It has always been said that money does not buy happiness. However, it is countries with a high GDP per capita, such as Finland ($50,916), Denmark ($67,790) or Iceland ($73,466) that year after year top the rankings of the happiest in the world, according to the latest Gallup Poll. . These types of statistics have historically shown a strong correlation between income, wealth, and life satisfaction. That is, the richer a country is, the happier its citizens tend to be. New research has studied some of the places that are usually left out of these surveys, with results that have managed to break the norm.
Researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and McGill University in Canada have recently published a study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States that delve into the happiness levels of isolated communities. The scientists surveyed nearly 3,000 people belonging to indigenous groups and other remote populations in 18 countries in the global South, including Paraguay, Tanzania and Fiji. Originally, these places were the subject of expeditions that sought to measure the impact of climate change, although the questionnaires included a question to evaluate life satisfaction.
The survey showed an average life satisfaction of 6.8 out of 10, a value similar to that of industrialized societies where GDP per capita exceeds $40,000 annually. The populations analyzed in this study live in close contact with nature, on which they depend to sell their products in local markets, and in most of them an income of less than $1,000 per year is estimated. In some, their members have rated their average happiness level above 8 out of 10.
In previous research, these same anthropologists concluded that minimally monetized societies enjoyed high levels of subjective happiness. Among the factors that most influence the life satisfaction of the members of these communities are permanent contact with nature, participation and social interaction, or the absence of corruption. A fact that contrasts with citizens of the richest nations, who tend to prioritize economic factors to evaluate their happiness.
The authors of the study believe that one can be satisfied with life by default, once people have their basic needs covered and without requiring high rates of material consumption. “It has long been known that non-monetary factors are important for well-being; The idea here is that these factors can produce higher levels of satisfaction, at the population level, than is normally thought,” they conclude.
