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Quality-of-Life in the Modern Society Measured with Happy Life Years

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Happiness and Public Policy

Abstract

The human species has lived for most of its time in simple hunter-gatherer societies. Agrarian societies developed less than 5000 years ago and it is only in the last 200 years that a “modern” industrial society has come into being. Today this industrial society is rapidly transforming into a global information society.

An earlier version of this chapter was presented at the 2nd European conference on Positive Psychology, Pallanza, Italy, July 2004 and published in the European Psychologist, Vol. 10: 330–43.

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© 2006 Ruut Veenhoven

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Veenhoven, R. (2006). Quality-of-Life in the Modern Society Measured with Happy Life Years. In: Ng, YK., Ho, L.S. (eds) Happiness and Public Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230288027_2

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