似乎瘋了--疫病流行改變全球幸福曲線

 

It might seem crazy 似乎瘋了

The pandemic has changed the shape of global happiness 

疫病流行改變全球幸福曲線

The old have become happier and the young more miserable

老年人變得更快樂，年輕人變得更悲慘

International

Mar 20th 2021 edition

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Mar 20th 2021

SÃO PAULO AND SEOUL

The covid-19 pandemic has done nothing good for the mood of Park Ha-young, an undergraduate at Seoul National University. She spent much of last year worrying about the disease, and her chances of spreading it: “I was terrified of becoming the person to cause a huge outbreak.” Her freedom has been drastically curtailed. The government determines whether she can see friends or attend classes, leaving her frustrated and unable to make plans. She is beginning to worry about finding a job after she graduates.

新冠病毒大流行對首爾大學的學生朴荷英的心情無所助益。去年的大部分時間她都在擔心疾病與由她散播的可能性：「我很害怕成為導致疫情大爆發的人。」她的自由被大幅限縮。政府決定她是否可以見朋友或上課，這使她既沮喪又無法安排計畫。她開始擔心畢業後找不到工作

Politicians and officials frequently talk about how covid-19 affects public health and the economy. But for most people those are abstract considerations. What they experience each day are moods—the sense of being anxious and sad, or, if they are lucky, cheerful and optimistic. To mark World Happiness Day on March 20th, researchers linked to the un Sustainable Development Solutions Network have tried to pin down these moods and examine how the pandemic has changed them.

政治人物和官員經常談論新冠病毒如何影響公共健康和經濟。但是對於大多數人來說，這些考慮是抽象。他們每天所經歷的是情緒-焦慮和悲傷的感覺，或開朗的和樂觀的感覺，如果他們幸運的話。為紀念3月20日的世界幸福日，研究員與聯合國永續發展方法網路聯繫，試圖弄清楚這些情緒，並研究疫病流行如何改變它們。

Gallup, a pollster, asks the same questions in scores of countries. The most revealing one tells people to imagine a ladder, with steps numbered nought to ten. The top rung represents the best life you could have, the bottom rung represents the worst. What rung are you on now?

調查員蓋洛普（Gallup）在數十個國家問同樣的問題，最能揭露真相的問題是 ：告訴人們想像一排階梯，階梯數字從零到九。最頂層代表你可能擁有的最佳生活，最底部代表最糟的生活。你現在站在哪一層 ？

People’s responses to that question, known as a Cantril ladder, suggest (rather surprisingly) that the world was about as happy in the teeth of an awful pandemic as it was before the coronavirus struck. The average score across 95 countries, not population-weighted, crept up insignificantly from 5.81 in 2017-19 to 5.85 in 2020. But the pattern of life satisfaction has changed. Covid-19 has made old people more cheerful. A few countries have had some of the happiness squeezed out of them; others have amassed more of it.

這個問題稱作坎特里爾階梯量表，而人們的反應令人驚訝。它表明世界經歷過可怕疫情的幸福感，與新冠病毒襲擊前幾乎相同。 95個國家（未經過人口加權）的平均得分從2017至2019年的5.81緩步微升至2020年的5.85。但是，生活滿意度的模式已經改變。 新冠疫情使老年人變得更加開朗。少數國家的幸福被榨乾，其他國家則累積更多。

Covid-19 threatens the old far more than the young, with the risk of death after contracting the disease doubling for every eight years of life. Yet the old have cheered up. Globally, between 2017-19 and 2020 happiness was boosted by 0.22 points on the Cantril ladder among people over the age of 60. Celina Beatriz Gazeti dos Santos, a 64-year-old psychologist in São Paulo, ticks off a list of things that might dampen her mood—the pandemic, widespread corruption, a dislikeable government, others’ misery. Yet she proclaims herself increasingly happy and optimistic all the same.

