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EuropEan CEntrE • EuropäisChEs ZEntrum • CEntrE EuropÉEn
poliCy BriEf novEmBEr 2013
Minimizing Misery: A New 
Strategy for Public Policies in-
stead of Maximizing Happiness
Orsolya Lelkes
should public policy focus on minimizing unhappiness rather than maxi-
mizing happiness? subjective well-being variables, such as self-reported 
life satisfaction or happiness, are often treated as continuous variables or 
ordinal ones, assuming that there is a single latent variable behind them.  
i challenge this view.
my recent article published in Social Indicators Research, using a cross-
sectional cross-national dataset with about 57,000 individuals, shows 
that observable personal characteristics predict unhappiness more than 
happiness. it seems that the path to unhappiness is more visible to a 
quantitative researcher than the path to happiness. While misery appears 
to strongly relate to broad social issues (such as unemployment, poverty, 
social isolation), bliss might be more of a private matter, with individual 
strategies and attitudes, hidden from the eye of a policy-maker. social poli-
cies thus may be more efficient if they target unhappiness. These efforts 
on a social level could be complemented with individual or community-
based strategies for promoting happiness.
Misery strongly correlates with social issues such as unemployment,  
poverty, social isolation. But bliss may be more of a private matter,  
hidden from the eye of policy-makers.
Happiness and unhappiness:  
“a minority does the suffering”
arguing for the focus on unhappiness appears to be riding against the tide. 
is it not a step back, given the recent limelight on happiness as a meas-
ure of human progress? unhappiness and happiness constitute different 
Orsolya Lelkes, phD (LSE), is head  
of the research programme “Work, 
Wealth, Welfare” and Deputy Director at 
the European Centre for social Welfare 
policy and research, vienna.
www.euro.centre.org/lelkes
Policy Briefs are a publication series 
providing a synthesis of topics of 
research and policy advice on which 
European Centre researchers have been 
working recently. 
series Editor is Pieter Vanhuysse, 
Deputy Director and head of research
vanhuysse@euro.centre.org
Keywords: Happiness, Unhappiness,  
Life satisfaction, Public policy 
Orsolya Lelkes • minimiZing misEry: a nEW stratEgy for puBliC poliCiEs
poliCy BriEf novEmBEr 2013
2
qualities of experience. Diener and iran-nejad (1986) consider feelings of 
pleasure and displeasure as two distinct types of feelings that can even be 
experienced simultaneously when one of these is of low intensity. posi-
tive and negative emotions are associated with different lateral activity 
in the anterior cortex, with greater left- or right-hemispheric activation, 
respectively (Davidson, 1992). positivity and negativity may be distinguish-
able with respect to the neurotransmitters associated with each (hoebel 
et al., 1999).
Daniel Kahneman showed that emotional pain is concentrated among a 
minority of the population that experiences great emotional distress for 
much of the day. he argues that:
“The objective of policy should be to reduce human suffering. […]  
Dealing with depression and extreme poverty should be a priority.”  
(Kahneman, 2011: 397) 
mental health is a key determinant of (un)happiness. Based on evidence 
from the British Cohort study, richard layard (2012) found that the 
most powerful explanatory variable of life satisfaction among men aged 
34 is the mental malaise of the individual 8 years earlier. he estimated 
the overall cost of mental ill-health due to non-employment, absenteeism 
from work and loss of productivity to be close to 7.5% of gDp in the 
uK. the health care costs equal an additional 2.3%. he argues that mental 
health needs to be the “new frontier for the welfare state” (layard, 2012).
Mental health, which costs about 10% of GDP in the UK,  
needs to be the new frontier for the welfare state.
