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Exploring the Important Link Between Health and Wealth

November 5, 2019  • Rhett Buttle & Financial Security Program

Over the past several months, the Aspen Institute’s prestigious programs, the Financial Security Program and the Health, Medicine and Society Program, embarked on a unique collaboration to explore the link between good health and financial wellbeing.

The connection between financial wellness and health is significant, with evidence showing that increased financial security is linked to improved health outcomes and improved quality of life. What’s more, finance and health are among the fastest-growing sectors of the economy — in the US, they comprise more than 40 percent of GDP — and both are targets of innovation.

Research has found that more than half of an individual’s life expectancy in the DC region could be explained by education and economic factors. According to another report, income growth not only correlates to life expectancy increases, but also to a decrease in the risk of chronic illness and an increase in access to resources that promote longevity and health. Other research has shown that financial insecurity is a serious source of mental stress, reducing an individual’s productivity and job performance. And yet more research notes that poor physical health directly impacts financial stability, increasing the likelihood of personal bankruptcy from medical debt.

Stakeholders across public, private, and philanthropic sectors are increasingly convinced of the necessity of a multidisciplinary approach that would result in solutions designed to tackle issues related to both economic and health inequality. Some of these efforts are being driven by the changes we are seeing in our economy — for example, the growth of the “gig” economy, high levels of debt, record income disparities, and challenges to retirement security that are all leaving their mark on an individual’s health. With economic structures in transition, entrepreneurs are beginning to link up with care providers and health advocates are promoting microenterprise. So, what does the link between health and wealth mean in this evolving economy?

Given these developments and questions, our collaboration sought to explore the connection between these two fields. Our work has manifested itself in two ways.

A Set of Exploratory Roundtables

First, the programs co-hosted a set of roundtables — one in Washington, DC, and one in San Francisco, CA — with key stakeholders from both fields. Each roundtable included approximately 20 to 30 sharp minds, including public health, healthcare, and financial security leaders from across academia, business, community-based and advocacy organizations, and other appropriate experts. The roundtables began a necessary dialogue, promoted an open space, and fostered trust in order to identify and discover areas of partnership.

Integrating Health & Wealth into the Aspen Ideas Festival

In addition to the roundtables, we brought the conversation to Aspen Ideas: Health (the three-day opening event of the Aspen Ideas Festival). There, we produced a track (or “theme”) focused exclusively on Health & Wealth. Content included a conversation with the US Surgeon General and the President of the Federal Reserve of Philadelphia, who explored ways that their jobs and missions are both fundamentally geared toward advancing the health of America’s families, communities, and economy. We also featured several business leaders who spoke to the business case for thinking about health and wealth together, and how both sectors can do more to ensure that the end goal of business aligns with helping households experience greater wellbeing. Another panel looked at how a living wage can create better health outcomes, and another explored how the growing burden of medical debt is one of the most common financial burdens for Americans. Attendees left increasingly aware that health and financial wellness are fundamentally linked.

What’s Next

These times require an authentic conversation about the substantial financial challenges facing our families — and increasing financial insecurity more broadly. Examining the connection between health and financial security is at the heart of this — and, we believe, the right place to start.

It is our hope that in partnership with several of the Institute’s policy programs — the Financial Security Program and the Health, Medicine and Society Program — we can explore an effort that combines each program’s networks, learnings, and expertise. Working together, the programs can move forward with the opportunity to examine the common essential building blocks of healthcare, medicine, wellness, and financial well-being. The true power in this effort comes from the ability to examine problems in new ways, integrate networks, and explore innovative solutions that stem from real collaboration. Through public convenings — and intensive, off-the-record dialogues with leaders from a wide cross-section of private, public, and nonprofit institutions — the Aspen Institute can play a lead role in advancing a conversation on how to improve health and wealth in tandem.

Long-lasting improvement on the issues of financial and health inequality requires multidisciplinary solutions that embrace the inter-relatedness of these issues. Improving health outcomes will allow people to live longer and healthier lives, and participate more fully in the economy. Coming together with a diverse set of committed leaders, we can effect change and improve the lives of millions.

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Health and Wealth

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Introduction Background Inequalities Breed Ill-health Ill-Health Breeds Economic Instability Inequalities Breed Stress The Way Out References

There is abundant proof that money does buy better healthcare, better health, and a longer life. On the other hand, good health is linked to the ability to create wealth, as well. Thus, there are strong links between several health indicators over the average life span of individuals and their available income.

Image Credit: Monster Ztudio/Shutterstock.com

Scientists have already summed up the results of multiple studies to show that wealthier people live longer, have less chronic disease, and maintain a higher level of function well into their old age. Reduced death rates, a longer life expectancy, and a lower risk of lifestyle conditions modified by income, such as obesity, smoking, hypertension, and asthma, are all concomitant benefits of having a high disposable income.

This is explainable in terms of the better living conditions available for the wealthy, coupled with better preventive and therapeutic healthcare, which means they do not become as seriously ill or remain so for as long as those who are poorer. Disability or chronic ill health resulting from such conditions may dog a person throughout life.

The effects of poor healthcare due to poverty and social inequalities may extend across generations to affect the unborn and children. For instance, a lack of vaccinations may leave the unborn prone to teratogenic infections such as rubella and measles. Malnutrition during pregnancy may cause low birth weight and developmental defects.

Similarly, maternal deaths may be higher for a lack of access to affordable quality healthcare. Increased spending on healthcare means less money for other expenses, reduced savings, and thus a state of unpreparedness for health and other emergencies. Poor health also reduces productivity, reduces earning capacity, impacts learning, and reduces emotional well-being.

Among high-income countries, American men and women live for an average of 76 and 81 years, respectively. Since they have the highest rates of injury and disease globally, their old age is medically and financially demanding. Interestingly, despite high incomes, Americans have high rates of homicides, vehicle accidents, sexually transmitted diseases, obesity and diabetes, alcohol- and drug-related deaths, lung disease, cardiovascular disease, and disabling autoimmune and joint diseases.

Inequalities Breed Ill-health

Social inequalities form a powerful weapon in keeping the poor in that condition, even while helping the rich get richer. It is noticeable that the disparity between the rich and the poor has become glaringly apparent in the USA. Poor households with negative or no wealth make up over a fifth of all households, according to 2016 data, which leaves them without resources in case of unemployment, an unexpected illness, or other expenses.

With healthcare being costly, many Americans lack insurance. Even so, lack of healthcare is responsible for one in ten deaths before the expected lifespan. The problems mentioned above cause the remaining premature deaths among poor Americans. Poorer adults are likely to have hypertension, obesity, infectious conditions, heart disease, and psychiatric illness.

Poverty is intimately linked to discrimination and systemic racism, that account for much of the difficulty experienced by the not-wealthy. For instance, poor or minority neighborhoods receive less investment and have lower property prices. The residents find it almost impossible to access bank loans and are at much higher risk of being unfairly suspected or treated by the police and judicial system.

Health inequalities are related to differences in the rates of various conditions like asthma, diabetes, obesity, and cancer, as well as of societal ills like violence, drug abuse, and alcoholism; to differences in the healthcare available to different groups and ethnicities; and differences in the healthcare insurance available. As a result, the poorest US counties have a life expectancy as much as three decades lower than those in the richest – a striking illustration that shows how near the poor in America are to the unhealthiest populations in the world.

Image Credit: Irina Strelnikova/Shutterstock.com

Ill-Health Breeds Economic Instability

Much literature shows that ill-health causes a direct impairment of the ability to work and earn, both for the worker and the related family, to act as consumers and participate in leisure activities. Indirect costs are also high, with reduced work productivity (“presenteeism”), absence from work (absenteeism), and early retirement or non-employment due to illness with debilitating conditions.

One dramatic illustration is the 40% cost of sustaining a person with multiple sclerosis that comes simply because of lost productivity because the person can no longer work.

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Another huge indirect cost is the need for caregivers for the sick, who may be unable to attend work as a result or may be less productive when at work.

Inequalities Breed Stress

Social inequalities, seen most sharply in the US among all developed countries, appear to be an independent factor that reduces life expectancy, overall health, and well-being, despite a higher income. Studies show that “ people in more egalitarian societies live longer, experience less violence, have lower rates of obesity and teen pregnancy, are less likely to use illicit drugs and enjoy better mental health than their counterparts in countries with a wide divide between rich and poor .”

Stress is a powerful weapon and is equally experienced by the rich and poor. The effects of social inequality, seen most sharply in the US, are mediated via chronic stress, which exerts a deleterious effect on the heart, blood vessels, immune responses, and brain.

In addition to the physical aspects of poverty, which can be seen, even the rich suffer from chronic performance anxiety, demands to keep up appearances and increase their wealth through fierce and unending competition, and loss of trust. Inevitably, such a society breaks down due to the impassable barriers of suspicion and mistrust between the people who make up the community.

Concerning children’s health, less unequal societies are notable for higher rates of childhood immunization, accidental deaths among children, lower rates of addiction to tobacco and alcohol, and higher rates of educational achievement.

Image Credit: Prazis Images/Shutterstock.com

The Way Out

According to social scientists, policies to reduce inequality are health- and wealth-producing policies. Entrenched commercial interests that market foods and products that foster ill-health must be fought and removed from decision-making areas at the top. This is unlikely to happen anywhere in the world, however, which means that individuals and communities must take their health and wealth into their own hands.

Thus, multipronged interventions will be necessary. Small Steps to Health and Wealth is one stepped program that provides life coaching for poor and/or sick people to help them change their habits to fit their long-term goals.

People should also take charge of their health as far as possible, with ongoing maintenance, regular scheduled check-ups, and building good habits. The same goes for wealth creation, especially since a longer lifespan implies the need to build enough capital to last one’s life.

Public attitudes to health and wealth are underpinned by public knowledge of what drives these entities. In turn, public attitudes drive public behavior. Behavior is one area that psychologists can help change, and their skills should be harnessed to drive healthy and productive behavior.

The situation that favors the creation and perpetuation of economic disparities can be corrected only by advancing wealth to invest among those who have been disadvantaged by all these factors, allowing them to move forward by providing opportunities in education, banking, the police, and justice systems, housing and including their input while framing policies.

Microloans for small businesses, help to rent better houses in better neighborhoods, or to buy their own homes, helping adults gain insight into financial management, coaching to help achieve specific goals and assistance with getting a minimum wage adequate to live a decent lifestyle while simultaneously providing assistance to climb the ladder where appropriate via on-the-job training.

Focusing on children is a highly effective strategy since it ensures a good start for each individual and has the most long-term ramifications of all. This includes universal quality prenatal care, early education with all kids entitled to attend good preschools, and improving the educational system to achieve high academic and learning skills. The classrooms are also the fertile ground where educators can instill healthy attitudes and behaviors that promote diligence and creativity.

Along with equalizing healthcare access, the quality of care given to the poor needs to improve. The most important thing is to target opportunities to promote health since this occurs earlier in the course of events rather than focusing on outcomes alone.

Better treatment for the sick would keep caregivers at work for a longer time, thus increasing overall revenues. Proper distribution of economic growth by investing in public services would benefit the poor and take the strain on safety-net services.

References:

• Braveman, P. et al. (2018). Wealth Matters for Health Equity. https://www.rwjf.org/en/library/research/2018/09/wealth-matters-for-health-equity.html
• Weir, K. (2013). Closing the Health-Wealth Gap. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/10/health-wealth
• Small Steps to Health and Wealth™. https://njaes.rutgers.edu/sshw/internal/
• Garau, M. et al. (2015). Is The Link Between Health and Wealth Considered in Decision Making? Results From A Qualitative Study. International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care . https://dx.doi.org/10.1017%2FS0266462315000616 . https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4824956/

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Last Updated: May 31, 2022

Dr. Liji Thomas

Dr. Liji Thomas is an OB-GYN, who graduated from the Government Medical College, University of Calicut, Kerala, in 2001. Liji practiced as a full-time consultant in obstetrics/gynecology in a private hospital for a few years following her graduation. She has counseled hundreds of patients facing issues from pregnancy-related problems and infertility, and has been in charge of over 2,000 deliveries, striving always to achieve a normal delivery rather than operative.

Please use one of the following formats to cite this article in your essay, paper or report:

Thomas, Liji. (2022, May 31). Health and Wealth. News-Medical. Retrieved on September 16, 2024 from https://www.news-medical.net/health/Health-and-Wealth.aspx.

