Blind Spot

The global rise of unhappiness and how leaders missed it

Jon Clifton

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Jon Clifton is the CEO of Gallup.

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Most of the global indicators focus on
economics, they never track how people feel.
Tunisia economy was growing at 5 % per
annum over decades before the Arab spring
took over.

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Simon Kuznets the father of GDP said “ The
welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred
from the measurement of national income”

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A good measure we look at is how many
people are thriving. When Brexit happened,
people were surprised because the economy
had been doing well but thriving people
dropped from 55 % to 40 %, the biggest drop
in many a country.

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In the 2016 US elections, more Americans
were thriving 55 % in 2016 vs 52 % in 2009, yet
America wanted change. This was because
democrats had higher satisfaction levels while
republicans had lower satisfaction levels and
they voted for change.

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Behavioral scientist George Ward looked at
correlation amongst four variables- National
happiness, GDP growth rate, Unemployment
rate and Inflation rate to arrive at election
results in Europe.

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Wellbeing is about how someone sees their
life and how they live their life. The highest
and lowest rated countries on how they see
their lives is on the next slide.

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Life ratings averaged 2019 - 2021

Highest ratings Lowest ratings

1. Finland 146. Afghanistan
2. Denmark 145 Lebanon
3. Iceland 145 Zimbabwe
4. Switzerland 143 Rwanda
5. Netherlands 142 Botswana
6. Luxembourg 142 Lesotho
7. Sweden 140 Sierra Leone
8. Israel 139 India
9. Norway 139 Tanzania
10. New Zealand 139 Zambia
139 Malawi

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 Risk – Opportunity or danger in the word basis
the language used to ask the question
• In English language – 27 % see it as opportunity and 67 as
danger
• In Russian 26 % see it as opportunity, 56 % see it as danger
• In Chinese 21 % see it as opportunity, 44 % see it as danger
• In Arabic 18 % see it as opportunity, 65 % see it as danger
• In French 15 % see it as opportunity,79 % see it as danger
• In Spanish 12 % see it as opportunity,85 % see it as danger.
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The point is that language matters when you
are conducting global surveys.

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If you think of happiness as how people see
their lives, then Finns are the happiest, if you
see it as how people live their lives, then the
Latin Americans are the happiest.

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Many politicians – Sarkozy in France, Cameron
in UK etc. thought of moving beyond GDP.
That’s when the concept of well being came in.

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What makes a great life?

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There are five aspects to a great life:

work
social
financial
physical
community

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Young people rate their lives high, as also old
people, however middle aged people rate it
low, this is called the U curve of happiness.

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Some discoveries that are compelling
• People who love their job do not hate Mondays
• Education related debt has an emotional scar even
after you pay it in full
• Volunteering is not only good for people you help but
for you too
• Exercising is better at eliminating fatigue than drugs
• Loneliness doubles risk of heart disease.
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The global workforce is 3.3 billion people.
Before the pandemic unemployment was 5.4
%, the pandemic pushed it to 6.6 %

That means 200 million people unemployed -

that’s high, it’s the population size of a large
country.

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One of he most significant sources of global
misery comes from work.

18 % of workers feel that work consumes most

part of their lives.

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Being miserable at work is worse than having
no work at all.

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Stats on great job
• 7.7 billion people on the planet
• 5.4 billion are adults
• 3.3 billion people want a great job
• 1.5 billion people have a good job
• Only 300 million people have a great job
• 3 billion people don’t have a great job

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People rate their lives or happiness vs not a
global average but how they compare with
their neighbors.

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Money doesn’t buy happiness. In the US,
beyond $ 95,000 income people don’t get
more happy. That’s true in every country.

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Feeling safe where you live is foundational to a
good community, just as much as basic
infrastructure.

Broken communities lack basic infrastructure.

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What makes a great community is not
infrastructure or basics, it’s the people who
trust and help each other.

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Volunteering is another bright spot. However
more people give money 32 % vs people who
give their time 24 % .

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Food insecurity is now 30 % in the world-
that’s high and getting higher every year.

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Only 15 % of people have a real friend at work.

Leaders should encourage friendships at work.

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Workplace relationships are critical to job
satisfaction.

The most serious issue for working women is

unequal pay. Women get 12.5 % lesser salary
vs men in OECD countries.

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In the informal sector in poor countries,
women earn half of what men earn.

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Singapore has the highest misery ratio at the
workplace. The study when published caused a
furor in 2012.

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Only 2 % of Singaporeans were engaged at
work, the lowest percentage in the world.

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Covid 19 infected 431 million people globally
but killed 6 million people.

The pandemic wrecked the global economy

which shrunk by 3.5 % in 2020, the largest
contraction in 60 years.

32 % of workers said they lost their job and 50

% of workers said they earned less.
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Private companies can listen

to their employees
to their suppliers
to their communities

to enhance engagement and connectedness

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When GDP is released every quarter, it tells us
if the economy is growing or shrinking, it never
tells us the pain that people go through.

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