Happiness and Social Capital

Abstract

The Easterlin Paradox, describing the contrast between the happy poor and the unhappy wealthier citizens, was first presented in 1974, and has been mentioned by many scholars on various occasions. We developed a questionnaire to gauge general trust and life-satisfaction in East Asia's eight countries/areas, to be used for Senshu University's research project “Exploring Social Capital towards Sustainable Development in East Asia,” funded by the MEXT-supported Program for the Strategic Research Foundation at Provate Universities, 2009–2013. Fig. 2 shows the relationship between general trust and average/median household income. Fig. 3 shows the relationship between general trust and average GRP. Although neither conveys the causal relationship between general trust and economic factors, Fig. 4 does express a relationship between general trust and life-satisfaction. This indicates that life-satisfaction, or happiness, is increased by social capital in each area.