Thomas, Liji. "Health and Wealth". News-Medical . 16 September 2024. <https://www.news-medical.net/health/Health-and-Wealth.aspx>.

Thomas, Liji. "Health and Wealth". News-Medical. https://www.news-medical.net/health/Health-and-Wealth.aspx. (accessed September 16, 2024).

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Why health should replace wealth as the heart of prosperity

Ask people what matters most in their lives and the chances are that health will come out somewhere near the top. Health for ourselves. Health for our friends and our families. Health too—sometimes—for the fragile planet on which we live and on whose health we depend. 

The same lesson must surely top those we learnt over the last eighteen months. As Covid spread, there was a sense everywhere of priorities being reshuffled. Without health, all routes to wellbeing become impassable. The trappings of material affluence, hitherto sacred to our vision of prosperity, seem at best ephemeral and at worst irrelevant. 

Yet, as the epidemiological (and ideological) battles over “Freedom Day” attest, those precious lessons were both hard won and swiftly forgotten. A matter of months after we applauded our nurses from the doorstep, they were offered the paltriest of pay rises. Now once again our carers find themselves at the mercy of a cold economic calculus: faced with escalating covid-19 hospital admissions and the potentially deadly postponement of other emergency treatments—purely to satisfy the libertarian mood of the day. 

Appointing an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer as Secretary of State for Health and Social care may be a good way for bullish politicians to pander to a fickle profit-driven corner of the electorate. But whatever the economic outcome achieved by an “irreversible”’ lifting of restrictions, society will be forever poorer if we forego this opportunity to ask what kind of economy we now need, what kind of “recovery” we should aim for. What can prosperity possibly mean for a promiscuous species on a finite planet? 

The question is almost as old as the hills. But the contemporary answer to it is paralyzingly narrow. Cast in the garb of late capitalism, prosperity has been captured by the ideology of “eternal growth:” a mantra that insists that more is always better. Despite overwhelming evidence that relentless expansion is undermining nature and driving us towards a devastating climate emergency, the myth of growth still reigns supreme. 

Even as we write, New York city has been paralysed by floods, a heat dome over British Colombia has led to temperatures 10-20°C above seasonal averages, and Europe and the UK have experienced flash floods. These events kill. Sudden deaths rose nearly 200 per cent during the heatwave in British Columbia. Lawsuits are being filed against the oil majors who knew about the possibility of climate change as much as forty years ago. But the price will be too high even for the oil-rich giants to pay.  

The planetary damage caused by this expansionary zeal is compounded by another very human cost. Capitalism needs selfish, insatiable consumers to achieve its ambitions for growth. So it incentivises that kind of behaviour. It lionises those who excel at it. Simultaneously, it undervalues the tasks that matter most to society—care work, for example—and denigrates those who labour there. Capitalism has “gaslighted” us into accepting a tainted view of ourselves and a tawdry substitute for human fulfilment. 

If we are to have any chance of living well within the limits of the planet, we must dethrone the myths that haunt economics—to see them for what they are rather than the hard-nosed “truths” they claim to be. To reclaim our own humanity, we must look elsewhere for our governing metaphors.

To turn at this point to the idea of prosperity as health is to do more than reiterate the lessons of the pandemic. As Aristotle pointed out in his Nicomachean Ethics (a book named after his physician father), the good life must always be seen—not as the continual pursuit of more—but as a fine line between deficiency and excess. Balance—rather than growth—is the governing metaphor of health. 

Population health provides the most obvious example of this idea. Too little food and we’re struggling with diseases of malnutrition. Too much and we’re tipped into the “diseases of affluence” — obesity, hypertension, diabetes—that now kill more people than undernutrition does. Good health depends on finding and nurturing this balance. 

That task is always tricky of course, even at the individual level. Just think about the challenge of keeping your exercise, your diet, and your appetites in line with the outcome of a healthy body weight. But living inside a system that has its sights continually focused on more makes the task near impossible. Capitalism not only fails to recognise the point where balance lies. It has no idea how to stop when it gets there. 

The focus on health triggered by the coronavirus was a vindication of the wisdom conveyed more than two centuries ago by Thomas Jefferson. “The care of human life and happiness—and not its destruction,” he said, “is the first and only task of government.” As we re-orient ourselves to new realities, the lessons of the last 18 months offer us a unique opportunity to re-balance both our individual lives and our sense of social progress. It is health rather than wealth that lies at the heart of our wellbeing and provides the true foundation for a lasting prosperity. 

Tim Jackson is professor of Sustainable Development at the University of Surrey and author of Post Growth – Life after Capitalism.  

Julian Sheather is a writer and ethicist. He is special adviser in ethics and human rights to the British Medical Association, ethics consultant to MSF and co-author of Medical Ethics Today . 

Competing interests : none declared.

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The gap between rich and poor americans' health is widening.

Susie Neilson

Researchers compared Americans' health status today with that of 25 years ago and found that health is worsening among lower-income Americans. Orbon Alija/Getty Images hide caption

Researchers compared Americans' health status today with that of 25 years ago and found that health is worsening among lower-income Americans.

Income inequality in the U.S. has grown over the past several decades. And as the gap between rich and poor yawns, so does the gap in their health, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open Friday.

The study drew from annual health survey data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 1993 to 2017, including around 5.5 million Americans ages 18-64. The researchers focused on two questions from the survey recommended by the CDC as reliable indicators of health: 1. Over the last 30 days, how many healthy days have you had? 2. On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate your overall health?

What they found: Across all groups, Americans' self-reported health has declined since 1993. And race, gender and income play a bigger role in predicting health outcomes now than they did in 1993. Overall, white men in the highest income bracket were the healthiest group.

"And actually, what's happening to the health of wealthier people is that it's remaining relatively stagnant, but the health of the lowest income group is declining substantially over time," says Frederick Zimmerman , the study's lead author and a professor at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

The researchers looked at differences in health between white and black people and between three income brackets. They assessed the degree to which race, income and gender influenced health outcomes over time, a measure they called "health justice."

Finally, they calculated the gap between people's health outcomes and that of the most privileged demographic: high-income white men.

"Results of this analysis suggest that there has been a clear lack of progress on health equity during the past 25 years in the United States," the researchers write.

Income was the biggest predictor of differences in health outcomes, according to Zimmerman. Health differences between the highest income group and lowest income group increased "really quite dramatically," he says.

Things weren't all negative. On one measure — disparity between health outcomes for black and white people — the gap between health outcomes narrowed significantly.

But gender and race still influenced health outcomes.

Lisa Cooper , a Bloomberg distinguished professor in health equity at Johns Hopkins University, called the study's conclusions "frustrating, but honestly not surprising."

She says that future research could do more to examine the context of these demographic factors — for instance, not just what race somebody is, but whether the person lives in a segregated neighborhood.

Limitations of the study include the fact that the authors were not able to look at factors like immigration status and sexual orientation.

"This study demonstrates a stunning lack of progress at the macro level," says Eileen Moore , a physician and associate professor of medicine at Georgetown University's School of Medicine and medical director of Georgetown University's Health Justice Alliance .

Vicki Girard , a professor of law at Georgetown and co-director of Georgetown University's Health Justice Alliance, says the study's large size and longevity make it significant. She says its findings should be a "call to action" on addressing broader societal inequality.

Research shows that health care accounts for only 10% to 20% of overall health outcomes. Social determinants , or our living conditions and the factors driving them, account for the rest.

For instance, studies have found that low education is attributable to the same number of deaths as heart attacks. One 2016 study showed that the average life expectancy of U.S. men in the bottom 1% of income distribution is roughly equivalent to the life expectancy of someone in Sudan or Pakistan, whereas men in the top 1% of income outlive the average man in all other countries.

To make real progress on health inequities, communities have to address life conditions that contribute to poor health, Moore says. In their own work, Moore and Girard use legal strategies to ease the stress of their patients' lives. For instance, when patients living in public housing have problems like pest infestations or lead paint, their team finds them attorneys to hold their landlords to account.

Such approaches, Moore says, can address social determinants on a local level. But they need to be implemented more widely.

Dr. Jesus Ramirez-Valles , director of the Health Equity Institute at San Francisco State University, says he would have liked to see the study include people under 18, because that's "when health inequities settle" and become entrenched. The study looked at people of "working age," between 18 and 64 years old.

But, Ramirez-Valles says, the study does a good job of showing that when it comes to health outcomes, "it's not always [immediately] about health." He says the study's findings indicate a need for two broad policy recommendations: a revision of the minimum wage and a rethinking of our current taxation system.

"Income inequality is at the bottom of this," he says. "We need to target and attack [it] aggressively. Not only in this country, but worldwide."

Susie Neilson is an intern on NPR's Science Desk. Find her on Twitter here: @susieneilson

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Consumer Behavior

Health vs. wealth: how the pandemic changed our priorities, shopping, sharing, and savoring: balancing health and wealth..

Posted June 6, 2022 | Reviewed by Michelle Quirk

• The COVID-19 pandemic has uniquely impacted the value we place on both money and materialism.
• The pandemic produced materialistic values, such as consuming media, anxiety, stress, loneliness, and depressed mood.
• Contrary to expectations, focus on money actually decreased during the course of the pandemic.

During the early months of 2020, many people were reminded through both personal experience and global news reports of the critical importance of maintaining good health. As the pandemic progressed, we began to ask: but at what cost? We recognized that all the money in the world cannot buy good health, although good insurance helps. Flash forward several years, and we have clarified our priorities through our evolving practices of saving, sharing, and spending. As many people suspected, the COVID-19 pandemic has uniquely impacted the value we place on both money and materialism .

Shopping, Sharing, and Savoring

Olaya Moldes et al. (2022) examined how people changed their priorities over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. 1 Focusing largely on money and materialism, they made some interesting observations that demonstrate how privately evolving priorities can impact public spending behavior.

Balancing Health and Wealth

Moldes et al. note that the pandemic produced an increase in the types of factors that usually accompany an endorsement of materialistic values, such as consuming more media, anxiety , stress , loneliness , and depressed mood. Although they found that increases in media consumption, anxiety, and stress predicted levels of materialism to an extent, they found such effects to be limited. Contrary to expectations, they found that our focus on money actually decreased during the course of the pandemic.

Moldes et al. recognized a research-based definition of materialism as “individual differences in people's long-term endorsement of values, goals , and associated beliefs that center on the importance of acquiring money and possessions that convey status” (Dittmar et al., 2014). They note that wealth and consumption are thought to be tied to personal achievement and happiness —even though materialism has been linked to lower well-being and higher degrees of compulsive buying. They also note that research shows that advocating materialistic values is influenced by a higher amount of media consumption as well as social and personal insecurities and negative emotions.

But, overall, Moldes et al. explained that their observed decrease in the importance people placed on money might be due to the COVID-19–triggered alterations in the values people held—which were in the opposite direction than were predicted. They also found that, contrary to expectations, people decreased the level of importance they placed on economic resources during the outbreak, despite experiencing more factors that facilitate and promote materialism. They note that these results may be due to prioritizing personal health and well-being, or emerging “collective social identities that promote social solidarity and cooperation ,” that have previously been observed in times of emergencies and environmental disasters—thus decreasing our focus on material and economic resources.

Resignation and Revival

Moldes et al. note that the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the ways in which people think about money. Commenting on what has been dubbed “The Great Resignation” observed in the United States and the United Kingdom, they note that exiting the workforce has been likely fueled by reflecting on life priorities during the pandemic.

One interesting point, however, was that, apparently, during the pandemic, people found money to be less important, despite an increase in factors that endorse materialism. Moldes et al. observed an overall decrease in reported pandemic shopping behaviors, but a higher instance of purchasing as a coping mechanism to deal with negative emotions and in pursuit of well-being.

As we move forward seeking to prioritize both health and wealth, we have gained a greater appreciation of the ageless adage that the most precious things in life are free.

1. Moldes, Olaya, Denitsa Dineva, and Lisbeth Ku. 2022. “Has the Covid‐19 Pandemic Made Us More Materialistic? The Effect of Covid‐19 and Lockdown Restrictions on the Endorsement of Materialism.” Psychology & Marketing, January. doi:10.1002/mar.21627.

Wendy L. Patrick, J.D., Ph.D., is a career trial attorney, behavioral analyst, author of Red Flags , and co-author of Reading People .

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Health Is Wealth Essay for Students and Children

500+ words health is wealth essay.

