The “Increasing Happiness & Increasing Equity” is an intriguing trend to me because it is hard to graph and prove something subjective like happiness but the graph here does a good job. The annual hours worked per person graph shows a steady decrease since the late 1800s. This represents progress for happiness in my eyes because if people do not have to work as long that means they are likely getting the same or higher wages before (or a reduction in the cost of living) so they can still live their lives, but now they have more free time outside of their jobs to spend on hobbies and enjoyable activities. The graph of “Number of Democracies” is an interesting one specifically because the author is drawing the correlation of equity and happiness with democracy. The graph trends up the whole time and this shows that by the author’s standards there is a higher level of global equity because in a democracy people are able to have their vote heard in elections. Whether there is equity among those who get to vote is unclear by the graph, but I could support the notion that democracy indicates at least some level of equity as compared to monarchy for example. Next is the ‘Percentage of Slaves or Serfs in the World” which shows an average decrease over time but including a spike around the 1950s. I think this graph absolutely shows a positive change for happiness and equity. Slavery and forced labor places people under those having more wealth or power and don’t give them the option of freedom. Freedom appears to be one of the most important factors in happiness.
More on the equity side of the statistics are the graphs for “Percentage of Degrees Awarded to Women” along with “Closing the Gender Earnings Gap”. The percentage of degrees statistics lays out a variety of degrees and shows a major uptick after 1950 all the way until 1995. This absolutely represents equity to me because higher education is essential for the workforce and having equal opportunities. If there is a clear growth in degrees awarded and the societal standards don’t inhibit people due to gender, that is an obvious improvement to equity where there are many colleges and higher education institutions. It is important to consider that countries with fewer colleges and emphasis on education could still remain unaccounted for in this graph and that the increase in equity is not global for that reason. “Closing the Gender Earnings Gap” doesn’t have a strong correlation to suggest a great overall increase in equity as some of the other examples do. It does clearly show a rise in older age groups and bring the ratio of men and women to 1, however it is not a very significant increase and the 15 - 24 years old bracket actually had a decrease in progress. It is unclear if this change is due to societal notions and movements of more women actually joining the workforce or if efforts were mobilized to create all of this change. At the end of the day, it shows general improvement though.
“Are Tech-Savvy Countries Happier” appears to make a strong claim to correlation and causation because it has more tech-savvy countries being happier, but it still shows important growth whether it be from economics or truly technological innovation. This graph is definitely a little misleading because countries with higher wealth would tend to be more tech-savvy, but wealth likely increases happiness in the first place so it could be unfair to draw this comparison. Nevertheless, as we decrease the cost of technology and improve luxuries in everyday lives, this almost certainly boosts global happiness and benefits all.
The barrier to the majority of these topics appears to be wealth, even though it is stated that “money cannot buy happiness” it can definitely buy security. Additionally, all the equity-related graphs appear to show the most growth from the 1950’s onward. This to me suggests that there was societal change and a growth in awareness for equality that allowed this. If the global viewpoint had shifted faster sooner and people had more open minds it seems likely to progress would’ve occurred faster.
The layout of all these studies, even if they appear to lack full relationships to equity and happiness, suggests an overall increase. The graphs could have some unrelated data that appears to support equity and happiness but is more indicative of another factor, but as a whole, they indicate growth in these areas. It is unlikely that every single one of them has a flaw that falsely associates happiness or equity. This subheading was interesting to explore and more cheery than some of the other data-based studies that we investigated recently.