Education and happiness: Some theory
Human capital theory views education as an initial investment that generates a stream of later
returns in the form of increased productivity, leading to better employment prospects and higher
earnings (Becker 1962). However, increased education may offer benefits in a wide range of other
spheres, such as health and marriage prospects (Hartog & Oosterbeek 1998, p.245; Haveman &
Wolfe 1984). These considerations point to persons with higher education having better life
outcomes and, one would assume, greater subjective wellbeing.
The role of rivalry and aspirations in the happiness literature’s attempts to account for the
seemingly weak relationship between income and happiness and for the ‘Easterlin Paradox’ can be
applied equally to education. Education is known to improve incomes and outcomes in nonfinancial
life domains. Individuals therefore are likely to expect better outcomes if they have
achieved more education, and to a large extent they will have participated in education for the
specific purpose of achieving these improved outcomes. If this raises their aspirations, and people’s
happiness is determined by their circumstances relative to their aspirations, then the contribution of
from university, for example, now compare themselves with other professionals, then again
happiness may not increase with educational attainment.
Michalos (2007) suggests that the relationship between education and happiness may depend in part
on how broadly education is defined. Defining education as formal education leading to some kind
of certification as opposed to the more general sense of the many ways in which learning occurs
may be a substantial oversimplification. While this is an important and valid point, it is the more
limited formal definition of education that is of interest here, since this paper seeks to explain the
relationship between happiness and the attainment of formal educational qualifications. With a selfconfessed
degree of exaggeration, Michalos (2007, p.4) proposes four scenarios which seem
instructive here:
real paradise—people’s living conditions are good and people accurately perceive them to be
good (presumably such people would report being happy)
real hell—people’s living conditions are bad and people accurately perceive them to be bad
(presumably such people would report being unhappy)
fool’s paradise—people’s living conditions are bad but people inaccurately perceive them to be
good (presumably such people would report being happy)
fool’s hell—people’s living conditions are good but people inaccurately perceive them to be bad
(presumably such people would report being unhappy).
If more-educated people are genuinely less happy, it may be that they are living in a ‘fool’s hell’ or
that less-educated people are living in a ‘fool’s paradise’. Even if there were such a causal negative
relationship with education, Michalos questions the inference that could be drawn from happiness
measures, from both a moral and policy perspective. He draws upon Socrates’s view of wellbeing as
meaning ‘living well and doing well’ to argue that there is more to life than being happy. In quoting
Mill (1863):
It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates
dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. (Cited by Michalos 2007, p.6)
He puts the point rather bluntly, and the discussion here is in no way intended to imply those of
lower education are somehow less worthy. Rather, the argument is that education has an intrinsic
contribution to ‘living well and doing well’ which may promote critical thought or heightened
concern in some domains in life, and perhaps reduced ‘pleasures’ in other domains, but this should
not be taken as reduced wellbeing defined more widely. Micholas proposes his Multiple
Discrepancies Theory for interpreting wellbeing, whereby overall happiness and happiness in
individual life domains, such as marriage and family life, working life, social life, and health, are
interrelated and dependent upon perceived discrepancies between what one wants and what one
has, possibly conditioned upon what one has had in the past.
Overall, the theoretical links between education and wellbeing are not well developed. Some of the
limitations and complexities facing theorists and empirical analysts are discussed by Desjardins
(2008), including the problem that the objectives of education, or the dimensions of wellbeing that
should be enhanced by education, are not clear. Desjardins identifies three broad levels at which
education can be seen to impact upon wellbeing: through an absolute mechanism in which
education directly enhances individuals’ resources and capabilities to influence their own wellbeing;
through a relative mechanism where one’s level of education enhances their relative position and
influence in society; and through a cumulative mechanism in which rising levels of education have
positive externalities for society as a whole or for groups within society through, for example,
greater levels of trust, civil engagement and innovation. This concept of relative mechanisms has a
clear parallel to the effects of rivalry discussed above.
An important link between education and wellbeing identified by Desjardins is that of agency,
which has been identified by psychologists and sociologists as being important to wellbeing.
Education may influence both individual and collective agency. At an individual level agency refers education to happiness will be weakened. If aspirations are heightened disproportionately more
than outcomes, then education may even be associated with lower happiness.
If rivalry effects dominate—if it is people’s circumstances relative to others that determine their
happiness rather than their absolute circumstances—then again the link between education and
happiness may be ambiguous. It follows that as education levels generally have increased over time
we should not expect any general increase in happiness, but that more-educated people should still
on average be happier than less-educated people. However, level of education may change the
reference group of people against which they assess their ‘relative’ standing. If people who graduate