Viewing archives for Prof. Jan-Emmanuel De Neve

How We Can Build Trust In Times of Division, with Jan-Emmanuel De Neve

What Do You Mean By That?

It’s not controversial to say that we are living in times of deep division, where there are so many forces keeping us apart, politics being a big part of that. But did you know that there’s a link between how satisfied you think you are with your life, how much you trust others, and how you vote? It’s a mind-blowing, less-discussed topic, despite being a chapter in the latest World Happiness Report. Importantly, to make a difference, we wonder this – how do we actually build trust with people who hold different viewpoints, especially if our first impulse is to block them, disregard their comments, or ignore them entirely?

We’re so glad today to have one of the co-authors of the World Happiness Report here to talk with us about how we can use our understanding of wellbeing and trust to build stronger communities, reconnect with each other, and also bridge the politics of division.

The Happiest Place on Earth

Slate

Shortly after I got home, I took a cramped and overpriced train up to Oxford, where the data scientists behind the World Happiness Report work. There, I met Jan-Emmanuel de Neve, a professor at Oxford University’s Harris Manchester College and expert in what makes life worth living. I felt I had got to the bottom of why Finnish people were happy, but now I wanted to, bluntly, know whether we were all doomed never to be as happy as our friends in the Nordics.

No one has office friends anymore. Why that’s bad news for employers

Fast Company

The impact of lost workplace friendships is often underestimated—especially in discussions about employee turnover. While it’s commonly believed that people mostly quit jobs in response to poor managers, Oxford professor Jan-Emmanuel De Neve has found that workers quit not because of leadership alone, but because they lack a sense of belonging with their teams. This reframes the issue: workplace friendships aren’t just about socializing—they’re critical for retention and sustainable business success.

Why are young adults in the English-speaking world so unhappy?

Financial Times

One of the most striking but under-discussed insights from this year’s World Happiness Report was that the marked worsening in young adult mental health over the past decade is primarily, if not exclusively, an Anglosphere phenomenon.

The share of young adults regularly experiencing stress and anger has risen sharply over the past 15 years in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. But it has been largely stable elsewhere in the west, according to detailed data from the Gallup World Poll used in the report.

25% of young Americans aged 18 to 24 eat every meal alone—‘a virtual doubling of what it was two decades ago,’ expert says

CNBC

They found that in 2023, 25% of 18-to 24-year-olds ate all three meals alone the previous day.

“That’s a virtual doubling of what it was two decades ago,” De Neve says, and it’s to the detriment of their mental health. The number of meals shared with others is “as predictive of their life satisfaction, essentially their overall well-being” as their employment status or relative income, he adds.

Oxford MBA students explore the science behind wellbeing in a pioneering new elective

2024 UK Wellbeing Report

Maria Cotofan, Richard Layard, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, and Sarah Cunningham

Abstract

Understanding the levels, the distribution, and the evolution of wellbeing across places is of paramount importance to the individuals living in them, to their broader communities, and to policymakers looking to improve the wellbeing of people. In this report we investigate how wellbeing has evolved across the UK over the last decade and show that positive trends in the first part of our time series have been partly reversed following Contents Context Data and Methods Descriptive Statistics the Covid-19 Pandemic. We show this in terms of both Life Satisfaction and the share of people experiencing particularly low levels of wellbeing. We refer to the latter as the share living below the Happiness Poverty Line, a group making up roughly 1 in 8 people across the UK. We find that there is significant variation in both these measures across areas, with some places becoming happier over time but many still lagging behind.

2025 UK Wellbeing Report

Maria Cotofan, Richard Layard, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Sarah Cunningham, and Ben Wealthy

Abstract

Using new data and building on last year’s report we investigate how three measures of wellbeing, namely (1) average life satisfaction, the (2) share of people living with low levels of wellbeing, and the (3) share of people living with high levels of wellbeing, have evolved across UK areas and over the past decade. Using 11 waves of data from the Annual Population Survey we show how these trends have changed across the four countries, across Local Authority Districts, in major cities, and in rural and urban areas. We find that while wellbeing has broadly stagnated at the national level, there is substantial inequality across places and the communities that live there, with some areas flourishing while others increasingly lag behind. The implications for policymakers are substantial.

Author Talks: Are your employees happy at work?

McKinsey & Company

In this edition of Author Talks, McKinsey’s Vanessa Burke chats with Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, director of the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, about Why Workplace Wellbeing Matters: The Science Behind Employee Happiness and Organizational Performance (Harvard Business Review Press, Spring 2025), coauthored with INSEAD assistant professor George Ward. De Neve shares data analysis on the feelings and motivations of millions of job seekers and identifies key drivers that influence their workplace well-being. He explains why workplace well-being varies across companies and provides evidence-based ideas for business leaders who seek to improve productivity, recruitment, and retention.

Acts of kindness can make you happier and healthier, researchers say

CNBC

“People consistently and universally underestimate the kindness of others,” says Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, editor of the report and director of the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford. But the truth is, it happens more often than people realize.

“In the United States, only 30% of people think the wallet will be returned when lost,” says De Neve. “The reality is about 60% of wallets get returned when lost.”