alt Hacker NewsSingapore is surveyed as either the happiest or second-happiest country in Asia (IIRC), with at one point a >95% homeownership rate due to government policy (although I believe that's now closer to 90%, in part due to foreign immigration?). It seems self-evident that having a home is somewhere on the order of 1000000x more important than being able to buy lots of cheap junk that barely matters.
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threetonesun • today at 1:43 PM
Also if you buy lots of cheap junk for your apartment and then have to move, you will not be happy.
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sarchertech • today at 1:21 PM
A lot of that cheap junk is clothing and food, which now both make up a much lower percentage of total income than they did 100 years ago.
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Finland is consistently ranked as the happiest country in the world and has a home ownership rate comparable to the US. Denmark ranks 3rd and has a slightly lower home ownership rate than the US. Oh, and Singapore ranks 36th[1], while the US is 23rd[2].
So you're probably wrong on all points here.
[1] https://data.worldhappiness.report/country/SGP
[2] https://data.worldhappiness.report/country/USA
I'm curious what people are quibbling with here? Romania has the world's highest rate of home ownership at 96% and only ranks as 34th in happiness. Or maybe Kazakhstan but I can't verify the data on that, and it's right beside Romania in happiness. Switzerland has the world's 4th lowest rate of home ownership and ranks 10th happiest. It seems like from a data perspective there is no empirical support for the idea that home ownership directly correlates to societal happiness.