“happiness” measures can be “affective”, measuring good and bad feel-
ings (pleasures and pains) at a given moment, or “cognitive”, with overall 
assessments of quality of life as a whole, or “eudemonic”, exploring the 
purpose in life (Delle fave et al., 2012). large-scale surveys typically as-
sess the cognitive component of subjective well-being, asking people on 
their life satisfaction or happiness. self-reported life satisfaction and hap-
piness aim to explore subjective quality of life as a whole. they are partly 
based on information (what one thinks) but also on the current feelings 
of the respondents. in other words, the overall indicators of well-being 
are affected by mood states. individuals in a happy mood are more likely 
to recall positive life events, while those in a sad mood are more likely 
to recall negative ones, which in turn influences the overall assessment 
Measuring happiness
Orsolya Lelkes • minimiZing misEry: a nEW stratEgy for puBliC poliCiEs
poliCy BriEf novEmBEr 2013
3
of their lives (schwarz and strack, 1999). “Cognitive” measures, such as 
life satisfaction are frequently used by economists as proxies for utility, 
which thus enables a systematic test of theoretical models, such as “how 
bad unemployment is” or also the exploration of policy issues such as the 
effects of climate on welfare and well-being, defining compensations for 
aircraft noise nuisance (van praag and ferrer-i-Carbonell, 2004).
my analysis is based on the European social survey Data (Ess), including 
29 countries and 57,000 individuals. there are two variables measuring 
subjective well-being in the Ess: life satisfaction and happiness. 
as figure 1 shows, there is, as is usual, evidence of positive skew in the 
distribution. Most people are found towards the “satisfied” end of the 
spectrum. I defined two groups, those with low levels of well-being and 
those with high levels. The bottom tenth and top tenth were identified, 
those who are the least satisfied and those who are the most satis-
fied. Due to the skewness of the distribution (more people reporting 
high scores) there is an asymmetry in the coding: those who rated their 
satisfaction with a score between 0 and 3 were coded as “very dissatis-
fied”, while those with a score of 10 were coded as “very satisfied”. as an 
alternative measure, i used self-rated happiness. 
Observable personal characteristics are 
more linked to “misery” than to “bliss”
the social patterns of dissatisfaction suggest that those groups which 
are typically identified as socially excluded tend to suffer the most: the 
disabled, the unemployed, the poor, ethnic minorities and those who are 
Figure 1: 
Distribution of self-reported hap-
piness and life satisfaction scores, 
2008
source: 
own calculations, based on the European 
social survey, Ess4-2008 Edition 4.0
Orsolya Lelkes • minimiZing misEry: a nEW stratEgy for puBliC poliCiEs
poliCy BriEf novEmBEr 2013
4
socially isolated, tend to have a much greater chance to be very dissatis-
fied (Figure 2).
In order to test the relationship between specific personal characteristics 
and well-being, i run logit models, exploring and comparing the prob-
abilities of dissatisfaction and of high satisfaction. i tested the results using 
three alternative specifications, using self-reported happiness and keeping 
the same cut-off point, and using a more generous cut-off point (25%) 
for both life satisfaction and happiness measures, referring to the bottom 
fourth and the top fourth in terms of subjective well-being. 
The results confirm that the dissatisfaction-satisfaction and the unhap-
piness-happiness scales are bipolar, linking two rather distinct qualities 
of personal experience. i found that observable personal characteristics 
(such as unemployment, disability, income status, education level and oth-
ers) are more strongly correlated with unhappiness (dissatisfaction) than 
with happiness (high satisfaction). 
there is a non-linear relationship between income and subjective well-
being. the relationship between high income and dissatisfaction (unhappi-
ness) was stronger than between high income and high satisfaction (high 
levels of happiness). We could simply say that money is more powerful as 
a means for avoiding unhappiness than for buying happiness. 
i found a similar asymmetric relationship between health impairment and 
subjective well-being. Disability appears to increase the prevalence of 
Observable personal charac-
teristics are more strongly 
correlated with unhappiness 
(dissatisfaction) than with 
happiness (high satisfaction).
Figure 2: 
Share of very satisfied and 
very dissatisfied individuals 
with specific characteristics: 
difference compared to the 
sample average, % points
source: 
own calculations, based on the European 
social survey, Ess4-2008 Edition 4.0 
note: 
very dissatisfied: least satisfied tenth of 
the population (scores 0-3). very satisfied: 
most satisfied tenth (score of 10).
Money may save from misery, 
but is less likely to buy hap-
piness.
Orsolya Lelkes • minimiZing misEry: a nEW stratEgy for puBliC poliCiEs
poliCy BriEf novEmBEr 2013
5
“misery” or low well-being, but it seems to have a much weaker effect 
on “bliss”. people with health impairment have somewhat (20%) less 
chance to be very happy (very satisfied) than the population average, but 
a considerable share of this group reports high well-being or life satisfac-
tion. This finding appears to confirm the hypothesis that some individuals 
may find a life with meaning despite their health impairment and may still 
be very happy with their lives. i also found that severe health impairment 
had a stronger (negative) relationship with high satisfaction than with high 
levels of happiness. Disability might thus affect the cognitive assessment 
of quality of life more than daily pleasures (experienced happiness) as 
such. This issue would need further, more specific exploration.