Growing up you might have heard the term ‘Health is Wealth’, but its essential meaning is still not clear to most people. Generally, people confuse good health with being free of any kind of illness. While it may be part of the case, it is not entirely what good health is all about. In other words, to lead a healthy life , a person must be fit and fine both physically and mentally. For instance, if you are constantly eating junk food yet you do not have any disease, it does not make you healthy. You are not consuming healthy food which naturally means you are not healthy, just surviving. Therefore, to actually live and not merely survive, you need to have the basic essentials that make up for a healthy lifestyle.

Introduction

Life is about striking a balance between certain fundamental parts of life. Health is one of these aspects. We value health in the same way that we value time once we have lost it. We cannot rewind time, but the good news is that we can regain health with some effort. A person in good physical and mental health may appreciate the world to the fullest and meet life’s problems with ease and comfort. Health is riches implies that health is a priceless asset rather than money or ownership of material possessions. There is no point in having money if you don’t have good health.

Key Elements Of A Healthy Lifestyle

If you wish to acquire a healthy lifestyle, you will certainly have to make some changes in your life. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle demands consistent habits and disciplined life. There are various good habits that you can adopt like exercising regularly which will maintain your physical fitness. It also affects your mental health as when your appearance enhances, your confidence will automatically get boosted.

To live a healthy life, one must make some lifestyle modifications. These modifications can include changes to your food habits, sleeping routines, and lifestyle. You should eat a well-balanced, nutrient-dense diet for your physical wellness.

Further, it will prevent obesity and help you burn out extra fat from your body. After that, a balanced diet is of great importance. When you intake appropriate amounts of nutrition, vitamins, proteins, calories and more, your immune system will strengthen. This will, in turn, help you fight off diseases powerfully resulting in a disease-free life.

Above all, cleanliness plays a significant role in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Your balanced diet and regular exercise will be completely useless if you live in an unhealthy environment. One must always maintain cleanliness in their surroundings so as to avoid the risk of catching communicable diseases.

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Benefits Of A Healthy Lifestyle

As it is clear by now, good health is a luxury which everyone wants but some of them cannot afford. This point itself states the importance of a healthy lifestyle. When a person leads a healthy lifestyle, he/she will be free from the tension of seeking medical attention every now and then.

On the contrary, if you have poor health, you will usually spend your time in a hospital and the bills will take away your mental peace. Therefore, a healthy lifestyle means you will be able to enjoy your life freely. Similarly, when you have a relaxed mind at all times, you will be able to keep your loved ones happy. A healthy individual is more likely to fulfil all of his goals because he can easily focus on them and has the energy to complete them. This is why the proverb “Health is Wealth” carries so much weight.

A socially healthy individual is one who is able to interact effectively and readily connect with others. Without his ego, he can easily blend with the person in front of him, exuding a nice feeling and energy.

Every human being should participate in sports and activities to get away from the monotony of daily life. It is because sports and games assist in instilling a sense of oneness in people, build leadership skills, and make a person absolutely disciplined.

Moreover, a healthy lifestyle will push you to do better in life and motivate you to achieve higher targets. It usually happens that people who are extremely wealthy in terms of money often lack good health. This just proves that all the riches in the world will do you no good if there is an absence of a healthy lifestyle.

In short, healthy life is the highest blessing that must not be taken for granted. It is truly the source of all happiness. Money may buy you all the luxuries in the world but it cannot buy you good health. You are solely responsible for that, so for your well-being and happiness, it is better to switch to a healthy lifestyle.

Good Health for Children

Childhood is an ideal period to inculcate healthy behaviours in children. Children’s health is determined by a variety of factors, including diet, hydration, sleep schedule, hygiene, family time, doctor visits, and physical exercise. Following are a few key points and health tips that parents should remember for their children:

• Never allow your children to get by without nutritious food. Fruits and vegetables are essential.
• Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, therefore teach them to frequently wash their hands and feet.
• Sleep is essential for your child.
• Make it a habit for them to drink plenty of water.
• Encourage physical activity and sports.
• Allow them enough time to sleep.
• It is critical to visit the doctor on a regular basis for checks.

Parents frequently focus solely on their children’s physical requirements. They dress up their children’s wounds and injuries and provide them with good food. However, they frequently fail to detect their child’s deteriorating mental health. This is because they do not believe that mental health is important.

Few Lines on Health is Wealth Essay for Students

• A state of physical, mental, emotional, and social well-being is referred to as health. And all of this is linked to one another.
• Stress, worry, and tension are the leading causes of illness and disease in today’s world. When these three factors are present for an extended period of time, they can result in a variety of mental difficulties, which can lead to physical and emotional illnesses. As a result, taking care of your own health is critical.
• Unhealthy food or contaminated water, packed and processed food and beverages, unsanitary living conditions, not getting enough sleep, and a lack of physical activity are some of the other primary causes of health deterioration.
• A well-balanced diet combined with adequate exercise and hygienic habits, as well as a clean environment, can enhance immunity and equip a person to fight most diseases.
• A healthy body and mind are capable of achieving things that a sick body and mind are incapable of achieving, including happiness.
• It is also vital to seek medical and professional assistance when necessary because health is our most valuable asset.
• Activities such as playing an instrument, playing games, or reading provide the brain with the required exercise it requires to improve health.

Maintaining healthy behaviours improves one’s outlook on life and contributes to longevity as well as success.

Frequently Asked Questions

Question 1: What are the basic essentials of a healthy life? Answer: A healthy life requires regular exercise, a balanced diet, a clean environment, and good habits.

Question 2: How can a healthy life be beneficial? Answer: A healthy lifestyle can benefit you in various ways. You will lead a happier life free from any type of disease. Moreover, it will also enhance your state of mind.

Question 3: When is World Health Day celebrated?

Answer: Since 1950, World Health Day has been observed on the 7th of April by the World Health Organization (WHO), after a decision made at the first Health Assembly in 1948. It is observed to raise awareness about people’s overall health and well-being around the world.

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Health is More Important Than Wealth – 3 Surprising Reasons Why

“Health is more important than wealth.” – English Proverb

There are all kinds of articles written in the personal finance space about the importance of money, building wealth, and financial security. And that is not a bad thing.

But I rarely see anything written  with the intent of putting money in its proper place in the balance of our lives. There are many things more important than money, and the old proverb that health is more important than wealth is certainly true.

At some level, I think we know this, but unfortunately it can take a tragedy to make us really believe that it’s true and change how we live.

I’m not an old man yet by any means (unless you ask my kids). But I have experienced enough of life to really start to understand that chasing wealth (or just worrying a lot about money) at the expense of your health is not worth the cost.

When you are young, you can feel invincible – working 80+ hours a week to climb the corporate ladder, or build your own business, living off of caffeine and adrenaline. But sooner or later that lifestyle will catch up with you, and hopefully you are tuned in enough to catch the early warning signs.

Table of Contents

What Is Health?

What is health? Seems like a silly question, but it is almost philosophical if you stop and think about it.

We usually think of health in a physical sense. To be healthy is to be strong and free of illness or disease. That is certainly part of it, but there are many more aspects to health.

Psychologists point to many different aspects of health , but some of the main ones are:

Physical Health

As discussed above, physical health refers to the state of the body. Someone who is physically healthy takes care of themselves through exercise, proper nutrition, and sleep. They are able-bodied and free of illness and disease.

Mental Health

Mental health is more than just a lack of mental disorder. It includes the ability to concentrate, think, and reason.

The World Health Organization defines it like this:

“a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.”

Emotional Health

To be emotionally healthy does not mean you are always happy, but that you are aware of your emotions, whether positive or negative. You are and able to deal with and manage your emotions, and cope with everyday situations and stress.

Social Health

Social health refers to your ability to form meaningful relationships, and involves your interactions with other people one-on-one or in a group. We all have a need for social interaction (even an introvert like me).

Spiritual Health

While spiritual health includes your religious beliefs, it is more than that. To be spiritually healthy also includes having a sense of purpose, hope, and value to the world.

Holistic Health – More Than Just Diet and Exercise

As you can see from the 5 different aspects of health above, it is about much more than just physical health. Neglecting any of these 5 aspects of health can be detrimental to your overall well-being, and they often work together. For example, ignoring your mental or emotional health, perhaps by living in a constant state of stress, will eventually impact your physical health as well.

Why Health Is More Important Than Wealth

What is your most important asset – your most prized possession? Is it your house? Or your 401(k)? Your liquid net worth in an emergency fund? Maybe even your time?

If you really think about it, your most important asset is YOU – and more specifically your health.

To put it another way, your health is the foundation from which you can build any other aspect of your life, including wealth. And all that you accumulate means nothing when your health fails and you can’t enjoy what you’ve built.

I may talk about this more in the future, but I’ve had my own personal battles with ongoing health issues, and I would gladly trade my 401(k) balance to be 100% healthy. Here are a few reasons why.

1. Without Health, You Can’t Build Wealth

Somewhat ironically, wealthy people seem to understand this best. If you look at the habits of successful people , many of them revolve around diet, exercise, meditation, and taking time out for friends and family. They understand that they cannot reach the peak of productivity in their money-making ventures without taking care of their health.

Unless you are starting out with a trust fund, it takes a lot of hard work to build wealth. If you are spending a lot of time and energy managing a chronic illness, or even the effects of stress on your body and mind, you are not able to be fully committed to achieving other goals in life.

In my own experiences, I know I am limited in what I can achieve because of chronic health issues. I can’t be the person who stays up until midnight and wakes up at 5am every day. I need more sleep than most. I’ve learned to manage, and prioritize what I focus my time on. In some ways, it’s allowed me to strip away a lot of the non-essential activities and avoid “shiny object syndrome” because I know my limitations.

And honestly, I think if I never had any health struggles, I would have more easily fallen into the trap of chasing wealth and neglecting my health. So in some ways, it’s a blessing to learn this lesson earlier in life than most. Which leads me to my next point…

2. Wealth Cannot Ultimately Make You Happy

Study after study has shown that having a lot of money does not necessarily make you happy. A recent report showed that an income of $60,000 to $75,000 per year is ideal for emotional well-being.

The FIRE (financial independence / retire early) community is criticized for a lot of things, but one thing I think they get right overall is trying to define the concept of “enough”. While society is constantly trying to keep up with the proverbial Joneses, learning to be content with what you have can lead to more happiness than earning more money.

And if you’re participating in the consumeristic rat race, there’s always a new bar to measure up to. Unless you’re a Warren Buffett or Bill Gates, there is always another class of people just out of reach that can afford a lifestyle that you cannot – whether you make $30,000 a year or $1,000,000 a year.

Focusing on all the different aspects of health (physical, emotional, mental, social, and spiritual) has been shown to be much more beneficial to your happiness over the long run than a number in your bank account.

3. Money Can’t Buy Health

While being in good health gives you the time, energy, and drive to make extra money , with few exceptions it doesn’t work the other way around. You can’t neglect your health over a 40 year career and then expect to get it back by throwing money at it.

But strangely enough, that is what we (at least in Western society) seem to try to do. Instead of turning to holistic health practices such as diet, exercise, meditation, or just a night out with friends, in the U.S. there’s a prescription drug for anything that ails you.

According to recent research from Harvard , the U.S. spends $9,400 per capita on healthcare, compared to $5,400 in other high-income countries. That is a large percentage of the average American budget . Despite the increased spending, our health is certainly no better, and in most cases worse. Life expectancy in the U.S. is 3 years shorter than other high-income countries, and we have much higher rates of preventative diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.

In fact, the unrelenting pursuit of wealth, or just trying to keep up with our peers, is a constant source of stress and busyness in our lives. For all the promises that are made to us about how perfect life will be once we finally attain that next level of financial security, we are killing ourselves to get there. And it’s often only if and when we do reach the peak that we desperately realize we would gladly trade our wealth for the holistic health we’d been ignoring for so long.

How to Prioritize Your Health

The good news is it’s never too late to come to the realization that health is more important than wealth.

And in case it wasn’t clear above, being a healthy person is about more than just physical health. For my own health challenges, I have been diligent in pursuing all kinds of treatments, whether medical, nutrition, holistic medicine, etc.

While it has definitely helped me manage and I’m better off than I would be without it, I recognize that health – especially physical health – is not always in your control. By focusing on other aspects of health, you can find still find happiness and joy in life, even without perfect physical health. (But don’t see that as letting you off the hook to work hard toward maintaining your physical health to the best of your ability!)

