I actually don’t think I’d consider suicide rates a very reliable proxy for the average happiness of a population, although I’m not sure if a numerical response to a survey question would be better or worse. They might easily end up having more to do with rates of mental illness, or with sudden changes in individual happiness rather than its base rate; even if the absolute value of happiness does turn out to dominate, its variance over a given culture might be more significant to suicide rates than its mean. And then there are culture-bound attitudes to deal with, which grow considerably in importance when dealing with highly heterodox subcultures like Kiryas Joel.
I don’t mean to overstate the reliability of suicide rates for happiness. A variety of factors may influence them. However, there are reasons to believe they correlate with happiness.
What is a good measure of happiness? Virtually all measures are deeply flawed, but the most reliable is probably: Intra-observer self-report in situations when signalling is unlikely. People are probably decent at knowing when they were happier or less happy within their own lives. Inter-observer reports are far harder to justify.
People report being happier when they live in places with adequate sunshine; inadequate sunshine correlates with increased suicide rates.
People report being happier when they are not facing loss of job, public humiliation, divorce, and a number of other events; these events correlate with increase suicide rates.
People report being happier when mental illness symptoms are reduced (particularly depression); people with mental illness (particularly depression) have a higher suicide rate.
Obviously, suicide rates are not a perfect proxy for happiness… but I cannot find a more reliable easily-measured statistic.
I actually don’t think I’d consider suicide rates a very reliable proxy for the average happiness of a population, although I’m not sure if a numerical response to a survey question would be better or worse. They might easily end up having more to do with rates of mental illness, or with sudden changes in individual happiness rather than its base rate; even if the absolute value of happiness does turn out to dominate, its variance over a given culture might be more significant to suicide rates than its mean. And then there are culture-bound attitudes to deal with, which grow considerably in importance when dealing with highly heterodox subcultures like Kiryas Joel.
Self-reporting does have its own issues, though.
I don’t mean to overstate the reliability of suicide rates for happiness. A variety of factors may influence them. However, there are reasons to believe they correlate with happiness.
What is a good measure of happiness? Virtually all measures are deeply flawed, but the most reliable is probably: Intra-observer self-report in situations when signalling is unlikely. People are probably decent at knowing when they were happier or less happy within their own lives. Inter-observer reports are far harder to justify.
People report being happier when they live in places with adequate sunshine; inadequate sunshine correlates with increased suicide rates. People report being happier when they are not facing loss of job, public humiliation, divorce, and a number of other events; these events correlate with increase suicide rates. People report being happier when mental illness symptoms are reduced (particularly depression); people with mental illness (particularly depression) have a higher suicide rate.
Obviously, suicide rates are not a perfect proxy for happiness… but I cannot find a more reliable easily-measured statistic.