some
  distance away.
•  
• (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2006 7, my emphasis)

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Links between income inequality and population
health (Wilkinson and Picket, 2006)

• The proportion of analyses classified as wholly
  supportive falls from 83 (of all wholly
  supportive or unsupportive) in the international
  studies to 73 in the large sub-national areas,
  to 45 among the smallest spatial units.
• The spatial scale at which people make their
  social comparisons is more likely to be the
  nation state (arguably reflecting socio-economic
  position) than it is to locality (reflecting
  position within neighbourhood).

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Geographies of happiness in Britain
Source The British Household Panel Survey, 2001
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Geographies of unhappiness in Britain
REGION BY SOCIAL CLASS CLASS 1 CLASS 2 CLASS 3 CLASSES 1 - 3 N
Rest of Yorks Humberside 3.3 7.1 7.0 5.9 328
Tyne Wear 10.0 7.1 3.4 7.2 264
East Midlands 5.3 8.1 11.2 7.9 782
Inner London 10.3 5.2 8.8 7.9 418
Rest of North West 4.9 9.2 12.3 8.5 454
South West 11.7 6.7 8.9 8.7 930
Greater Manchester 14.5 8.2 4.8 9.3 416
West Midlands Conurbation 10.5 8.9 8.8 9.3 453
East Anglia 10.7 6.5 13.3 9.5 390
Merseyside 17.6 9.2 0.0 9.5 233
West Yorkshire 14.5 7.7 9.6 10.2 364
Rest of South East 10.5 10.8 8.7 10.3 1,875
Outer London 8.9 13.3 6.9 10.7 668
Rest of West Midlands 8.9 11.6 14.9 11.5 506
Rest of North 19.7 10.4 8.5 12.4 400
Wales 11.1 12.9 15.3 13.0 533
South Yorkshire 17.6 11.6 24.2 15.4 293
Great Britain 10.5 9.3 9.7 9.8 10,264

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Spatial distribution of unhappiness
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Modelling happiness and well-being

• Regression models
• Multi-level modelling approaches
• Microsimulation and Spatial Microsimulation

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What is microsimulation?

• A technique aiming at building large scale data
  sets
• Modelling at the microscale
• A means of modelling real life events by
  simulating the characteristics and actions of the
  individual units that make up the system where
  the events occur

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A microsimulation approach to happiness research
A person who has had a life of misfortune, with
very little opportunities, and rather little
hope, may be more easily reconciled to
deprivations than others reared in more fortunate
and affluent circumstances. The metric of
happiness may, therefore, distort the extent of
deprivation in a specific and biased way.
(Sen, 1987 45)
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Towards geographical simulation models of
happiness

• Census of UK population
• fine geographical detail
• Small area data available only in tabular format
  with limited variables to preserve
  confidentiality
• cross-sectional

• British Household Panel Survey
• sample size more than 5,000 households
• Annual surveys (waves) since 1991
• Coarse geography
• Household attrition

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An extract from the BHPS
PERSON AHID PID AAGE12 SEX AJBSTAT AHLLT AQFVOC ATENURE AJLSEG
1 1000209 10002251 91 2 4 1 1 6 9
2 1000381 10004491 28 1 3 2 0 7 -8
3 1000381 10004521 26 1 3 2 0 7 -8
4 1000667 10007857 58 2 2 2 1 7 -8
5 1001221 10014578 54 2 1 2 0 2 -8
6 1001221 10014608 57 1 2 2 1 2 -8
7 1001418 10016813 36 1 1 2 1 3 -8
8 1001418 10016848 32 2 -7 2 -7 3 -7
9 1001418 10016872 10 1 -8 -8 -8 3 -8
10 1001507 10017933 49 2 1 2 0 2 -8
11 1001507 10017968 46 1 2 2 0 2 -8
12 1001507 10017992 12 2 -8 -8 -8 2 -8
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A simplified version of Census data
Small area table 1 (household type) Small area table 2 (economic activity of household head) Small area table 3 (tenure status)
Area 1 Area 1 Area 1
60 "married couple households" 80 employed/self-employed 60 owner occupier
20 "Single-person households" 10 unemployed 20 Local Authority or Housing association
20 "Other" 20 other 20 Rented privately
Area 2 Area 2 Area 2
40 "married couple households" 60 employed/self-employed 60 owner occupier
20 "Single-person households" 20 unemployed 20 Local Authority or Housing association
40 "Other" 20 other 20 Rented privately
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Spatial microsimulation procedures
The construction of a micro-dataset from samples
and surveys Static What-if simulations, in which
the impacts of alternative policy scenarios on
the population are estimated for instance if
there had been no poll tax in 1991 which
communities would have benefited most and which
would have had to have paid more tax in other
forms? Dynamic modelling, to update a basic
micro-dataset and future-oriented what-if
simulations for instance if the current
government had raised income taxes in 1997 what
would the redistributive effects have been
between different socio-economic groups and
between central cities and their suburbs by 2007?
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Towards geographical models of happiness

• adding a geographical dimension to explore the
  geography of well-being, based on the estimated
  database through the 1990s and early 2000s
• maps of well-being can be produced for different
  types of people (i.e. by age)
• Income and wealth inequalities and happiness
  (what does money buy you in different places?)