Here are a few actionable tips to help you prioritize your health:

• Incorporate exercise into your daily routine – You don’t have to spend 2 hours at the gym every day. Just changing your routine to include an active lifestyle (walking more instead of driving, or mowing your yard instead of hiring it out) can help.
• Spend more time eating and preparing food – In the busyness of life, the prevalence of fast food and sugar-laden snacks has risen to all-time highs. Slow down, and carve out time to prepare and eat healthy food. You can still eat healthy while saving money on groceries .
• Schedule dates with family and friends – That means no work, and no cell phone. Forming meaningful connections with people is a huge part of your mental and emotional health.
• Make time for reading – Instead of turning on the TV at night, pick up a book. Whether just for fun or personal development, learning new things is a part of your journey toward holistic health.
• Nurture your spirituality – This may look different for everyone. I am a Christian, and those beliefs inform the very core of what I believe about myself, the world, and even how I spend my money . It provides a sense of hope, community, and a purpose greater than myself. Even for those that would say they are not religious, having meaning and purpose has been proven to contribute to your overall sense of well-being.

Health Is More Important Than Wealth – In Summary

Modern society has conditioned us to chase wealth – whether that be in the form of money, possessions, or status. In the process, most of us neglect the most important asset we have – our health.

More than just being physically fit, health incorporates almost every aspect of our lives – mental, emotional, physical, social, and spiritual. Each plays a role in our overall sense of well-being, happiness, and purpose in life.

While money is also an important part of life, and necessary to meet many of our daily needs, money is not the most important thing. Too much focus on it can be detrimental to our health. And as the saying goes, nobody on their deathbed every wished they had worked more hours or accumulated more money. NOW is the time to find a balance in your life and spend time on what really matters to you.

Andrew Herrig is a finance expert and money nerd and the founder of Wealthy Nickel, where he writes about personal finance, side hustles, and entrepreneurship. As an avid real estate investor and owner of multiple businesses, he has a passion for helping others build wealth and shares his own family’s journey on his blog.

Andrew holds a Masters of Science in Economics from the University of Texas at Dallas and a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University. He has worked as a financial analyst and accountant in many aspects of the financial world.

Andrew’s expert financial advice has been featured on CNBC, Entrepreneur, Fox News, GOBankingRates, MSN, and more.

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1 thought on “Health is More Important Than Wealth – 3 Surprising Reasons Why”

Seems obvious but sometimes we learn the hard way. On the way to FIRE, even on the day to day stuff I take for granted that I have the energy and free-from-pain to pursue and sustain that workload to do whatever it is that I wanted.

It took me some time to realize this and it is a daily reminder not to forget our priorities.

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Health vs. wealth

The Economist reports this week on new research on the relationship between Health and Wealth . The long and the short of it is that improvements in health don't necessarily lead to higher incomes, as counterintuitive as that sounds at first. (As always, the causation may be running the opposite direction - higher incomes lead to better health.) In one of the papers, researchers from MIT looked at the impact of medical advancements like penicillin that improved health in developing countries but clearly were not the result of improved incomes in developing countries. They found that income per head dropped despite improvements in life expectancy.

According to the Economist, the researchers offered this explanation:

The reason was that increased life expectancy led to a higher population using a limited stock of things like land and capital, thus depressing income per person. Over time, reduced fertility, more investment and the entrepreneurial benefits of having more people could reverse some of this, but the data suggested that reductions in fertility in particular took a long time.

There seems to be another possibility that has been left unexamined, however. Let's assume for a moment that there is a very uneven distribution of innate ability (e.g. physical strength) in a population. If these medical innovations were of disproportionate benefit to those at the lower end of the distribution, then the overall productivity of a country might very well drop even as life expectancy increased.

Of course, data crunching would not capture this phenomenon - at least not for the 1950s - since we don't have numbers on innate ability. But is seems to me at least as plausible as the explanation offered by the researchers (or, at least the one summarized by the Economist - I haven't had a chance yet to look at the papers).

I should be clear that I'm not suggesting that improving health is a bad thing. Health is an important end in and of itself. As the Economist points out, "[i]t may be best to make a case for improving health because it is a good thing in itself, rather than on the basis of presumed economic benefits that may not appear for generations."

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Wealth Vs. Health: Take A Balanced Approach

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Don't let your focus on building and preserving wealth negatively impact your family relationships and personal health.

If you're in your prime earning years, your focus is likely on building the wealth you will need to live well in retirement. Americans are living longer and health care costs are rising. Investing enough money to provide sufficient income to sustain your current lifestyle can help pave the way for a more secure retirement. But too much focus on meeting future income needs can be stressful particularly when you are in your 30s, 40s and 50s and may be facing many family commitments. How do you find a balance?

Start by realizing that it's normal to feel a nerve-wracking pull between enjoying your life today and accumulating sufficient wealth to cover all your expenses in retirement. “Thinking about how much income you will need in retirement can be very daunting,” says Tracie McMillion, CFA, Head of Global Asset Allocation at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.

For most people, prime working years are also prime family years — the time when children are growing up and older family members may begin to need medical care. Having a single-minded focus on wealth-building at the expense of family priorities can cause major stress, which can even impact your health. More than just an annoyance, chronic stress raises the risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, depression, anxiety disorder, and other illnesses.

Burying your head in the sand isn't the answer, either. “People tend to focus more on the present than the future,” says Margie E. Lachman, Ph.D., professor of psychology and director of the Lifespan Initiative on Healthy Aging and Lifespan Lab at Brandeis University.

While it can be fun to live in the moment, the secret to building wealth without damaging your health lies in taking a balanced approach. Here are six ways to find a work-life balance that allows you to enjoy today while saving for tomorrow.

1) Don't wait

If you don’t think that you will be able to meet your income needs in retirement, don't waste time beating yourself up about it. Meet with your financial team now to take immediate action. You may want to consider whether you are accumulating wealth in the most tax-efficient accounts and also revisit your regular expenditures. Having a clear plan in place can help you increase opportunities available to you when you retire.

2) Rethink retirement income

When interest rates are high, many retired investors look to bond portfolios for income. But with sustained low interest rates, those accumulating wealth for retirement as well as those already in retirement may need to consider other avenues to generate their income.

“Sometimes, fear of risk makes people too conservative with retirement savings. They don't want to lose what they've worked so hard for,” McMillion says. “But you do want to get a good return on your money.&rdquo Because people are living longer in retirement, you may want to keep exposure to equities and other growth investments even as you get closer to retirement. A portfolio that relies solely on fixed income may not be able to keep up with inflation. “Talk to your investment specialist to determine which strategies align with your specific needs,” offers McMillion.

3) Involve your family

Take advantage of opportunities to talk with your family about finances. When your children are young, it can help to explain why it's so important for you to save for the future and that sometimes short-term sacrifices are necessary to make that happen. Understanding the family's financial realities may help lower everyone's stress levels when you occasionally have to make the choice to skip a Little League game or gymnastics meet in order to put in some extra hours at work. By having regular conversations about budgeting and investing, your children will be well informed as they mature and more prepared for their own financial futures.

4) Take care of your health

Neglecting self-care not only interferes with your quality of life but can also make your post-retirement health care costs skyrocket. Protect your health and your nest egg by eating a healthy diet, exercising most days of the week, maintaining a healthy weight, getting regular health checkups, and staying up to date on vaccinations. These things do take time and effort, but they can have big payoffs later in life.

5) Make your money work as hard as you do

Business owners often have their company’s balance sheet top of mind as they build their business. But once the business is passed along, their personal balance sheet will need to be structured to sustain them. As always, diversification and asset placement are key strategies to help plan for growth and income in a portfolio. Your investment professional can help you evaluate your current allocation against your anticipated needs and recommend adjustments to help keep you on track.

6) Think beyond dollars

Investing cash during your prime earning years is important, of course. But it's also essential to plan in a more holistic way as well. “Make investments in the future — not just monetary ones, but also in relationships, health, career, and education,” Lachman says. “They all can pay big dividends in the long run.”

Alice Lesch Kelly is a freelance writer based in the Boston area.

Special disclaimer:

Global Investment Strategy is a division of Wells Fargo Investment Institute, Inc. (WFII). WFII is a registered investment adviser and wholly-owned subsidiary of Wells Fargo & Company and provides investment advice to Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., Wells Fargo Advisors and other Wells Fargo affiliates. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. is a bank affiliate of Wells Fargo & Company.

GENERAL DISCLOSURES

This advertisement was provided to you by Wells Fargo Wealth and Investment Management for informational purposes only. It is not intended as a recommendation to invest in any specific investment or investment strategy. Please note that we are not responsible for the information contained on any linked Web sites. The sites are provided to you for informational purposes only. Wells Fargo Wealth and Investment Management, a division within the Wells Fargo & Company enterprise, provides financial products and services through bank and brokerage affiliates of Wells Fargo & Company. Brokerage products and services offered through Wells Fargo Clearing Services, LLC, a registered broker-dealer and non-bank affiliate of Wells Fargo & Company. Wells Fargo Advisors is a trade name used by Wells Fargo Clearing Services. Bank products are offered through Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. CAR # (0917-03433)

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• Health is Wealth Essay

Importance of Working Towards Good Health

Health is God’s gift to us. Health refers to the physical and mental state of a human being. To stay healthy is not an option but a necessity to live a happy life. The basic laws of good health are related to the food we eat, the amount of physical exercise we do, our cleanliness, rest, and relaxation. A healthy person is normally more confident, self-assured, sociable, and energetic. A healthy person views things calmly, and without prejudice.

Introduction

“The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered "Man! Because he sacrifices his health to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.” This signifies that individuals don’t prioritise their mental health to earn money. Some even work 24 hours a day or seven days a week. 

However, you have the option to remain balanced. So, balance work and fitness daily. Always strive to keep a cheerful as well as a concentrated routine. It is necessary to plan ahead of time. In any case, one must maintain a good mental, bodily, and emotional state, and no professional or counsellor can assist you unless you desire to live. The will to live in the moment and make the most of it awakens the ideal strength within you, and you are the only one who can never let yourself fall apart. 

Importance of Maintaining Health

We live in a super-fast age. The Internet has shrunk the world dramatically and people are connected 24x7. Multitasking is the order of the day, as we struggle to fulfill our responsibilities for everyone in life. In this fight, we often forget to spare time for ourselves. The stress levels continue to build up until one day a major collapse may make us realize that in all this hectic activity, we have forgotten to take care of one important thing – our health.  

As we spend days shuttling between hospital and home, putting our body through one test after another, trying to find out what has gone wrong, we are forced to remember that ‘Health is indeed Wealth’.  

In earlier days, life was very simple. People worked for a stipulated time, often walked everywhere, ate more homemade food, did household chores, and enjoyed a healthy balance in life.  

Now people have cars and bikes to commute, so they walk less. With the demand for more working hours, people are awake till late at night and indulge in more junk food than home-cooked food. Modern equipment at home has reduced the labour work and increased dependency on this equipment.  People don’t have enough time to exercise or even get enough sunlight. Nowadays people are living very unhealthy lifestyles.  

Unhealthy living conditions have increased the contraction of people to various diseases like obesity, diabetes, heart attacks, hypertension, etc. This has alarming implications in the near future. So it is very important to focus on our health as much as we focus on our work. Moderation in food habits, daily exercise, and balanced work-life can surely make a big difference to our health and body. When a person stays mentally and physically fit, his actions and decisions are more practical and logical and hence he is more successful in life. Furthermore, good health has a direct impact on our personality.

It's crucial to consider how much self-control you have to keep a healthy lifestyle. Research reveals that changing one's behaviour and daily patterns are quite tough. According to the data, whether a person has a habit of smoking, drinking alcohol, doing drugs, or any other substance, it is extremely difficult to quit. A study found that 80% of smokers who tried to quit failed, with only 46% succeeding.

Importance of Good Health 

A healthy body has all the major components that help in the proper functioning of the body. The essential component is the state of physical health. Your life term extends when you maintain good physical fitness. If you are committed to exercising with a sensible diet, then you can develop a sense of well-being and can even prevent yourself from chronic illness, disability, and premature death.  

Some of the benefits of increased physical activity are as follows. 

It Improves Our Health

It increases the efficiency of the heart and lungs.

A good walk can reduce cholesterol levels.

Good exercise increases muscle strength.

It reduces blood pressure.

It reduces the risk of major illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease.

Improved Sense of Well-being

It helps in developing more energy.

It reduces stress levels.

Quality of sleep improves.

It helps in developing the ability to cope with stress.

It increases mental sharpness. 

Improved Appearances 

Weight loss contributes to a good physique.

Toned muscles generate more energy.