新冠病毒對老人的威脅遠大過年輕人，染疫死亡的風險每提高八歲便增一倍。然而，老人已振作起來。全球2017至2019到2020年之間，坎特里爾階梯表的60歲以上族群的幸福感提高0.22分。聖保羅的64歲心理學家Celina Beatriz Gazeti dos Santos列出可能會使她沮喪的事-疫病流行、廣泛的貪腐、令人討厭的政府以及其他人的痛苦。然而，她仍然宣稱自己愈來愈快樂和樂觀。

In Britain, a country with excellent happiness data, everyone has slipped, but some more than others (see chart 1). There, and in other rich countries, the age profile of happiness before the pandemic struck was roughly U-shaped when plotted on a graph. People began their adult lives in a cheerful state. They became glummer in middle age. Then, after about the age of 50, they started to became happier again. If they made it to a very advanced age, however, they fell back into the doldrums.

英國曾是擁有極佳幸福數據的國家，每個人都在退步，但是有些人更慘。英國及其他富裕國家，疫情襲擊前的幸福年齡分布圖大致呈U曲線。人們以愉快的心境展開成年生活。他們在中年變得沈悶。然後，在大約50歲之後，他們再次變得較快樂。但是，如果他們到了很高的年齡，他們會再次陷入低迷。

Today the pattern is an upward slope. The young are less satisfied than the middle-aged, who are less satisfied than the old. That might be put down to Britain’s vaccination programme, which has targeted the old first. But the pattern has barely changed over the past year. Months before Britons became familiar with what some call “the Pfizer” and “the AstraZeneca”, something had shifted.

今天的圖案傾斜向上。年輕人的滿足感比中年人低，而中年人的滿足感又低於老年人。這可能歸因於英國的疫苗接種計畫，該計劃以老人為優先目標。但這型態過去一年來幾乎沒什麼改變。在英國人熟悉所謂的「輝瑞」和「阿斯特捷利康」數月之前，情況已經發生變化。

Video-conferencing software has enabled many old people to stay in touch with their families—sometimes better than before the pandemic. In countries that locked down, they have the pleasure of knowing that society made sacrifices to protect them. And as John Helliwell, an economist at the University of British Columbia who wrote part of the World Happiness Report points out, the old feel healthier. Globally, 36% of men over the age of 60 said they had a health problem last year, down from an average of 46% in the three years before. Among women, the share with health problems fell from 51% to 42%. Old people probably are not actually healthier. Rather, covid-19 has changed the yardstick. They feel healthier because they have dodged a disease that could kill them.

視頻會議軟體使許多老人與家人保持聯繫，有時比疫情前更好。在實施封鎖的國家，他們很高興知道社會為保護他們做出犧牲。正如英屬哥倫比亞大學的經濟學家赫里威爾寫得《世界幸福報告》部分中指出，老人感覺更健康。全球來說，滿六十歲男性有36％自稱有健康問題，比三年前的平均46％下降。在女性中，有健康問題的比率從51％下降到42％。老年人實際上可能並沒有更健康。更準確地說，新冠病毒改變了評判標準。他們感到更健康，是因為他們躲過一種可能殺死他們的疾病。

Meanwhile the young have had a rough year. Many lost their jobs—in America the unemployment rate for people aged 20 to 24 shot up from 6.3% in February 2020 to 25.6% two months later (it fell back to 9.6% last month). In some rich countries young women have had a particularly hard time. They often work in sectors, such as hospitality, which have been shut down. When schools close, many are lumbered with more than their fair share of child care.

