I don't mind being unhappy.

My bank account is bulging and I don't mind being unhappy.

Weird.

MLK
you must have a high opinion of your own perceptiveness, and a very low one of your fellow humanity, if you really believe that the75+% who report being happy are lying because they’re embarrassed to admit the truth

Rhian, have a look at this paper http://econrsss.anu.edu.au/~aleigh/pdf/TopIncomesAustralia.pdf . According to this research "during the 1980s and 1990s, top income shares rose rapidly. At the start of the twenty-first century, the income share of the richest was higher than it had been at any point in the previous fifty years. Among top income groups, recent decades have also seen a rise in the share of top income accruing to the super-rich." For, the salary of Alan Moss, head of Macquarie Bank, is now $30 million per annum, 2% of Macquarie's net profit.

Australia is clearly becoming a more unequal place. My point was that if (a big if) ordinary folk are comparing themselves to the rich, they are likely to have become more dissatisfied. Don't forget to throw in increasing job insecurity and disproportionate tax cuts for the well-off.

I can agree with you on MLK's comments. The notion that people are lying in surveys on their level of happiness seems a little silly.

Johnj I agree with you on this point. The widening gap between rich and poor is a catalyst for dissatisfaction and possible social unrest. Australians as a whole have increased in wealth but we do not want to create an American style underclass. Unfortunately we do seem to be heading in this direction currently. Perhaps a change of government might slow this.

Rhian and Johnj,

‘The notion that people are lying in surveys on their level of happiness seems a little silly.’

Why should it be ‘silly’ to suggest that people lie on surveys? Even professional researchers recognise the tendency to give socially desirable, as opposed to real, responses to value-loaded survey questions. This tendency is even acknowledged in the following quote that comes from the ABS site you linked to, Rhian (Thursday, 24 May 2007 4:36:24 PM):

‘People from different cultures bring different meaning to the notions of life satisfaction and happiness based on differing cultural values, structures, histories and circumstances. This, combined with the individual nature of life satisfaction, are factors which should be considered when interpreting international comparisons of life satisfaction.’

Also, if 76 per cent of Australians claim to be happy, that means that 24 per cent are unhappy – that’s one in four people!! (If you take in the ‘socially desirable response’ factor, it could be more like one in three!) Regardless of how that stacks up against other countries, it does not exactly point to a healthy society.

One of Derek@Booroobin’s comments above deserves requoting: ‘ …in the authoritarian, bureaucratic, hierarchical mainstream education system that most young people are compelled to attend … they are actually prepared for the type of existence which leads to unhappiness because they're only accustomed to external authority figures, and not their intrinsic abilities, for approval and authority.’

We are a society that has lost touch with the natural order and with ourselves, so we settle for imperfect measures of happiness. If people are telling a few fibs about how happy they are, can you really blame them?