Improved posture enhances our appearance. 

Enhanced Social Life

It improves self-image

It increases opportunities to make new friends.

It increases opportunities to share an activity with friends or family members. 

Increased Stamina

Increased productivity.

Increased physical capabilities.

Less frequent injuries.

Improved immunity to minor illnesses.

Along with physical fitness, a good mental state is also essential for good health. Mental health means the emotional and psychological state of an individual. The best way to maintain good mental health is by staying positive and meditating. 

However, unlike a machine, the body needs rest at regular intervals. A minimum of six to seven hours of sleep is necessary for the body to function optimally. Drinking plenty of water and a balanced diet is also very important for your body.  If you violate the basic laws of good health, like working late hours, ignoring physical exercise, eating junk food, it will lead to various ailments like hypertension, heart attacks, and other deadly diseases. 

What is National Health Day?

Every year on April 7th, World Health Day is celebrated. The World Health Organization (WHO) hosted the inaugural World Health Day on April 7, 1950, to draw the entire world’s attention to global health. 

Every year, the World Health Organization (WHO) comes up with a new theme for public awareness, such as "Support Nurses and Midwives" in 2020. This supports the situation of COVID-19, where healthcare workers are saving lives day and night without worrying about their health.

The WHO also operates a global health promotion initiative to align equality so that individuals can take control of their lives, "every life matters," and consider their fitness. The government promotes numerous health policies, including food security, workplace quality, and health literacy, in schools, colleges, workplaces, and various community activities. 

Good Health for Children 

Children need to maintain good physical and mental health. With an increase in the pressure of studies and over-indulgence in modern gadgets, children are losing the most precious thing, which is health. These days, they barely play in the playgrounds, they are more inclined towards junk food and spend more time on the screen. These unhealthy activities are slowly sabotaging their health. Parents should concentrate on the physical and mental health of their children, and inculcate good habits for maintaining a healthy lifestyle from a tender age.   

Cleanliness also has a major role to play in maintaining good health. Taking a bath every day, washing hands before eating meals, brushing twice a day, changing clothes regularly, etc. are important habits to maintain good health.  

Society is witnessing gloomy faces as a result of children and their parents' excessive usage of a computer, mobile phone, and the Internet. They are constantly using these technological items, oblivious to the fact that they may harm their health. Teenagers are frequently discovered engrossed in their electronic devices, resulting in mishaps. 

The usage of electronic devices frequently results in anxiety and hostility. Excessive usage of these products has been linked to cancer, vision loss, weight gain, and insomnia. 

Emotional development is another crucial component that should not be disregarded because it determines whether or not a person is healthy. An emotionally healthy person should have a solid sense of logic, realisation, and a realistic outlook. 

Health is Wealth because if we are not healthy then all our wealth, fame and power can bring no enjoyment. Keeping fit and healthy is indeed not an option but a necessity.

FAQs on Health is Wealth Essay

1. Why is Health Considered as Wealth?

Health is wealth because it is one of God’s most precious gift to human beings. Good health refers to a balanced and healthy physical and mental state of an individual. If any individual is not healthy, wealth, fame, and power can bring no enjoyment. So health has more value than materialistic things.

2. When is World Health Day Celebrated?

World Health Day is celebrated on 7th April to raise awareness about health and fitness.

3. How Can You Maintain Good Health?

You can maintain good health by following a balanced and healthy diet. Have a good lifestyle by balancing work and life. You should have a moderate physical fitness regime every day. Go for brisk walks regularly or do other forms of exercise. Also, meditate and be positive to take care of your mental health.

4. Who came up with the phrase "health is wealth"?

Ralph Waldo Emerson, a well-known counsellor and mentor, invented the word.

5. What are the consequences of a man choosing to live an unhealthy lifestyle?

If a man begins to live a lifestyle without a plan or unhealthy manner, he will confront numerous difficulties. He'd be depressed on the inside, untidy and filthy on the outside, and emotionally unstable all the time. A person who lives an unhealthy lifestyle will wake up late at night and early in the morning. Not only would this affect their mental condition, but it would also poison their surroundings. 

There would be a lot of wrath and sadness, and they would have fits from time to time.

Health vs. Wealth? Public Health Policies and the Economy During Covid-19

We study the impact of non-pharmaceutical policy interventions (NPIs) like “stay-at-home” orders on the spread of infectious disease. Local policies have little impact on the economy nor on local public health. Stay-at-home is only weakly associated with slower growth of Covid-19 cases. Reductions in observed “mobility” are not associated with slower growth of Covid-19 cases. Stay-at-home is associated with lower workplace and more residential activity, but common shocks matter much more. Moreover, job losses have been no higher in US states that implemented stay-at-home during the Covid-19 pandemic than in states that did not have stay-at-home. All of these results demonstrate that the Covid-19 pandemic is a common economic and public health shock. They also show that policy spillovers and behavioral responses are important. The tradeoff between the economy and public health in a pandemic depends strongly on what is happening elsewhere. This underscores the importance of coordinated economic and public health responses.

We thank Haoze “Anson” Li and Jingxuan Ma for research assistance. Research funding from Michael Deering is gratefully acknowledged. We thank Jonathan Dingel for clarifying some data issues. Matthias Blum, Barry Eichengreen, Gregori Galofré-Vilà, Dan Liu, Peter Sandholt Jensen, Peter Lindert, Alan M. Taylor and seminar participants at UC Davis provided helpful early feedback. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

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• May 23, 2020

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• Panel on Social Security and COVID-19 at NBER Summer Institute Author(s): Alexander W. Bartik Marianne Bertrand Feng Lin Jesse Rothstein Matt Unrath Raj Chetty John N. Friedman Michael Stepner The Opportunity Insights Team Olivier Coibion Yuriy Gorodnichenko Michael Weber Austan Goolsbee Chad Syverson Sumedha Gupta Thuy D. Nguyen Felipe Lozano Rojas Shyam Raman Byungkyu Lee Ana I. Bento Kosali I. Simon Coady Wing Thuy D. Nguyen Sumedha Gupta Martin Andersen Ana I. Bento Kosali I. Simon Coady Wing Sumedha Gupta Laura Montenovo Thuy D. Nguyen Felipe Lozano Rojas Ian M. Schmutte Kosali I. Simon Bruce A. Weinberg Coady Wing Eliza Forsythe Lisa B. Kahn Fabian Lange David G. Wiczer Peter Zhixian Lin Christopher M. Meissner The 2020 NBER Summer Institute's Economics of Social Security meeting featured a panel discussion on the implications of the COVID-19...

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Does More Money Really Make Us More Happy?

by Elizabeth Dunn and Chris Courtney

Summary .   

Although some studies show that wealthier people tend to be happier, prioritizing money over time can actually have the opposite effect.

• But even having just a little bit of extra cash in your savings account ($500), can increase your life satisfaction. So how can you keep more cash on hand?
• Ask yourself: What do I buy that isn’t essential for my survival? Is the expense genuinely contributing to my happiness? If the answer to the second question is no, try taking a break from those expenses.
• Other research shows there are specific ways to spend your money to promote happiness, such as spending on experiences, buying time, and investing in others.
• Spending choices that promote happiness are also dependent on individual personalities, and future research may provide more individualized advice to help you get the most happiness from your money.

How often have you willingly sacrificed your free time to make more money? You’re not alone. But new research suggests that prioritizing money over time may actually undermine our happiness.

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Health Versus Wealth During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Associated data.

REPLICATION DATA AND DOCUMENTATION are available at DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/T89ZN .

Efforts to combat the COVID-19 crisis were characterized by a difficult trade-off: the stringency of the lockdowns decreased the spread of the virus, but amplified the damage to the economy. In this study, we analyze public attitude toward this trade-off using a survey-embedded experiment conducted with a quota sample of more than 7,000 respondents from Southeast Europe, collected in April and May 2020. The results show that public opinion generally favored saving lives even at a steep economic cost. However, the willingness to trade lives for the economy was greater when the heterogeneous health and economic consequences of lockdown policies for the young and the elderly were emphasized. Free-market views also make people more accepting of higher casualties, as do fears that the instituted measures will lead to a permanent expansion of government control over society.

Introduction

The coronavirus pandemic constitutes the greatest public health crisis in over a century. Governments’ reactions to the threat centered on “flattening the curve,” that is, slowing down the rate of infection to save lives by preventing health care systems from being overwhelmed. As long as there was no functioning vaccine or therapeutic medicine, the main instrument was social distancing, which sought to limit contacts between people by confining them to their homes and closing down businesses. Such measures have indeed been found to significantly reduce the spread of the virus and by extension its death toll ( Chaudhry et al. 2020 ; Leffler et al. 2020 ), but at a steep economic cost. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected that in 2020 most economies would contract by about 10 percent and that millions of jobs would be lost ( IMF 2020 ). This has led many to conclude that the COVID-19 pandemic involves an inevitable trade-off between limiting the public health effects of the virus and preventing an economic collapse ( Andersson et al. 2020 ; Garriga, Manuelli, and Sanghi 2020 ).

This unenviable choice has spurred on the development of policy models that balance the health and economic aspects of the crisis response ( Favero, Ichino, and Rustichini 2020 ; Glover et al. 2020 ; Hall, Jones, and Klenow 2020 ; Hammitt 2020 ). These models predominantly rely on the assumption of a utilitarian government, in which the economic cost of saving a person from COVID-19 should not outweigh the economic value of that person’s remaining life expectancy. Democratic governments, however, cannot realistically make policies based on those models. Eventually, they need to answer to their constituents for the actions taken during the COVID-19-pandemic, and public views on the trade-off between death tolls and economic performance seem to be guided by much more than economic calculation. As V. O. Key put it, “unless mass views have some place in the shaping of policy, all talk about democracy is nonsense” ( Key 1961 , p. 7). This is why in this paper, we draw attention to public attitudes about the trade-off between health and wealth during the coronavirus outbreak.

Given what we know about the role of emotion in people’s decision-making processes ( Jenke and Huettel 2016 ), it is highly doubtful that public opinion will conform to the utilitarian suppositions of economic models. This raises the question of how people look at this trade-off ( Olsen and Hjorth 2020 ). We believe there are three recurring features of the health versus wealth debate during the COVID-19 outbreak. The first is the framing of the dilemma. As it became apparent that the health and economic consequences of lockdown policies differ between generations, a tendency emerged to recast the trade-off as not one between economic value and human lives, but as one between the young and the elderly ( Gustafsson 2020 ; Jacobsen 2020 ; McWilliams 2020 ; Schmid 2020 ). The second feature is that the debate between health versus wealth, especially in the UK and the United States, seems to be conducted alongside the classic left-right political divide, with those on the right favoring the markets and those on the left prioritizing saving lives ( Williams 2020 ). A similar ideological divide has been found with regard to adherence to social distancing measures ( Harper and Rhodes 2020 ; Rothgerber et al. 2020 ). The third feature of the health versus wealth debate, and of social distancing and lockdown policies in general, has been the concern for the loss of civil liberties and an expansion of the surveillance state ( Hinsliff 2020 ; Mingardi 2020 ; Singer and Sang-Hun 2020 ; Snower 2020 ). Many social distance measures constitute levels of government control over society seen only in authoritarian regimes, and fears have emerged about whether governments will relinquish this control once the outbreak is over ( Nyamutata 2020 ).

Our research questions are guided by these three features. Are people willing to accept a higher death toll in an attempt to limit the damage to the economy, or is saving lives considered non-negotiable ( Fiske and Tetlock 1997 ; Tetlock 2003 )? Can the public be swayed by how the choice is framed and formulated ( McGraw and Tetlock 2005 )? Are preferences regarding this trade-off related to people’s ideological views? And what is the role of trust in the government? We explore the theoretical foundations of these research questions, and answer them on the basis of an experiment embedded in an online quota survey of a representative sample of over 7,000 residents of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia, collected between April 27 and May 16, 2020. With their economies in flux and politics balancing between democracy and authoritarianism ( Bieber 2020a ), the region shares many characteristics with other European societies, especially those in Central and Eastern Europe. As such, the three countries serve as excellent cases to study the health versus wealth trade-off in a non-western context.