同時，年輕人度過艱難的一年，許多人失業。美國20歲至24歲的失業率從2020年2月的6.3％，激增至兩個月後的25.6％（上個月回落至9.6％）。一些富國的年輕婦女過得特別艱難。她們從事的往往是疫情期間關閉的行業，例如餐旅業。當學校關閉時，許多婦女為照顧小孩不堪重負。

They also have busy social lives. Having lots of friends seems, counter-intuitively, to have made the pandemic harder. One study of Britain by Ben Etheridge and Lisa Spantig, both at the University of Essex, found that women with at least four close friends slumped more than anyone during the spring 2020 lockdown. “People who are used to seeing lots of friends really suffered—and women and younger people have more friends,” says Xiaowei Xu of the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

他們也有繁忙的社交生活。與直覺相反，有很多朋友似乎使疫情流行變得更加困難。英國艾塞克斯大學的埃特里奇和斯潘蒂格的一項研究發現，在至少擁有四個親密朋友的女性在2020年春季封鎖期間的跌幅最大。 財政研究機構的徐小偉說：「過去探視很多朋友的人們十分難受，而婦女和年輕人有較多的朋友。」

Some countries have fared better than others (see chart 2). Whereas Britons’ happiness slumped in 2020, Germany rose from being the 15th happiest country in the world to the seventh happiest. Britain has endured long lockdowns and an excess-death rate of 190 per 100,000 people since the start of the pandemic. Germany’s excess-death rate is just 77 per 100,000. For most of last year Germany fought covid-19 much better than most of Europe, although it has gone on to fluff the vaccination endgame—leading Bild, a tabloid newspaper, to declare in February: “Liebe Briten, we beneiden you” (dear Britain, we envy you).

有些國家的情況比較好。雖然英國人的幸福感在2020年下降，德國則從世界最幸福的國家第15名上升到第七。自疫情以來，英國經歷漫長的封鎖，超額死亡率為每10萬人中有190人。德國的超額死亡率僅為10萬人中的77人。去年大部分時間，德國抗疫都比歐洲大部分地區都好得多，儘管它最後階段的疫苗接種搞砸了—通俗小報Bild在2月宣稱：「親愛的英國，我們嫉妒你」。

Strikingly, the countries that were at the top of the happiness chart before the pandemic remain there. The three highest-ranking countries in 2020—Finland, Iceland and Denmark—were among the top four in 2017-19. All three have dealt well with covid-19, and have excess-death rates below 21 per 100,000. Iceland has a negative rate. It helps to be a remote island.

值得注意的是，在疫病流行之前位於幸福榜前段的國家，仍然在那裡。 2020年排名前三的國家為芬蘭，冰島和丹麥，在2017至2019年排名前四。這三國對新冠疫情的處理都很好，超額死亡率低於100,000分之21。冰島為負值，成為一個孤島有助於防疫。

The most intriguing suggestion in the World Happiness Report is that some links between covid-19 and happiness operate in both directions. The authors do not suggest that happiness helps countries resist covid-19. Rather, they argue that one of the things that sustains national happiness also makes places better at dealing with pandemics. That thing is trust. Polls by Gallup show that many of the places that have coped best with covid-19, such as the Nordic countries and New Zealand, have widespread faith in institutions and strangers. Large majorities of their inhabitants believe that a neighbour would return a wallet if they found it.

《世界幸福報告》中最有趣的意見是，新冠病毒與幸福感之間的某些聯繫是雙向的。作者們並不認為幸福感可以幫助國家抵抗新冠病毒。更準確地說，他們主張有一件事維持國家幸福感，也使人們在應對疫情方面更有優勢。那件事就是信任。蓋洛普民調顯示，北歐和紐西蘭等防疫成功的地方，對機構和陌生人抱有廣泛的信心。他們的大多數居民相信，鄰居發現他們的錢包會歸還。

Countries have failed to see off covid-19 for many obvious reasons. Some are poor; others are poorly led. They lack recent experience with diseases such as sars. They cannot police their borders. But Jeffrey Sachs, an economist at Columbia University, suggests another reason: politicians and officials in many rich European and American countries decided they could not ask too much of the public. A combination of individualism and less-than-solid institutional trust meant they felt unable to insist on quarantines or mask-wearing until the situation grew desperate.

