Big Data - Brexit vs Health and Happiness
So it seems that all Brexit options are back on the table. Let’s look at the data for the world’s healthiest and happiest nations.
Spain and Italy are the healthiest nations on earth and six European nations are in the top 10, so... if we are what we eat... why do Brexiteers want to eat less European food?
Some Brexiteers are looking to forward to relaxed regulations and cheaper meat from the US and Australia, but how is importing hormone-injected beef and chlorinated chicken going to help the NHS, the local farmers, and the UK’s carbon footprint?
The UK’s health is improving and we are now in the top 20. Why does the UK want to be more like the US, which has slipped down to 35th place?
Other Brexiteers argue we need to rebuild the Empire to lift the happiness of the Commonwealth. Considering that cyclones and floods and droughts make people quite unhappy (and angry with us), I’d say the best thing that the British could do if they really want to improve the lives of people in the Commonwealth (and stop mass immigration), is to focus on combating climate change.
Some Brexiteers say the best way to deter immigration is to make the UK less attractive, so they would be quite happy for it to drop below the top 20 in the global health and happiness indeces... I think this is counter-intuituve.
Some eurosceptics argue that many people in Europe are miserable with their situation, but the data shows that we tend to underestimate the average happiness of people around us.
The data proves that subjective well-being influenced the Brexit vote. Those who were dissatisfied with life overall and the least engaged in politics were more likely to vote to leave the European Union. But the fact is, almost every country in the top 20 happiest countries in the world are either in the EU, the single market (Switzerland) or the European Economic Area (Norway and Iceland).
Other anti-EU campaigners argue that the UK should join the EEC, but Norway will probably veto this because of the damage we’ve done to the EU.
Relative inequality can affect people’s sense of wellbeing, but if you look at the data objectively, Western Europe has the highest level of wellbeing equality and Eastern Europe is not far behind.
The data also suggests that the way some people are using social media is having a negative impact on their wellbeing. The internet provides the opportunity to be more connected, strengthen communities, get the objective facts and make informed decisions. Let’s get back to doing this!
Data sources:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-24/spain-tops-italy-as-w...
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