Happiness and Belonging: How national prosperity and social relationships relate to life evaluation and positive daily experience

This article examines how national prosperity and social relationships relate to two dimensions of subjective well-being: how people evaluate their lives as a whole and whether they report positive experiences on the previous day. Using the 55-country Economics of Belonging database, it compares both outcomes with GDP per capita, economic growth, growth volatility, income inequality, human development, and five indicators of belonging. National prosperity and human development are more strongly associated with life evaluation than with positive affect. Among the five belonging indicators, having family or friends to count on in times of difficulty is the only one clearly associated with both outcomes after adjustment for GDP per capita. The partial correlations are 0.615 for life evaluation and 0.560 for positive affect. Both associations are also positive in 89 countries outside the original sample. A European Social Survey addendum finds that having a confidant is more strongly associated with general happiness and recent enjoyment of life in the lowest national income decile than in the highest. A second addendum finds that adjusting reported discrimination for freedom of expression brings its correlations with both well-being measures close to zero. The findings support treating belonging and happiness as distinct but related dimensions of well-being. Each warrants separate measurement and explicit consideration in policy decisions. The data, code, and results for the main analysis and both addenda are available in the article’s replication package at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.24048852. The underlying 55-country Economics of Belonging database is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23603825.