Graduation Address

"Encaenia Address by John F. Helliwell, 'Be Happy,' Ceremony A." (16 May 2001). (UA Case 67, Box 3)

Think of me as a cheerleader for the good life, for yourselves and for others. Normally, I would congratulate you on reaching your graduation day, acknowledge the contributions that you, your families, your communities, your teachers, and your fellow citizens have made to your success thus far, and exit smiling. But I have been immersed in recent months in the study of well-being, and since much of what I have found relates so closely to you, your studies, and your subjects, I cannot resist passing some of it along, since you are there, I am here, and tea can wait.

Respondents in more than fifty countries, surveyed in three waves between 1981 and 1997, have been asked how satisfied they are with their lives in general, on a ten-point scale. From what is known about their own life circumstances, and of the circumstances in their communities and nations, it is possible to find out what appears to be most important in peoples’ lives. Those of you who have gained the chance to be here today through the love and support of your families will not be surprised to learn how important are family and friends to life satisfaction. Indeed this is true for life itself, as networks of family and trusted friends have been found to save lives, reducing mortality from almost all causes. I have even found that nations with low trust and less respect for the rights of others also have significantly higher rates of fatal traffic accidents, although time is too short to explain that result today.

Those of you in kinesiology will be glad to know of the strikingly strong contribution of good health, but especially of feeling in good health, to life satisfaction. Not only does more exercise save lives through the many channels you have studied more closely than I, the activities, and especially the social relations that they engender, raise life satisfaction not just for the participants, but for their families and communities.

This latter connections exists because the good life, as seen by individuals, depends not just on their own circumstances, but on the quality of their communities, and on the prevalence of active participation in community life. People are more satisfied when they participate more in voluntary organizations, and are happier still if they are living in communities and countries where such participation is the norm.

Turning to moral issues, religious belief and church participation both contribute to life satisfaction, as does interpersonal trust, respect for others, and respect for the laws and norms that govern social and community life. For example, the majority who believe that it is never justifiable to cheat on taxes are happier than those who think that cheating is sometimes justifiable, and they are happier still if they live in countries where that view is shared by their fellow citizens. The same goes for mutual trust; those who believe others can be trusted tend to be happier, and happier still if their trust is shared more generally. There have actually been experiments where wallets have been dropped in cities around the world. People who live in countries where wallets are more likely to be returned are significantly happier than those in other countries, even after allowing for lots of other factors. Those of you in administration will be glad to hear how important you are to our future lives: those who live in well-governed communities are happier for it, even beyond any effects that might flow through better health and higher incomes.

How about income? If you spend a lot of time watching or reading the ads, you might well think that a fancy car is happiness on wheels, and in general that more goodies mean a better life. The data give a quite different and more subtle picture. People with higher incomes do tend to be more satisfied with life, but the effect diminishes sharply as incomes rises, and as people get used to having and spending their higher incomes. It is a hopeful sign for the environment, and indeed for world peace, that people appear to get diminishing benefits from higher incomes, but show no signs of reduced interest in living in a better functioning society.

Finally let’s turn to education, the chosen métier for many here today. You will be glad to hear that you are right up there with the family and the community as our guarantors of better lives. Unfortunately, I have to report that just having more education will not make you happier. What education does for happiness and life satisfaction is both more subtle and more fundamental than that: education is the strongest and most reliable predictor of both trust and participation in community life, both of which are key to life satisfaction. People with better educations also want and get better governments, partly through their own participation, whether at the community or national levels. Of course, education is the modern ticket to most modern jobs, and more education also usually means a more fulfilling job, another key item in the recipe for a happier life. Even having a job means much more than the income it provides, as unemployment lowers life satisfaction by much more than would be implied by the loss of income. Thus more and better education does indeed make people happier, not by magic or automatically, but through a variety of channels, most of which require further work and wisdom.

It is tempting, especially on days like today, when you are looking back over years of study and contemplating the next stages of your lives, to ask what lessons there may be for you, or for us collectively, from this recent research on well-being. It is early days yet in this research, but already it is possible to see how lucky we are to be living in Canada. Canadians don’t know whether to be amused, proud, embarrassed or skeptical when they hear that once again Canada is at the top of the list of countries ranked according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) measure of the quality of life. Stay modest, feel lucky, and remember that there are many other countries that are about equally lucky. The well-being research suggests is that the UNDP measure is right to bring in measures of health, education, and distribution, and to reduce the relative importance of income as income levels rise. The new results show that an even wider set of factors come into play, including trust, quality of government, and community participation.

On many of these dimensions Canada ranks very well. On most of them, the Scandinavian countries do even better. There are many other countries, especially in most of the former Soviet Union, and throughout large parts of the developing world, where life is much worse in many dimensions. Life satisfaction is also systematically lower, despite the remarkable ability that people have to face adversity with a smile. As a footnote, it turns out that having a happy and optimistic disposition not only prolongs your own life, it brightens life for others too. You may not be able to change your basic personality, but smiles are catching, and personality make-overs sound like a lot more fun than a tummy tuck.

Returning to those countries that lack institutions and ideas necessary to build better lives for their citizens and their children, what can be done? Helping them to build their own capacity to achieve better lives provides perhaps the most important chance for you and for Canadians in general, whether individually or collectively, to serve themselves by serving others. It is true for international aid, just as for individual well-being, that involvement, trust and mutual efforts are much more important than money.

All of you today have the tools to contribute in your own specific ways to the well-being of your families, communities, and to the world at large. Now it’s time for me to exit, smiling of course.