This week, “The word for eco” is “happiness”: perhaps that of being retired? In any case, there is an index of happiness. What is it about ?
This is a very serious indicator set up by the United Nations, the happiness index…
franceinfo: What does this happiness index actually cover?
Guillaume Gaven: The Happiness Index not only aggregates the money we can earn – in technical terms, we call it GDP per capita – but it’s well known that money isn’t everything. So the UN also takes into account life expectancy in good health, the intensity of social ties, freedom, generosity and corruption.
In total, according to the 2023 report which has just been published this week, the happiest country in the world is Finland, with the other countries of Northern Europe prancing in the lead. France is number 21: nothing to be proud of. In short, this index of happiness, the Asteres firm had fun crossing it with the retirement age, and the time spent in retirement. And the results are quite surprising.
Why surprising?
Well, it turns out that just because you retire early doesn’t necessarily mean you’re happier. Be careful, the reverse is not valid: retiring late does not necessarily make you happy. But by comparing what is comparable, that is to say by limiting oneself to OECD countries – therefore to developed countries – Asteres realized that those who retired the earliest were not included at the top of the Happiness Index chart.
Thus, in Finland, big winner of the happiness index, retirement is at 64 years. The following countries, Denmark, Iceland, the Netherlands, leave at 67. Then come Sweden and Norway, where there, we leave at 62, as in France for the moment. In short, it is difficult to draw hasty conclusions.
And why retirement is not necessarily synonymous with happiness?
First, it’s obvious: when you’re retired, you earn less money. In more economic terms, working longer increases GDP per capita. And incidentally, it maintains social ties, even if since the Covid, these ties have become a little stretched.
And that’s not all. If we continue the reasoning, no longer on the age at which one retires, but on the time spent as a retiree, it appears that spending more years in retirement does not seem to be accompanied by an increase in happiness. It would even be slightly the opposite.
The method of analysis is scientific. The lessons that we could draw from it, much less. Let’s stick to the facts.