What does it mean to live well? Global project describes keys to human flourishing in over 40 indicators

Lewis Mumford, one of the most important intellectuals of the 20th century, recounts how during the Industrial Revolution, a shift in mentality took place with disastrous consequences. Work, time, and nature were no longer valued for what they offered to our lives and were reduced to labor force, production hours, and available resources. When measuring time, commercial profits, or military capacity, numbers gained newfound importance, and over time, this abstraction overshadowed everything else. Although the world is not as ruthless as it was in the 19th century, that mindset still burdens humanity today.

Today, a group of scientists led by Tyler VanderWeele, from Harvard University, and Byron Johnson, from Baylor University, is publishing the early results of a project in several journals of the Nature group that aims to redeem measurement and put it at the service of human happiness. The study includes survey data from 200,000 people in 22 countries across six continents, collected annually over five years, from 2022 to 2027, and is part of the Global Flourishing Study.

This project aims to examine the distribution of “human flourishing,” as they name their metric of the good life, which includes questions across six domains (happiness, physical and mental health, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, close social relationships, and financial security and material stability). It includes more than 40 indicators and classifies study subjects by characteristics such as age, gender, marital status, religious affiliation, or migration status.

“To get policies on the right track to help people flourish, governments should set up systems for collecting robust data on their citizens’ well-being,” authors VanderWeele and Johnson write in a Comment piece published in Nature. They suggest going beyond national statistics focused on employment, life expectancy, or GDP. “These objective measures capture key aspects of the ‘well-being’ of nations but are poor predictors of the well-being of individuals,” states an editorial in the journal Nature Human Behavior about the project.

Using these measures of a flourishing life, the results reveal some trends common to nearly all countries surveyed. In general, the passage of time appears beneficial. On a scale from one to 10, the average score for the 18-to-49 age group is 7.03, compared to 7.36 for people aged 80 and older. However, the pattern is not uniform. In Spain, for example, scores are highest among young people and the elderly, and lowest in between these age groups.

While the researchers acknowledge that interpreting the data goes beyond the scope of the project, they suggest that more attention should be paid to the well-being of young people and that factors such as social media use, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, environmental degradation concerns, political polarization, and lower participation in religious organizations should be analyzed.

Another trend observed in this study — as in other studies measuring happiness — is the beneficial effect of lifestyles generally considered traditional. Married individuals report an average score of 7.34, compared to 6.92 for single people, which still ranks above the 6.77 for those separated and 6.85 for those divorced. Similarly, those who attend religious services have a higher happiness rating — 7.67 for those who attend weekly, versus 6.86 for those who never attend.

VanderWeele clarifies that their results “are only averages across all individuals, so they don’t necessarily apply to every person, but the general patterns suggest that religious communities and marriage are powerful paths to well-being.”

Many of the factors analyzed confirm what might be expected and align with the goals commonly promoted by public policies. Employed individuals are closer to living a flourishing life than the unemployed, and education generally increases well-being — except in Hong Kong and Australia, where results were reversed. Immigrants tend to be slightly less satisfied than native-born individuals (7.02 versus 7.16), although this trend is reversed in countries like Spain.

Although there are common trends, the magnitude of the differences varies considerably across countries. For example, in Israel, the difference in the flourishing index between married people and divorced or separated individuals varies by 0.92 points, while in Argentina it is negligible at 0.1. The difference between those who attend religious services weekly and those who never attend varies from 2.33 in Hong Kong to 0.15 in India. This indicates that the weight of a specific numerical difference may depend on the cultural and national context.

Regarding differences by country, the surveys have also found that in the wealthiest nations, people tend to rate their material well-being highly, though they sometimes score lower on other aspects such as personal relationships and life purpose. The authors categorize countries according to their relative strengths and weaknesses. In Spain, for example, close friendships, life balance, and lower levels of discrimination stand out as strengths, while political representation and financial concerns are identified as weaknesses.

While there are aspects of a flourishing life that have broad consensus — such as better material conditions or good health in childhood — others do not. Not everyone will be willing to attend religious services, no matter how much a study suggests the activity leads to a more fulfilling life.

“People do not generally decide to become religious for health reasons,” VanderWeele acknowledges. “However, I think that for those who already believe in God or positively identify with a religious tradition, but do not regularly attend services, the relationship between service attendance and health may constitute an invitation: an invitation back to communal religious life.” For those who are not religious, the researcher believes they could benefit from participating in other forms of community.

The authors hope that the Global Flourishing Study will “advance our knowledge of flourishing in general and especially in non-Western contexts, and to uncover what patterns are culturally specific and which seem more universal.”

VanderWeele believes the data can also help people shape their lifestyle and overcome some of their cultural biases. “For some people, perhaps especially in the West, any loss of autonomy may seem like a negative thing, but community, which is so important for well-being, requires giving up some of that autonomy in order to participate, contribute, and engage with the group,” he says. “Research suggests that such community participation, whether with religious groups or within families, contributes powerfully to human flourishing.”

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