Conclusions and policy implications
policy focus on well-being is an important step forward in measuring 
social progress, and in measuring what really matters for the people. this, 
however, does not imply the maximization of happiness.
this analysis, using a cross-sectional cross-national dataset with about 
57,000 individuals, has shown that observable personal characteristics 
tend to predict unhappiness more than happiness. it seems that the path 
to unhappiness is more visible to a quantitative researcher than the path 
to happiness. in my view, the commonly used self-reported life satisfac-
tion and happiness measures, and the empirical analysis where they are 
often treated as linear measures, may ignore the immense suffering of a 
minority.
our ultimate concern is long-term unhappiness, not a passing moment 
of dark mood. the calculations presented above are based on well-being 
measures at one point in time. I expect the relationship between difficult 
circumstances and long-lasting states of unhappiness to be stronger.
preventing avoidable unhappiness should be given priority as a policy goal 
– even more so than maximizing happiness. lasting unhappiness could be 
regarded as an undesirable personal condition as such, similar to poverty 
or social exclusion, and reducing it needs to be a key welfare state objec-
tive. note, however, that the so-called satisfaction paradox needs to be 
taken into account, i.e. the poor may be satisfied despite their adverse 
situation. policies need to focus on reducing unhappiness, partly on ethi-
cal grounds (human suffering is “bad”), partly because it costs a lot to 
us in economic terms (as much as about 10% of gDp). private misery is 
therefore a public issue.
Orsolya Lelkes • minimiZing misEry: a nEW stratEgy for puBliC poliCiEs
poliCy BriEf novEmBEr 2013
6
for more, see the article: lelkes, o. (2013) ‘minimizing misery:  
a new strategy for public policies instead of maximizing happiness?’,  
Social Indicators Research 114 (1): 121-137.
References
Davidson, r. J. (1992) ‘anterior Cerebral asymmetry and the nature of 
Emotion’, Brain and Cognition 20 (1): 125-151.
Delle fave, a., Brdar, i., freire, t., vella-Brodrick, D. & Wissing, m. p. (2012) 
‘the Eudaimonic and hedonic Components of happiness: Qualitative 
and Quantitative findings’, Social Indicators Research 100 (2): 185-207.
Diener, E. & iran-nejad, a. (1986) ‘the relationship in Experience be-
tween various types of affect’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 
50: 1031-1038.
hoebel, B.g., rada, p., mark, g.p. & pothos E. (1999) ‘neural systems for 
reinforcement and inhibition of behavior: relevance to eating, addic-
tion, and depression’, pp. 558-572 in: D. Kahneman, E. Diener & n. 
schwartz (Eds.), Well-being: the Foundations of Hedonic Psychology. new 
york: russell sage foundation.
Kahneman, D. (2011) Thinking, Fast and Slow. london: allen lane.
layard, r. (2012) “mental health: the new frontier for the Welfare 
state”, CEp@21 lecture, 6 march 2012.
schwarz, n. & strack, f. (1999) ‘reports of subjective Well-Being: Judg-
mental processes and their methodological implications’, in: D. Kah-
neman, E. Diener, & n. schwarz (Eds.), Well-Being. The Foundations of 
Hedonic Psychology. new york: russell sage foundation.
van praag, B. m. s. & ferrer-i-Carbonell, a. (2004) Happiness Quantified. A 
Satisfaction Calculus Approach. oxford: oxford university press.
poliCy BriEf novEmBEr 2013
EuropEan CEntrE • EuropäisChEs ZEntrum • CEntrE EuropÉEn
for soCial WElfarE poliCy anD rEsEarCh für WohlfahrtspolitiK unD soZialforsChung DE rEChErChE En politiQuE soCial
About the European Centre 
for Social Welfare Policy and Research
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 empirical research on social policy and welfare 
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issues within the un-European region 
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Minimizing misery: a new strategy for public policies instead of maximizing happiness