Maybe we should enquire the ramifications of this structure of inequality on the happiness of married people, and of all people for that matter.
Once we get a lot of data onto maps, we can really begin to understand reality in much different ways, like where to build a house to increase the happiness of the people inside it, how to make routes that avoid accidents, and how to design better urban systems.
The third issue why it may matter, is simply out of people's feeling of happiness and wellbeing, and if we find people are perennially worried about certain issues that they feel unable to talk to people about, then their unhappiness and concern must be, at the end of the day, something of importance in social policy and to the government.
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The Birks cinema was opened in 1939 and was designed to "promote happiness for the people of the town and attract visitors for the neighbouring countryside".
Others wonder if the obsessive pursuit of happiness is itself making people miserable.
It all makes me think of British philosopher John Stuart Mill, who described the social theory of utilitarianism, which holds that one must always act so as to produce the greatest aggregate happiness for the greatest number of people.
The essence of happiness is that feeling of engagement with the world and with other people.
Francois Moscovici, director of psychological consultancy firm White Water Strategies, said that there was plenty of evidence that people had a fixed, underlying "range" of happiness, which could be temporarily affected by major events, but not usually for long periods.
Happiness is a treadmill of a goal for people who are not happy by nature.
Timo Weiland has long been the darling of New York fashion people who love the line for its straightforward sense of happiness and casual textural details.
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Indeed, another side of happiness economics busies itself studying the non-monetary rewards from work: most people enjoy parts of their work, and some people love it.
The charity claimed service cuts had had "a devastating impact on older people's sense of happiness and wellbeing".
It also showed that cuts to transport services have had a "devastating impact on older people's sense of happiness and wellbeing", said the charity.
The medieval and early modern social system was based on ideas of people being born into a certain social class and achieving maximum happiness by accepting the privileges and duties of their station.
Happiness could be used to spot people at risk of ill health, they added.
But this is nonsense: The Declaration promises people the right to the pursuit of happiness, not to happiness itself, much less to equal happiness.
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What turns this shift from demographic accounting to a social question is the pursuit-of-happiness factor: as a rule, do people live alone because they want to or because they have to?
Folks in the dowdy world of academia have to be watertight with their research if they want their results to be credible, which is why typical studies into happiness will only target a few dozen people with lots of questions.
The pursuit of happiness, Lord Layard's book will convince most people, is a private matter.
The negative effect on reported levels of happiness of being paid less than your peers is not visible for people aged under 45.
"I wanted to write about my journey and what had happened with losing Matthew and then this miracle that had happened to us with our new child, our two-year-old Luke, and I wanted to write that story to show people that out of despair can still come happiness, " he says.
Something bold and sexy that reminds people about the underlying essence of the pursuit of happiness: its elusiveness.
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"Finding out the feelings of people I realised how much I'd done, the hundreds of people that I've taught and the great happiness that it's brought, so I'm thrilled to bits that it's having its revival, " she added.
They cite the work that they do and the people they work with as the main drivers of their happiness.
Research shows that experiences bring people greater happiness than material possessions, partly because the thrill of buying something new wears pretty fast, whereas the memories of an experience last much longer.
Economists reckoned the uplift in happiness at that time was equivalent to 60% of the increase in wellbeing people tend to experience when they cross the line of median income, from the third income quartile into the second one.
It draws inspiration from the Founders' belief that all people are born with an unalienable right to the pursuit of happiness.
Generalize this process, and the world would teem with more and more people leading less and less satisfying lives, until eventually the happiness of each individual would start to approach nil.
Adapted from Life 2.0: How People Across America Are Transforming Their Lives by Finding the Where of Their Happiness, by Rich Karlgaard (Crown Business, July 2004).
Since the Second Continental Congress declared America's independence from Great Britain on July 4, 1776, the United States government has sought to realize the fundamental principle on which our nation was founded: that all people have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
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