Dilemmas where a sacred principle or value is exchanged for economic worth, commonly referred to as taboo trade-offs, have spurred on an impressive body of literature, often finding that people prefer principle to material gain ( Fiske and Tetlock 1997 ; Tetlock et al. 2000 ; Graham, Haidt, and Nosek 2009 ). The present paper contributes to this body of work in two ways. First, taboo trade-offs in previous studies remained largely abstract, with little relation to the personal lives of participants. This arguably diminishes what is at stake, and facilitates the tendency to act in a principled manner. Exploring the health versus wealth taboo trade-off in the COVID-19 pandemic is different. Never before were the consequences of a choice between principle and economy so tangible to so many people. Images of hospitals being overwhelmed by incoming patients showed the ramifications of opting to preserve the economy, while the economic carnage demonstrated what choosing to save lives entailed. All around the world, many were either affected by the crisis, knew someone who was, or considered it likely that they would be affected ( Kämpfen et al. 2020 ). Second, in many trade-off experiments, respondents are asked whether they would exchange a sacred value for some material gain. However, we know from prospect theory that the expectation of gain is a weaker incentive than the prospect of loss ( Kahneman and Tversky 1979 ). In this study, we follow a different approach, offering as the alternative to the sacred principle not economic profit, but the avoidance of economic loss. In the survey experiment, respondents are presented with the opportunity to save lives or to prevent the unemployment rate from increasing. To summarize, in this study of taboo trade-offs, the stakes are more real, and incentives to behave in a materialistic fashion stronger than ever before. As such, the context and the setup of the experiment make this examination of how choices are made in taboo trade-offs a critical test of what we know of human behavior in such unenviable dilemmas.

The results show that a large proportion of the public rejects any concession in the effort to save lives, even if it means drastic increases in economic harm. Yet, reframing the choice as one between the life opportunities of younger generations and the lives of the elderly increases the willingness to make a trade-off. Putting a cost limit on saving people from COVID-19 is also more prevalent among those with a free-market view on society. Finally, people who fear a permanent expansion of government control are more inclined to accept a higher death count, likely because this would mean a shorter duration of instituted government measures.

The (Im)Measurable Value of Human Life

How is value placed on human life? In the classic trolley cart or footbridge dilemma, where a runaway tram threatens to kill five people unless the respondent intervenes by changing its course ( Foot 1977 ), over 90 percent of respondents thought it permissible to intervene and divert the tram, killing one but saving five. This shows that people are very capable and willing to value one life more than another. At the same time, there is strong resistance to expressing the value of life in monetary terms. This is because things such as human life, health, love, honor, justice, human rights, and increasingly nature are considered matters on which no economic price can be placed ( Hanselmann and Tanner 2008 ). There is a considerable degree of social consensus that these values are sacred, and while trading one sacred value for another is difficult but acceptable, in what is referred to as a “tragic trade-off” ( Mandel and Vartanian 2008 ), exchanging them for secular values such as money, consumption, or employment incites outrage and indignation ( Tetlock, Mellers, and Scoblic 2017 ). This is because it reflects on people’s social identity and the extent to which they can uphold an image of being a moral and social being ( Fiske and Tetlock 1997 ; Shiell, Sperber, and Porat 2009 ). People’s identity as functioning members of a society would arguably be undermined if they were willing to sacrifice a substantial portion of that society to illness for economic gain. As a result, we expect public opinion to be skewed toward a refusal of a trade-off between health and wealth during the coronavirus outbreak, and instead to generally favor saving lives even at a steep economic cost. This is our hypothesis H1.

Many of the choices considered taboo are inevitable, given the limited nature of many resources. Despite the threat to their identity, most people are aware of this, and are willingly susceptible to the manner in which a taboo trade-off is presented ( Tetlock 2003 ). Studies have found that when good arguments are provided, or when a taboo trade-off is reframed, people take fewer issues with it, especially when the cost of upholding sacred values becomes prohibitive ( McGraw and Tetlock 2005 ). Generally, this process of reframing involves invoking cheap rhetorical references to the “greater good” ( McGraw, Schwartz, and Tetlock 2012 ), or recasting a taboo trade-off into a tragic trade-off ( Zaal et al. 2014 ; Stikvoort, Lindahl, and Daw 2016 ). During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw the emergence of such a recasting occur, especially in the United States. Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick, for example, argued that “lots of grandparents are willing to die to save the economy for their grandchildren” ( Stieb 2020 ), a view supported by several conservative radio and television hosts ( Millman 2020 ). According to this narrative, future generations were having their life opportunities reduced in an effort to save those whose deaths were inevitable anyway and who were thought to “already have had their lives” ( Ayalon 2020 ; Fraser et al. 2020 ). In this reframing, the choice in how to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak is not one between saving lives and saving the economy, but between saving one set of lives (i.e., the young) and another (i.e., the elderly). Viewed this way, lives would be lost, regardless of the direction chosen. Guided by the existing literature, we expect this reframing to be effective and successful in making people more willing to consider options normally deemed taboo. More specifically, our hypothesis H2 is that respondents are more willing to trade lives for economic welfare during the COVID-19 pandemic when this trade-off is reframed in generational terms.

Regardless of a general social consensus, individuals differ in the degree to which something is considered sacred and secular, and thus which trade-offs are taboo. As values are inevitably political in nature, it is reasonable to expect their sanctity to be contingent on political ideology. Tetlock et al. (2000) found that trade-offs such as selling organs and buying US citizenship generated less moral outrage among those who opposed government regulations on business and government involvement in income redistribution. Building on these findings, we expect the willingness to consider the trade-off between saving lives and saving the economy to be greater among those with free-market views on the organization of society. The mechanism here is one of socialization. Supporters of free-market policies have grown accustomed to evaluating the access to something, be it public transportation, education, or healthcare. At its most extreme, a neoliberal worldview considers everything to have a price, and nothing to be sacred (e.g., Brennan and Jaworski 2016 ). Having adopted such a line of thinking, the thought of exchanging lives for the sake of the economy can be less inciting of moral outrage, as it is seen as more normal. In contrast, critics of the free market and people with more socialist-oriented policy views consider access to certain things as a right and thus exempt from financial considerations ( Sandel 2012 ; Satz 2012 ). Consequently, they are more likely to object to the trade-off. Our hypothesis H3 is thus: respondents holding policy views supportive of the free market are more willing to trade lives for economic welfare during the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the duration of social distance measures is basically a trade-off between health and wealth, there is another dimension to consider. The enforcement of such measures and the effective combating of the virus outbreak has been accompanied by increased central planning and bureaucratization, and an expansion of the surveillance state and erosion of civil rights ( Cooper and Aitchison 2020 ). In an effort to halt the spread of the virus, governments have closed schools and businesses, and in several examples even installed a curfew. Unsurprisingly, concerns have been raised over whether these emergency measures will be relinquished once the crisis passes, or whether governments will use the pandemic as a prelude to permanently expanding their control over citizens ( Gebrekidan 2020 ). The threat of authoritarianism is very much real, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. Some countries in the region such as Poland, Hungary, and Serbia have already shown signs of democratic backsliding prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, and the pandemic only exacerbates this trend ( Drinóczi and Bień-Kacała 2020 ; Petrov 2020 ). Crisis moments such as terror attacks or pandemics increase the support for government control and suspension of civil liberties to tackle the threat ( Huddy et al. 2005 ; Amat et al. 2020 ). In normal times, however, people prefer democratic over autocratic rule regardless of region or the age of their democracy ( Fuchs, Guidorossi, and Svensson 1998 ; Tessler 2002 ; Sin and Wells 2005 ). Therefore, in line with previous studies on taboo trade-offs, we argue that the desire to decrease government control and to reinstitute civil liberties after the crisis has been defeated constitutes a sacred value. This value enters consideration when someone questions the sincerity of the government to use emergency powers for the duration of the pandemic only. This reframes the trade-off between saving lives and saving the economy as a tragic trade-off between public health and civil liberties. This is why we propose that respondents who distrust their government’s institution of emergency measures should be more willing to accept COVID-19 casualties because such a choice would imply a shorter duration of the emergency powers and a smaller chance that such powers will be held on to permanently. This is our final hypothesis H4.

To summarize, the existing studies on people’s willingness to trade sacred values for secular ones guide us to the following hypotheses on public attitudes toward the health versus wealth dilemma during the COVID-19 pandemic. First, the most common response is a refusal to accept a higher COVID-19 casualty count in order to reduce the harm done to the economy (H1). Second, reframing the choice as one between the lives of the young and the old makes the trade-off more acceptable (H2). Third, free-market liberals are more willing than socialists to put an economic price on saving lives (H3). Fourth and finally, people worried about whether their government will relinquish the emergency powers once the virus has been defeated are more willing to accept casualties (H4).

Data and Methods

To examine the degree to which people are willing to trade COVID-19 fatalities for economic prosperity, we analyze data from an experiment embedded in an online survey of residents from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia (see the survey details in the Supplementary Material for more methodological details). Respondents were recruited with Facebook’s Marketing API, using quota sampling. Since roughly half the populations in these countries have a Facebook account, 1 this approach gives researchers access to a massive panel of respondents, while at the same time enabling them to fine-tune ads to target specific demographic groups and subpopulations ( Zhang et al. 2018 ). A large number of strata in each of the three countries were identified according to several demographic characteristics (gender, age, education, and region/county). 2 In the end, data from a sample of 7,049 respondents was collected, 2,211 from Bosnia-Herzegovina, 2,255 from Croatia, and 2,583 from Serbia. 3 Together with the use of survey weights (see Ansolabehere and Rivers 2013 ), these samples are representative of their respective populations (see the survey details in the Supplementary Material for more detail on how survey weights were constructed). 4

The survey data was collected between April 27 and May 16, 2020. Figure 1 shows how the three countries were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. 5 All three experienced strong growth of the number of COVID-19 cases and casualties in the first half of April 2020. The timeline of the spread of the virus follows a pattern similar to other Central and East European countries, where the pandemic broke out slightly later than in Western Europe (Bieber 2020b). This delay gave governments time to implement strict social distancing measures that resulted in a mild first wave of the outbreak ( Radojevic 2020 ), though Bosnia-Herzegovina saw a surge in COVID-19 deaths in early May. 6 While the intensity of the health consequences were lower than in some other European countries, the fact that news cycles were dominated by COVID-19, and the proximity to severely hit countries like Italy, arguably made the trade-off between saving lives and saving the economy no less tangible. In addition, around the time the survey was collected (gray shaded area in figure 1 ), economic consequences became increasingly apparent ( World Bank 2020 ), resulting in a re-evaluation and loosening of the restrictions ( Bieber 2020b ). In sum, survey data used in this study was collected at a moment when both the health and economic ramifications were clear. As such, the three countries are excellent cases to examine public attitudes on the trade-off between preventing COVID-19 deaths and minimizing economic damage.

The COVID-19 crisis in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia, March–July 2020. The numbers are those listed on https://ourworldindata.org on August 30, 2020. The lines indicating new cases and deaths represent the 7-day moving average per 100,000 inhabitants.

To gauge people’s responses to the COVID-19 trade-off between saving lives and saving the economy, respondents were asked to decide how long social distance measures should be enforced. They were able to choose from a list of 10 scenarios, with the consequences in terms of the expected total COVID-19 casualties and unemployment described for each scenario. Table 1 gives an overview of all scenarios in the Bosnia-Herzegovina survey (death figures were adjusted for population in Croatia and Serbia; see the survey questionnaire in the Supplementary Material for more details). Respondents’ choice of scenario is the dependent variable in our analyses: Trade-off willingness . COVID-19 casualties were given in absolute numbers, as this is the way deaths caused by the virus are predominantly reported, that increased exponentially across scenarios, mirroring the spread of the pandemic. Unemployment was expressed in percentage point increases, mimicking the manner in which unemployment is commonly communicated, changing linearly from one scenario to the next. We opted for unemployment as the metric in which to express the economic side of the dilemma because it is easy for respondents to understand, and because it has been found to be an important indicator of economic performance, shaping people’s political attitudes ( Kunovich 2012 ). While unemployment undoubtedly has a human-interest factor, it remains essentially a monetary problem, as layoffs and furlough schemes increase government expenditures and reduce tax revenue. As such, unemployment is an issue whose solution is hampered primarily by the lack of sufficient financial resources.

