It’s an age-old question – does money buy happiness?
If you’ve ever wondered whether you might be happier living in a different tax bracket, you aren’t alone.
When choosing a career, the amount of money you can make comes into play. A CEO’s salary opens up a world of lifestyle opportunities and comforts but it also means putting in long hours in the office. While an FNP salary might not afford you the same luxurious lifestyle, the happiness felt from working in a rewarding field like healthcare can be just as fulfilling. Most people would agree the aim should be finding life satisfaction over a salary number, but that still doesn’t answer the focal question: Does money buy happiness?
Defining Life Satisfaction
Getting satisfaction out of life depends on what each individual defines as satisfaction or success. Data researchers create different arithmetic scales to define life satisfaction by country to gauge which is happiest. If we think about countries where the average salary is higher, to some degree we might presume this means a happier country, giving us an answer to the debate about this possible correlation.
Through the global self-reported 2023 “cantril ladder” survey, through a world map, we can see countries with a presumed general lower average salary or higher levels of poverty that are less developed did in fact rate lower on this scale. This survey asks participants to think of their life like a ladder and to choose a number from 1 to 10 on how far up this ladder they feel their life sits in terms of its quality. This is a subjective question, but most questions surrounding the concept of happiness are.
An example of two countries is Egypt which rated a 3.98 out of 10 rating for their life satisfaction and has an average annual salary of $5065.40 USD, whereas Sweden has a life satisfaction rating of 7.34 of out 10 and an average salary of 33,989.78 USD annually.
There’s also an argument to be made that life satisfaction and happiness are two separate but interchangeable concepts.
So, if life satisfaction does not mean happiness, what does it mean?
Life satisfaction can be defined as a consistent quality of life that the individual feels pleased with. Happiness is an element of life satisfaction, but what makes them differ is the length of time happiness is achieved. If happiness is sustained over some time, it can be considered life satisfaction. This element of time is why scales are often used to grade life satisfaction where happiness is not monitored in the same way.
Grading happiness or satisfaction is highly subjective. The PERMA model designed by psychologist Martin Seligman gives us a possible way to define happiness as positivity and engagement in life through his acronym. The model states the letter “P” as “positive emotions”, but from this how can one define a positive emotion? Is it anything that makes you feel “good” or something deeper? Definitions and studies of happiness or life satisfaction should be taken with a grain of salt, as each individual categorises feelings in their personal way. What one considers greatly positive another might consider it a little bit positive and so forth. This nonetheless gives us a place to start on whether there is a correlation between life satisfaction and salary.
Money and Life Satisfaction
Wellbeing expert Gethin Nadin gives the answer that we all think we believe: Yes, money buys happiness. But, there is a clear limit.
Nadin argues that once we reach a level of income that can cover the basic costs of living, food, etc, we do not become happier when our salaries increase beyond this. The golden number found in a widely respected 2010 study by Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton was $75,000. Once the participants’ salaries increased beyond this number, overall happiness steadily in fact decreased.
So if there’s research to suggest more money doesn’t always equal more happiness, this raises another question: are millionaires happier than the rest of us? According to Nadin, the answer is no. He argues that no matter the income, a level of dissatisfaction at how much money anybody makes remains. For example, people with million-dollar salaries might want 10 million-dollar salaries in the same way as someone with $30,000 per year might want $70,000 per year.
How Can You Find Life Satisfaction, If Not From Money?
Life satisfaction defines the quality of life and comes from much more than the salary you make.
Of course, this can derive from connections with those around you, a feeling of success in your work and enjoyment and satisfaction from those, experiences, and pushing yourself to try new things, like hobbies.
Getting enjoyment out of mundane or everyday things can be an excellent place to start trying to improve your overall satisfaction. This can be as simple as walking, making a new friend, or doing something outside your comfort zone.
There’s more to life than salary. If the majority of people appear unhappy with their given salary, that’s telling about the reality of this correlation. Through the studies about happiness explored, personal engagement in your life and relationships are the true keys to achieving life satisfaction. Finding more to life than a paycheck is a privilege, so taking charge of your happiness to find that sustained definition that leads to the term “life satisfaction” can be the most gratifying thing one can find in life.
