alt Hacker NewsI am going to make a wild claim: "Happiness" is a stupid metric for quality of life. So many of the answers are tainted by local culture. Most Japanese people would feel like they are bragging to say they are somewhat or very happy. The very question is flawed. And I guarantee the survey was created by people with mostly Western European culture. To be clear: I said "quality of life" not happiness. There is a big difference. Let me tell you what "works" in Japan: health care, education (primary, secondary, and tertiary), home buying/building (wildly cheap by world standards), labor protections, national pension, mass transit, personal safety, taxation... I could go on and on. Quality of life is objectively extremely highly in Japan when compared to other nations.
I wish you had actually read the article.
> Among Japanese respondents who said they were not happy, the most common reason was their "economic situation," cited by 64%
> Only 15% of Japanese respondents said "overall quality of life will be much better in five years," the lowest among all nations surveyed. In contrast, the highest optimism for the future was seen in Colombia at 79%, followed by India at 78% and 76% each in Argentina, Indonesia and Mexico.
> Only 13% of Japanese pollees answered that their current quality of life is "good" -- the lowest among all 30 countries. This was less than half the average of 42% and notably lower than Hungary (22%), the second lowest, and South Korea (24%), the third lowest.