Scenarios in the trade-off question between saving lives and saving the economy during COVID-19 (Bosnia-Herzegovina survey)

The number of the deaths and the increase in unemployment in each of the 10 scenarios was carefully chosen to reflect commonly held views in the media at the time about the potential infection fatality rates of the virus and the effects of the lockdown. When the survey was launched, all three countries were near the peak of the Stringency Index, thus effectively being in lockdown, and all had deaths well below 200. The first and most restrictive scenario extended the measures for a long time, minimizing casualties but resulting in a massive increase in unemployment. The number of deaths in this scenario was set at an arbitrarily low yet believable figure (200), while unemployment would rise by what was widely cited in the local media at the time as a likely consequence of such a policy (30 percent). The tenth scenario, by contrast, saw a quick reopening of the country. Unemployment would only see a minimal rise (3 percent), which was considered inevitable due to the slowdown of economic activity throughout the world and among various trading partners. However, the virus would essentially be allowed to course freely through the population, killing between 2 percent and 2.5 percent of all residents, which was at that time considered the pessimistic upper bound of its lethality.

Within those ranges, the growth of casualties was set to be exponential, while the decrease of unemployment growth was made linear. The commonly held view among policymakers and the media stated that linear measures of mitigation/lockdown lead to linear consequences on the economy and exponential consequences on the pandemic. To express it in a slightly oversimplified manner: for every fixed number of people that are released out of lockdown, a fixed figure of people is allowed to go back to work, but at the same time a more exponential spread of the pandemic is enabled through the exponentially increasing social interactions made possible by those extra people out of lockdown.

To test the effects of reframing the taboo trade-off between health and wealth into a tragic trade-off between old and young people, we conducted a survey experiment. Specifically, a second version of the trade-off question was designed that stressed the fact that the economic recession would diminish the opportunities of younger generations, while the older generations would carry the brunt of the public health consequences. Respondents were assigned at random to either the control or the experimental version of the trade-off question. Their precise formulations are presented below, with the italic text added in the latter. In the analyses, the impact of the tragic trade-off reframing is captured by a binary variable that indicates which version of the trade-off question was shown to respondents.

Imagine you are the leader of your country and you have to make a decision on when to end the measures to combat the spread of the coronavirus and let normal life resume. Economic and public health experts have outlined 10 scenarios for you to choose from. Keeping the restrictions on travel and businesses on for a long time will save lives, but at the cost of more damage to the economy resulting in a higher unemployment rate. Conversely, a short duration of the government measures will result in more casualties, but also in a smaller increase in unemployment. These consequences, however, are not equally distributed across society. The additional casualties will primarily be found among older generations and retirees, while higher unemployment would primarily hit younger generations and diminish the economic opportunities of future generations.

The second main independent variable in our analysis is Free-market views . These are captured by averaging people’s responses to five policy statements on the role of the government in the economy and the redistribution of wealth, separating liberals from socialists. We believe this divide is one of the two principal structuring policy dimensions in Southeast Europe. In our analyses, we also account for the second dimension, which revolves around the protection and cultivation of a national identity based on ethnic membership, and which separates cosmopolitans from nationalists ( Massey, Hodson, and Sekulic 2003 ). This variable, Nationalism , is measured in a similar way as Free-market views, by averaging responses to five policy statements. The third main independent variable indicates someone’s Distrust in the government concerning its COVID-19 emergency measures and powers. We rely here on the following yes-no question: “Do you believe that your government will relinquish all its emergency powers once the crisis is over or will they keep exercising at least some of them permanently?” Naturally, the answers to this question will correlate with support for the sitting government. To avoid a spurious relation, we control for whether a respondent voted for the ruling coalition in the last election ( Government supporter ).

In addition, we account for gender, age, employment status, income, ethnicity, and education. Regarding the latter, we distinguish among three groups: lower-educated voters only have an elementary school degree, middle-educated voters are those who have finished their secondary education, and higher-educated voters are those who have a graduate or university degree. As the survey’s questions were about politics, it is likely that it attracted politically interested individuals. To account for this, we control for political interest, measured on an 11-point self-placement scale, in all our analyses. The survey questionnaire, which details the precise formulation of all questions and statements, can be found in the Supplementary Material available online.

The models also control for a number of COVID-19 indicators. The first is COVID-19 ignorance , calculated as the logged absolute difference between respondents’ estimate of the official number of infected people in their country and the actual number of infections on the day the survey was filled in. 7 In addition, we include the number of new COVID-19 deaths on the day respondents completed the survey per 100,000 residents, as well as the Stringency   Index . This last variable is a score that ranges from 0 to 100, and is based on the sum of nine indicators of a country’s response to the pandemic such as school closures and restrictions on public gatherings ( Hale et al. 2020 ). Normally, the inclusion of these two time-related variables requires the use of a multilevel modeling strategy. However, the likelihood ratio test indicated that the goodness of fit did not significantly differ between the single-level and multilevel model, as did the coefficients. Therefore, in the next section, we report the findings of the former. In our analyses, we pool the data from the three countries and account for country-level differences by including country dummies. Finally, because the COVID-19 outbreak was rapidly evolving, with daily new developments, we add day dummies to all models. Table 2 gives an overview of all variables.

Descriptive statistics for all variables

Note .— n = 7,049.

Before testing the effects of various explanatory variables in a multivariate model, we examine the distribution of responses to the COVID-19 trade-off between saving lives and saving the economy in figure 2 . It shows that over 40 percent of respondents opted for the scenario where the number of COVID-related deaths was minimized, at the expense of a massive increase in unemployment, making it by far the most selected scenario and providing strong support for our hypothesis H1. While the majority of respondents would make at least some trade-off, the distribution of preferences clearly favors a prioritization of saving lives. This trend is in line with previous research that concluded that when faced with a choice between a sacred and a secular value, most people would refuse to make any trade-off. Instead, in an attempt to morally cleanse themselves of any affiliation with the trade-off, they reaffirm their support for the sacred value.

Histogram of scenarios chosen in the COVID-19 dilemma .

For the multivariate analyses, we use a logit model on a dichotomized version of the dependent variable, with one category consisting of respondents that preferred minimum deaths at the expense of maximum unemployment (scenario 1; value 0), and a second category made up of respondents who chose any of the other nine scenarios (value 1). The reasons for this are twofold. First, this approach reflects the distribution of people’s attitudes on the health versus wealth trade-off. Second, models that make use of all 10 options, such as ordered logit and OLS regression, violate crucial assumptions. Specifically, an order logit model violates the parallel odds assumption, and the OLS regression violates the assumption of normally distributed residuals. Nevertheless, the results of these models, presented in tables A1 and ​ andA2 A2 of the Appendix, are in line with the results reported in the logit models below.

Table 3 presents the results of the analyses. Models 1 to 3 gradually introduce key independent variables, while Model 4 tests their robustness by including all control variables. In other words, the models become increasingly stringent tests of our key expectations. Model 1 tests the effect of the reframing, showing that it is significantly and positively related to the willingness to make the trade-off. This indicates that the recasting of the choice between health and wealth into the one between different generations of people is an effective way of making people more willing to consider the trade-off. The left panel in figure 3 depicts how the change in this willingness depends on the framing of the trade-off. Fifty-six percent of respondents were willing to make the trade-off when the dilemma was recast into a tragic choice between the old and the young: a four-percentage-point increase when compared to the control condition. This result supports hypothesis H2, and suggests that when pundits tried to sway people to favor reopening the economy, emphasizing the consequences for younger generations was an effective strategy. In addition, we explored whether the impact of reframing was conditional on the other main explanatory variables or the covariates, including age and free-market views, but this was not the case (models not reported). As such, the results thus suggest that the impact of the experimental treatment is not heterogeneous or contingent on other factors.

Marginal effects of the main explanatory variables on trade-off willingness. The predicted probabilities of choosing the first scenario (minimum death, maximum unemployment) are based on the results of Model 4, table 3 . When calculating the probabilities, all other variables are kept at their mean value. The error bars/gray area represents the 95 percent confidence interval.

Analyses of trade-off willingness

Note .—Cell entries are log odds from logistic regressions with robust standard errors in parentheses. The p -values are the results of two-tailed tests of the coefficients.

Model 2 introduces Free-market views. The variable is significant, and its effect is in the expected direction. The more someone favors free-market solutions to social problems, the more they are willing to put a price on saving lives from COVID-19—a confirmation of our hypothesis H3. A one-standard-deviation increase in Free-market views (SD = 0.58) increases the willingness to make the trade-off by 2.43 percentage points. This stark difference shows that the decision to halt the spread of the virus at a substantial economic cost is very much a political choice, and cannot be considered a valence issue among the public that enjoys support across the political spectrum. Model 3 adds distrust in the government regarding COVID-19-related emergency powers. Its effect is positive and highly significant, meaning that distrust makes people accept a higher COVID-19 death toll, likely because that would mean a quicker end to the emergency powers and social distancing measures. This provides clear and strong support for our last hypothesis H4. Among those who trust the government, 52.5 percent is willing to make the trade-off, while this climbs to 61.5 percent among those who fear a permanent increase in government control and surveillance (left panel in figure 3 ).

While these effect sizes may appear small at first, it is important to keep in mind that even small effects can have large societal consequences ( Rosenthal 1990 ; Greenwald, Banaji, and Nosek 2015 ). A minor shift in COVID policies in the region can mean the difference between thousands of people dying or surviving the pandemic, and between tens of thousands losing or keeping their jobs. An illustrative example of this can be found in the decision of the Lebanese government to allow bars and restaurants to open between Christmas and New Year in 2020. Though a seemingly small concession, it resulted in a massive spike in COVID-19 patients that threatened to overwhelm the healthcare system, and ultimately forced the government to institute a draconian lockdown, in which even supermarkets had to close ( El Deeb 2021 ).

Model 4 adds all covariates, demonstrating the robustness of the main explanatory factors. The model also reveals some interesting effects of the control variables. Government supporters are less willing to trade lives for a reduced economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis. The most likely explanation is that in cases of doubt, people follow the cues of those they trust. When assessing arguments on complicated issues that require specialized knowledge, people are more likely to rely on what Petty and Cacioppo (1986) referred to as the peripheral route in information processing. In contrast to the central route, in which the substantive content and the plausibility of arguments is considered, the peripheral route relies more on the credibility of the message’s source. In spite of an arguably strong motivation to use the central route regarding anything related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the lack of knowledge on the topic is likely to close off that route and force people to use peripheral cues ( Gilens and Murakawa 2002 ). A large body of research has found that messages are more trusted by recipients who share the party label of the sender ( Kam 2005 ; Goren, Federico, and Kittilson 2009 ). Given that the official response was one that very much sought to save lives, it is unsurprising that government supporters respond to the trade-off in a similar fashion.

Views on the trade-off also differ between men and women, with the latter being almost seven percentage points less likely than men to trade lives for employment (panel 2 in figure 4 ). This seems to support the view that gender differences in socialization make men more instrumental and, consequently, more willing to trade in sacred for secular values ( Kennedy and Kray 2014 ). In contrast, women place higher importance on the morality of their actions ( Kray and Haselhuhn 2012 ). Age is also significant and, expectedly, older respondents are less willing to make the trade-off than younger people are. However, the introduction of a squared term reveals a non-linear relationship (panel 3 in figure 4 ). 8 The preparedness to accept more COVID-19 deaths for the sake of the economy decreases until the age of 50. After that, we see the relation turn positive, to such a degree that even the views of the elderly on the trade-off are similar to those of younger generations. This seems to suggest that the claim that there is a willingness among the old to accept the health risks in order to avoid an economic recession has some empirical support. The trade-off between health and wealth is more likely to be taboo among the lower educated than it is among the higher educated. This is somewhat of an unexpected finding, as the former are more vulnerable to the consequences of an economic crisis than the latter are. Finally, model 4 shows that people’s views on the dilemma between saving lives and saving the economy differs between ethnic groups. Croats seem to be the most willing to exchange lives for employment (62.7 percent), while Serbs are the least willing to make the trade-off (53.7 percent). It is possible that this is due to Croatia having a more developed market economy, which also encouraged the development of market-oriented views among Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Marginal effects of the control variables on trade-off willingness. The predicted probabilities of choosing the first scenario (minimum death, maximum unemployment) are based on the results of Model 4, table 3 . When calculating the probabilities, all other variables are kept at their mean value. The error bars/gray area represents the 95 percent confidence interval.

During the initial stages of the COVID-19 outbreak, many governments made the decision to take drastic action and limit social and economic life. In the majority of cases, these measures were successful in stemming the spread of the virus, but at an enormous economic cost. While the decision to put health over economy was not entirely uncontested ( Pleyers 2020 ), the results of this study show that it had strong public support, at least during the first wave of the pandemic. Only a small minority of respondents favored letting the virus spread freely to avoid a recession. The policy decisions taken in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia are unlikely to have been the most utilitarian ( Andersson et al. 2020 ), but they did carry democratic legitimacy. In addition, as the trade-off was more tangible than ever with the pandemic in full swing, and the incentives to choose economy over principle stronger compared to previous studies by tapping into respondents’ loss aversion instincts, this is to date arguably one of the most compelling pieces of evidence that people choose sacred over secular values.

