I recently came
across a Statistics Canada Report from 2015 on life satisfaction across Census
Metropolitan areas and economic regions that presented ranked scores based on
the responses to the Canadian Community Health Survey and General Social
Survey. The responses are over the period 2009 to 2013 and the key question
was:
“Using a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 means “very
dissatisfied” and 10 means “Very satisfied”, how do you feel about your life as
a whole right now?”
There were
nearly 340,000 respondents to the survey and the results for the CMAs had
samples of at least 1,800 to 2,000 respondents.
Average life satisfaction from 2009 to 2013 across Canada’s 33 CMAs (as
shown in Chart 1 below taken from the report) ranged from a low of about 7.8 in
Vancouver, Toronto and Windsor to a high of 8.2 in St. John’s, Trois-Rivieres
and Saguenay. More interesting is that
both Sudbury and Thunder Bay are in the top ten in terms of life
satisfaction. Moreover, the proportion
of individuals reporting a 9 or 10 – the highest rankings – is highest in
Sudbury and Thunder Bay and lowest in Toronto and Vancouver (As shown in Chart 2). Even when the results are adjusted for
individual-level socio-economic characteristics such as income, life satisfaction
remains higher in smaller communities like Thunder Bay or Sudbury.
I guess it
bears repeating that economic success and achievement and life in the big city
may not be all it is cracked up to be. Given
the surge in rents and housing prices in places like Toronto as of late, and the increased congestion and traffic, one
would expect these life satisfaction rankings results would persist if a survey
was done today. Even with slower
economic growth in northern Ontario, it remains that for many people there is an
advantage to living in communities where there is a more intimate and human
scale of life.
At the same
time, given the higher rate of aging populations in smaller communities and the
u-shaped relationship between life satisfaction and age the report notes, it may simply be demographics - an
older population seems to be a happier one.
While young people are striving and competing and making their
way in the world, older people have pretty much come to accept where they are
at and are comfortable in their own skins. Having a larger proportion of older people in a community may be the key to tranquility and happiness on a community level.
Nevertheless,
northern Ontario can use all the good news it can get. Residents of northern Ontario have apparently
decided to embrace Albert Einstein’s observation that: “A calm and modest life
brings more happiness than the pursuit of success.”
