The relationship between money and happiness

Although earning more usually increases the chances of being happy, this has a limit.

Happiness is related to money. It's as simple as that, but with nuances. Some authors are quick to assert that "money is not everything" or that "it does not buy happiness". The former we could accept, the latter needs to be explained. Having established the connection between salary and personal well-being, experts suggest that there are levels and ranges of income to measure the extent to which this is true.

On the other hand, if money is happiness, to what extent does income affect it? Is there any income limit that cannot increase happiness? A study published in the journal Nature reveals some curiosities. However, some psychologists, such as the American Charles Whitehead, remain skeptical on this issue and deny the conclusions of the study that we will discuss below.

Money does not buy happiness?

Socially it is more than accepted that money does not bring happiness. In fact, in 2010 a study was published by the University of Victoria (New Zealand) which affirms, effectively, that money was equal to well-being but that, in no way, it was capable of "buying" doses of happiness. In this study, almost 500,000 interviews were conducted in some 70 countries around the globe. The conclusions were that freedom and leisure time are more important than accumulable wealth when it comes to well-being. when it comes to well-being.

Some believe that this was an intentional study to calm the masses at a time of economic crisis and a decline in the purchasing power of citizens worldwide. In a manner of speaking, this study was an emotional relief for those groups who were convinced that Bill Gates and Amancios Ortega were living happier lives.

Well, they were not so wrong. Another joint study between Harvard and Columbia University (USA) contradicts the research of their oceanic colleagues. It is more a matter of semantics. Money doesn't buy happiness, true, but it does help to be able to invest in it in terms of time and money. but it does help to be able to invest in it in leisure time.. What unequivocally distinguishes happy people from unhappy ones is the time variable. If we have a good income and we know how to manage our leisure time with our working life, we can have a much better chance of being happy, while the population with less money has to accept precarious jobs with long hours or moonlighting to survive.

The problem is that the reverse is not true. If we have little money but a lot of free time, we will not be able to invest in our well-being.We do not have enough resources to be able to make the most of our free time. The logic is as follows: time without obligations minimizes the effects of stress and anxiety, which increases happiness.

The limits of the money versus happiness relationship

To determine the correlation between happiness and money, American sociologists and expert researchers in human behavior Andrew T. Jebb, Louis Tay, Ed Diener and Shigehiro Oishi, conducted their study using the Gallup method. The Gallup Organization is specifically charged with measuring, analyzing and studying the behavior of individuals to resolve issues of concern to society at large.

Having chosen the Gallup World Poll, the authors relied on a panel of 2 million people from around the world, controlling for demographic factors that determine income by area of data collection, in a randomized manner to minimize any bias. At the end of the study, an enlightening result was obtained: there is a threshold beyond which earning more money does not provide more happiness. This threshold ranges between $60,000 and $90,000 a year. 90,000 per year. Figures that exceed this amount are incapable of generating more happiness or emotional stability.

Free time, an unknown factor

As this is a subject of extreme complexity to draw exact conclusions, each author involved in this type of study or research tries to collect different variables and statements to support a more realistic thesis. To this end, both Elizabeth Dunn, a research collaborator at Columbia University, and Louis Tay, agree that the time factor is the mother of all unknowns.

A parallel study was conducted to substantiate this thesis. With a smaller number of participants, just over a thousand of them (and only in the United States), well-to-do people, multimillionaires and middle or lower-middle class people were grouped together, and more than half of the respondents said they were unaware of the advantage of investing in reducing stress by relieving themselves of other responsibilities that mean they have more time for responsibilities that mean they have more time for themselves.