People have been suspecting that higher income means higher levels of life satisfaction for a long time now. A new study now confirms that those suspicions may be true.
Contrary to the popular beliefs and what were the results of other older studies, this new study shows that there is no limit to the amount of happiness that can come with a higher income.
Betsy Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, two economists of the University of Michigan used the economic and polling data to study this. They found that people in the nations with higher per capita GDP tend to have a better quality life and higher levels of life satisfaction.
And that's the case with just the countries with higher per capita GDP, it's the same across the world. Betsy and Justin found that there is a correlation within countries that show that people with higher income have a more satisfying life than their counterparts.
According to US News, they write "The relationship between well-being and income does not diminish as incomes rise. If there is a satiation point, we are yet to reach it."
This completely blows off previous studies that showed us that once our "basic needs" are met, more money does not improve the satisfaction other people have in their lives.
There has been a stereotype who has been saying that money cannot buy happiness. They can be proved wrong with this study.
But there are still issues with this research and whether or not it proves that money does actually "buys" a better life. However, one thing that's important to mention here, is that they did not plot the income dollar-for-dollar against happiness measures in the graphs.
Justin acknowledges that happiness may be contributing to a greater income. So for instance, if a person is happy in the workplace, then they might get promoted more often than a perpetual grouch. Or maybe there are other outside factors at play here, like democracy. It helps people boost their income as well as happiness at the same time, and this might be the reason why many stable, strong democracies tend to have relatively high per capita GDP.
