Happiness on the Eurobarometer

It's bad news for Dave.

By David Blanchflower Published 19 January 2012

It's bad news for Dave.{C}

David Cameron has pushed for a new measure of well-being as part of his Big Society nonsense, but I have some bad news for him: happiness has been falling fast under the coalition.

How do I know this? The European Union already regularly asks thousands of people in their Eurobarometer surveys how satisfied they are with their lives. Data for 2011 is now in, and the graph below plots the evidence.

There are some striking results. First, happiness was "untrended" with a few random bumps for a quarter of a century until the end of the millennium. Then happiness rose steadily for a decade under the Labour government reaching a year peak in 2010, but it has been collapsing since 2011. Not good news Dave.

So now it's official: the coalition is not good for the nation's well-being.

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Tags: big society

View the discussion thread.

14 comments

Sun, 2012-01-29 14:26 — Jos (not verified)

Danny - the data doesnt speak for itself, your theory has a major flaw

satisfaction decreased after the financial crisis, which is called a 'recession' caused by Labours overspending & massive deficit. Not coalition policies

this has plumbed new depths, you have to be joking here, a bit early for April fools..

Fri, 2012-01-20 20:20 — Indu Pendent (not verified)

@danny

"Down under the coalition up under Labour."

How did Labour pay for it? People are not happy now but have figured it out and are blaming Labour (see the opinion polls). Fewer happy public sector people too - bring it on (most people are saying).

I wont be asking you to run one of my business teams. You would run the business down and lose everyone their job in the pursuit of the happy clappy.

Fri, 2012-01-20 20:27 — Indu Pendent (not verified)

BTW: insnt 2005 and 2010 the era of rampant bonuses, wage rises and greed? But people did support Labour then. As a reward.

Your chart provides evidence of the UK's broken political system.