各國防疫失敗有許多明顯的原因。有些國家貧窮；其他國家領導不力。他們缺乏有關SARS等疾病的近期經驗。他們無法維持邊境警戒。但是，哥倫比亞大學的經濟學家薩克斯提出另一個原因：許多歐美富國的政治人物和官員們決定，他們不能向公眾提出太多要求。個人主義結合對體制的信任薄弱，意味著他們覺得無法堅持隔離或戴口罩，直到情況嚴重到不得不然。

People who don’t need people 不需要人的人

If that is right, it might help explain a broad regional change: the falling happiness of Latin America and the rising happiness of East Asia. Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico all became less happy in 2020; China, Japan and Taiwan became happier, although South Korea slipped a bit. It is as though Latin American countries had the wrong kind of happiness before 2020, says Mr Helliwell—a happiness sustained by people’s close social connections, not by high levels of social trust. A global poll in 2019 found that only 52% of people in Latin America and the Caribbean thought a neighbour would return a wallet; just 41% thought a cop would. That is the lowest share of any region.

如果這是正確的，那可能有助於解釋廣泛的地區性變化：拉美的幸福感下降，東亞的幸福感上升。阿根廷、巴西、哥倫比亞和墨西哥都在2020年變得不那麼開心。中國，日本和台灣變得更加快樂，儘管韓國有所退步。赫里威爾說，拉丁美洲國家在2020年之前的幸福感似乎是錯誤的-這種幸福感是由人們緊密的社會聯繫，而非高度的社會信任所維持的。 2019年的一項全球民調發現，拉丁美洲和加勒比海地區只有52％的人認為鄰居會歸還錢包;只有41％的人認為警察會這麼做。這比率所有地區中最低的。

The pervasive lack of trust made it harder for Latin American countries to tackle covid-19 in a comprehensive way. People can and do keep their distance from each other, but that is emotionally tough in countries where people are normally so sociable. Mexicans have been deprived of their leisurely Friday lunches and Sunday family gatherings (though some carry on anyway). “The pandemic has changed a lot,” laments Edmilson de Souza Santos, a builder in Barueri, a São Paulo suburb. “You have to stop living your life.”

普遍缺乏信任使拉美國家更難全面應付新冠病毒。人們可以而且確實保持彼此的距離，但是這在情感上很難，尤其是在通常如此喜愛社交的國家。墨西哥人被剝奪周五悠閒的午餐和周日的家庭聚會，儘管有些人仍維持著。 「疫情改變了很多事」，聖保羅郊區巴魯埃里的建商Edmilson de Souza Santos感嘆。 「你必須停止你的生活。」

There remains a big national puzzle. America responded poorly to covid-19 and has suffered more than 500,000 excess deaths. Yet the Gallup poll detects a slight rise in Americans’ happiness level in 2020. A panel survey by the University of Southern California shows that mental stress and anxiety shot up in America last March and April, but then subsided. Two subsequent waves of infection and death appeared not to disturb them further.

這仍然有一個很大的國家難題。美國對新冠病毒的防疫不佳，超過50萬病例超額死亡。然而，蓋洛普民調發現，2020年美國人的幸福感略有上升。南加州大學進行小組調查顯示，去年3月和4月，美國人的精神壓力和焦慮情緒急劇上升，但隨後趨於平息。接著的兩次感染和死亡浪潮似乎並未進一步干擾他們。

Many American states have had rather lackadaisical lockdowns, at least for adults—for schoolchildren restrictions can seem unbending. That could have kept people’s spirits up. Abi Adams-Prassl of Oxford University and other researchers found that the first wave of lockdowns, last spring, lowered women’s moods. It could also be that extreme partisanship helps. Many Americans have spent the past year in an alternate information universe in which covid-19 is just like flu. It is hard to get too worked up about fake news. 

美國許多州對封鎖興致缺缺，至少對成年人來說（對學童的限制似乎能堅定不移）。那可能使人們情緒不至於太低落。牛津大學的亞當斯和其他研究人員發現，去年春季的第一波疫情封鎖，使婦女情緒沮喪。極端的黨派對立也可能有幫助。許多美國人過去一年在「新冠肺炎（covid-19）就像流感」的平行資訊世界中度過。既認定是假新聞，反應就不會太激動。