We did find, however, that the willingness to make the trade-off between saving lives and saving the economy was greater when the consequences of a recession on life opportunities of younger generations was emphasized, among those who favored free-market solutions, and when people distrusted their governments to relinquish the emergency powers once the crisis has subsided. Our results shed light on the drivers behind the variation in public reactions to social distance measures, especially between Europe and the United States. With attempts at reframing the trade-off, a greater reliance on the free market, and a cultural tradition of skepticism toward government control, it should come as no surprise that the public response to social distancing measures in the United States was so polarized ( Allcott et al. 2020 ). In contrast, public opinion in Europe was far more accepting of efforts to stop the virus’s spread.

While survey-based results inevitably raise concerns that they are non-reflective of actual behavior or even born out of social desirability, there are clear indications that this is not the case here. First, other studies have found that one’s preference in the health versus wealth trade-off affects the willingness to adhere to COVID measures ( Olsen and Hjorth 2020 ). Second, it has been argued that in Croatia, the ruling party HDZ has its strong handling of the pandemic to thank for its victory in the July 2020 elections, despite trailing in the polls for a long time ( Sircar 2021 ). As is evident from figure 1 , the government instituted strict measures, resulting in a mild first wave, for which it was rewarded at the polls with re-election. Unfortunately, this was not the lesson learned by the governments, as is evident from the horrendous second and third waves of COVID-19 cases that hit the region, resulting from looser measures after the elections ( BIRN 2021 ).

The questions raised in this study also point to avenues for future research. It is possible that the willingness to trade lives for economic benefit depends on knowing someone who became unemployed, or someone who died or became seriously ill from the virus. In addition, countries around the world showed increasing signs of lockdown fatigue with each subsequent wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is possible that this will have altered people’s trade-off willingness. Finally, the different effect of the pandemic on the elderly and the young is but one of many possible ways one might reframe the trade-off. Indeed, studies have pointed to a differential impact of the virus on ethnic and minority groups ( Millett et al. 2020 ), and on men and women ( Gebhard et al. 2020 ; Seck et al. 2021 ). Regardless, the results of this study remind us that the homo sociologicus ( Dahrendorf 2006 /1964), whose actions are guided by internalized values rather than material self-interest, is still very much alive (also see Tao and Au 2014 ). Regardless of the opportunity costs, some trade-offs should simply not be considered. Max Weber argued that modernity and the capitalist society thrust upon individuals the rationalization and disenchantment of ultimate values, and their replacement by “the pursuit of materialistic and mundane ends” through bureaucratic calculation ( Gane 2002 , p. 15; also see Koshul 2005 , pp. 17–28). The limits to utilitarian technocratic rule discovered here, together with the inevitability of taboo trade-offs, arguably puts governments between a rock and hard place. Yet, perhaps we should be glad that despite the rationalization and disenchantment of society, some values, such as human life, are still sacred.

Supplementary Material

Nfab036_supplementary_data, appendix: descriptive statistics for political variables, comparison of sample demographics with population, and ordered logit and ols models predicting trade-off willingness.

Sample distribution plots.

Population comparison plots.

Note .—Cell entries are log odds from ordered logistic regressions with robust standard errors in parentheses. The models violate the parallel odds assumption and should be interpreted with caution. The p -values are the results of two-tailed tests of the coefficients.

Note .—Cell entries are unstandardized coefficients from least-squared regressions with robust standard errors in parentheses. The models violate the normally distributed residuals assumption and should be interpreted with caution. The p -values are the results of two-tailed tests of the coefficients.

1 According to www.internetworldstats.com .

2 We identified 238 strata in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 294 in Croatia, and 400 in Serbia.

3 This sample was obtained after excluding 2,059 respondents who were non-residents, who had given false answers, not responded to all questions necessary for the analyses of this study, or filled in the survey too fast. The survey details in the Supplementary Material describe in greater detail the basis on which variables and criteria respondents were dropped, how many were excluded, and how this affected the sample sizes of each country and experimental condition.

4 The highest assigned weight in the analyses is 3.19 (mean = 1), which is similar or even smaller than the weights used in other surveys, such as the European Social Survey. In figure A1 of the Appendix, we show the distributions of the various political variables included in the analyses. In addition, figure A2 of the Appendix compares the sample to the various populations in terms of age, gender, education, and ethnicity. In all instances, the sample mirrors the population extremely well.

5 We acknowledge that comparisons between countries based on official numbers are hampered by methodological differences in how COVID-19 cases are counted. However, they do allow us to get an idea of how severely the crisis was perceived by respondents when the survey was conducted.

6 Robustness checks showed that the results are not substantially altered when respondents from Bosnia-Herzegovina are excluded.

7 All data regarding COVID-19 cases and casualties were supplied by https://ourworldindata.org/ .

8 To avoid small coefficients in table 3, the squared values of age have been divided by 1,000.

Christophe Lesschaeve and Michal Mochtak are postdoctoral researchers at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg. Josip Glaurdi ć is an associate professor of political science and the head of the Institute of Political Science at the University of Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg. The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions, the European Research Council and the Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences at the University of Luxembourg for providing the funding that made this research possible, and Oraclum Intelligence Systems (oraclum.co.uk) for collecting the data used in this article. This work was supported by a Starting Grant of the European Research Council [714589 to J.G.].

Data Availability Statement

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL may be found in the online version of this article: https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfab036 .

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Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

How Money Changes the Way You Think and Feel

The term “affluenza”—a portmanteau of affluence and influenza, defined as a “painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste, resulting from the dogged pursuit of more”—is often dismissed as a silly buzzword created to express our cultural disdain for consumerism. Though often used in jest, the term may contain more truth than many of us would like to think.

Whether affluenza is real or imagined, money really does change everything, as the song goes—and those of high social class do tend to see themselves much differently than others. Wealth (and the pursuit of it) has been linked with immoral behavior—and not just in movies like The Wolf of Wall Street .

Psychologists who study the impact of wealth and inequality on human behavior have found that money can powerfully influence our thoughts and actions in ways that we’re often not aware of, no matter our economic circumstances. Although wealth is certainly subjective, most of the current research measures wealth on scales of income, job status, or socioeconomic circumstances, like educational attainment and intergenerational wealth.

Here are seven things you should know about the psychology of money and wealth.

More money, less empathy?

Several studies have shown that wealth may be at odds with empathy and compassion . Research published in the journal Psychological Science found that people of lower economic status were better at reading others’ facial expressions —an important marker of empathy—than wealthier people.

“A lot of what we see is a baseline orientation for the lower class to be more empathetic and the upper class to be less [so],” study co-author Michael Kraus told Time . “Lower-class environments are much different from upper-class environments. Lower-class individuals have to respond chronically to a number of vulnerabilities and social threats. You really need to depend on others so they will tell you if a social threat or opportunity is coming, and that makes you more perceptive of emotions.”

While a lack of resources fosters greater emotional intelligence, having more resources can cause bad behavior in its own right. UC Berkeley research found that even fake money could make people behave with less regard for others. Researchers observed that when two students played Monopoly, one having been given a great deal more Monopoly money than the other, the wealthier player expressed initial discomfort, but then went on to act aggressively, taking up more space and moving his pieces more loudly, and even taunting the player with less money.

Wealth can cloud moral judgment

It is no surprise in this post-2008 world to learn that wealth may cause a sense of moral entitlement. A UC Berkeley study found that in San Francisco—where the law requires that cars stop at crosswalks for pedestrians to pass—drivers of luxury cars were four times less likely than those in less expensive vehicles to stop and allow pedestrians the right of way. They were also more likely to cut off other drivers.

Another study suggested that merely thinking about money could lead to unethical behavior. Researchers from Harvard and the University of Utah found that study participants were more likely to lie or behave immorally after being exposed to money-related words.

“Even if we are well-intentioned, even if we think we know right from wrong, there may be factors influencing our decisions and behaviors that we’re not aware of,” University of Utah associate management professor Kristin Smith-Crowe, one of the study’s co-authors, told MarketWatch .

Wealth has been linked with addiction

While money itself doesn’t cause addiction or substance abuse, wealth has been linked with a higher susceptibility to addiction problems. A number of studies have found that affluent children are more vulnerable to substance-abuse issues , potentially because of high pressure to achieve and isolation from parents. Studies also found that kids who come from wealthy parents aren’t necessarily exempt from adjustment problems—in fact, research found that on several measures of maladjustment, high school students of high socioeconomic status received higher scores than inner-city students. Researchers found that these children may be more likely to internalize problems, which has been linked with substance abuse.

But it’s not just adolescents: Even in adulthood, the rich outdrink the poor by more than 27 percent.

Money itself can become addictive

The pursuit of wealth itself can also become a compulsive behavior. As psychologist Dr. Tian Dayton explained, a compulsive need to acquire money is often considered part of a class of behaviors known as process addictions, or “behavioral addictions,” which are distinct from substance abuse.

These days, the idea of process addictions is widely accepted. Process addictions are addictions that involve a compulsive and/or an out-of-control relationship with certain behaviors such as gambling, sex, eating, and, yes, even money.…There is a change in brain chemistry with a process addiction that’s similar to the mood-altering effects of alcohol or drugs. With process addictions, engaging in a certain activity—say viewing pornography, compulsive eating, or an obsessive relationship with money—can kickstart the release of brain/body chemicals, like dopamine, that actually produce a “high” that’s similar to the chemical high of a drug. The person who is addicted to some form of behavior has learned, albeit unconsciously, to manipulate his own brain chemistry.

While a process addiction is not a chemical addiction, it does involve compulsive behavior —in this case, an addiction to the good feeling that comes from receiving money or possessions—which can ultimately lead to negative consequences and harm the individual’s well-being. Addiction to spending money—sometimes known as shopaholism—is another, more common type of money-associated process addiction.

Wealthy children may be more troubled

Children growing up in wealthy families may seem to have it all, but having it all may come at a high cost. Wealthier children tend to be more distressed than lower-income kids, and are at high risk for anxiety, depression, substance abuse, eating disorders, cheating, and stealing. Research has also found high instances of binge-drinking and marijuana use among the children of high-income, two-parent, white families.

“In upwardly mobile communities, children are often pressed to excel at multiple academic and extracurricular pursuits to maximize their long-term academic prospects—a phenomenon that may well engender high stress,” writes psychologist Suniya Luthar in “The Culture Of Affluence.” “At an emotional level, similarly, isolation may often derive from the erosion of family time together because of the demands of affluent parents’ career obligations and the children’s many after-school activities.”

We tend to perceive the wealthy as “evil”

On the other side of the spectrum, lower-income individuals are likely to judge and stereotype those who are wealthier than themselves, often judging the wealthy as being “cold.” (Of course, it is also true that the poor struggle with their own set of societal stereotypes.)

Rich people tend to be a source of envy and distrust, so much so that we may even take pleasure in their struggles, according to Scientific American . According to a University of Pennsylvania study entitled “ Is Profit Evil? Associations of Profit with Social Harm ,” most people tend to link perceived profits with perceived social harm. When participants were asked to assess various companies and industries (some real, some hypothetical), both liberals and conservatives ranked institutions perceived to have higher profits with greater evil and wrongdoing across the board, independent of the company or industry’s actions in reality.

Money can’t buy happiness (or love)

We tend to seek money and power in our pursuit of success (and who doesn’t want to be successful, after all?), but it may be getting in the way of the things that really matter: happiness and love.

There is no direct correlation between income and happiness. After a certain level of income that can take care of basic needs and relieve strain ( some say $50,000 a year , some say $75,000 ), wealth makes hardly any difference to overall well-being and happiness and, if anything, only harms well-being: Extremely affluent people actually suffer from higher rates of depression . Some data has suggested money itself doesn’t lead to dissatisfaction—instead, it’s the ceaseless striving for wealth and material possessions that may lead to unhappiness. Materialistic values have even been linked with lower relationship satisfaction .

But here’s something to be happy about: More Americans are beginning to look beyond money and status when it comes to defining success in life. According to a 2013 LifeTwist study , only around one-quarter of Americans still believe that wealth determines success.

This article originally appeared in the Huffington Post .

About the Author

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