Happiness is Free
Russland Aktuell reports of a new survey undertaken by Russian pollsters VZIOM that again sheds light at (the perception of) happiness in the CIS. According to the findings, there is a majority of happy people in seven out of twelve CIS states.
Leading the league are Kazakhstani citizens: 73% of those asked responded that they are happy with their lives. Coming in second and third are Belarus and Kyrgyzstan (both 65%). The share of Russia’s population being happy with their lives is 51%. The majority of Azeris (52%) and Ukrainians (61%) are unhappy.
Asked for their economic situation, 45% of all Kazakhstanis responded with “positive” and only 2% with “negative”. As money alone doesn’t make you happy, Azeris are (despite their general unhappiness) generally positive about their material situation (41%).
Now here comes the expert opinion on why Kazakhstan tops the league (my translation and emphasis):
According to VZIOM communications director Igor Eidman, Kazakhstan’s top position is not only explained by the booming economy. “The assessment of one’s own happiness depends on two factors: one objective, on which the general economic situation and personal welfare have a strong influence; and one subjective, which is determined by people’s mentality.”
The oriental attitude of those people in Kazakhstan and also Kyrgyzstan makes them more loyal to their leaders: “It isn’t customary there to complain of the state about one’s fortune,” Eichman says.
Although public opinion polling in the region is weak, it’s true that happiness indeces continuously show high general life satisfaction in Central Asia. In one of our posts on the Uzbekistan blog, James presents some better reasons for this Central Asian Happiness. James says that it might have something to do with relatively decent levels of income equality.
Unfortunately, the article didn’t have any data on Uzbekistan, but I’ll look out for updates.
on June 12th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
interesting article and a beautiful picture.
i wonder about the methods of research and questions asked.
I think very few people tend to give negative answers, out of politeness. it is believed, that spreading about one’s private feelings [esp. negative] or complaining is generally seen as weakness of character. The complaint doesn’t count to one’s virtues, so people tend to avoid doing so. I can very well imagine people giving positive answers, because they wouldn’t spread about their worries with strangers. i assume, many also think they are happy, or want to make an impression that they are wealthy happy. Complaining in my view has to do directly with ungratefulness, which is vice, moral weakness. there is a lot of work done in the society on a personal level to tend to think positively, and be grateful for what they have got, and being thankful for not having it worse, like the neighbor aka Alisher, for instance. on a social level, no matter how poor the people are they tend to collect loads of money in order to organize some beautiful festivities, or buildings of houses tend to have much nicer [nice looking] front than the rest of the house, which is the case in many other places around the world i think.
but i find it difficult to make such a conclusion, that people are happier because they say they are happy. but one conclusion can be made for sure here. Central Asians tend to give more positive answers, and supposedly, think positively and hope for the great future of their countries….
[these are just my impressions, i grew up in Samarkand; i have been thinking about Uzbek society and people, while commenting on your article]
regards,
nafis
on June 12th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
My theory is that the more happy people are the less drive they may have to achieve things. On that grounds I think there should be a direct correlation between happiness (or lack thereof) and the economic progress (allother things being equal).
I aggree with the definition of happiness mentioned in the article and how it correlates to objective and subjective reality.
But again all said and done, it is more of a subjective thing rather than an ojective one. If I judge my success according to what people achieve in Tajikistan at my age I should probably be quite happy (and I am to a certain extent, don’t get me wrong).
BUT I don’t think I am there yet and that creates a little dissapointed, which in turn fuels my drive to go out and achieve more.
Bottom line: The moment when we stop seeing areas which can be improved (that comes only if we adopt a critical look at our lives) we stop moving forward, so in many ways being “unhappy” is good at the end of the day.
It is sort of like saying: “Greed, ladies and gentlemen, is GOOD”. (a quote by Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) from 1987 film “Wall Street”)