Abstract :
In ‘Happiness and the Human Development Index:
The Paradox of Australia’, Blanchflower
and Oswald (2005) observe an apparent puzzle:
they claim that Australia ranks highly in
the Human Development Index (HDI), but relatively
poorly in happiness. However, when we
compare their happiness data with the HDI,
Australia appears happier, not sadder, than its
HDI score would predict. This conclusion also
holds when we turn to a larger cross-national
dataset than the one used by Blanchflower and
Oswald, when we analyse life satisfaction in
place of happiness, and when we measure development
using Gross Domestic Product per
capita in place of the HDI. Indeed, in the World
Values Survey, only one other country (Iceland)
has a significantly higher level of both
life satisfaction and happiness than Australia.
Our findings accord with numerous crossnational
surveys conducted since the 1940s,
which have consistently found that Australians
report high levels of well-being.
