The Origins of Happiness – the science of well-being over the life course

Co-authored by Andrew Clark, Sarah Fleche, Richard Layard, Nattavudh Powdthavee and George Ward, the publisher writes:

“What makes people happy? Why should governments care about people’s well-being? How would policy change if well-being was the main objective? The Origins of Happiness seeks to revolutionise how we think about human priorities and to promote public policy changes that are based on what really matters to people. Drawing on a uniquely comprehensive range of evidence from longitudinal data on over one hundred thousand individuals in Britain, the United States, Australia, and Germany, the authors consider the key factors that affect human well-being.

The authors explore factors such as income, education, employment, family conflict, health, childcare, and crime … and their findings are not what we might expect …”