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Comment by zdean | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if the lack of ethnic diversity in the "happier" countries is a contributing factor:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/16...

Other people have mentioned Japan, but you could look at basically any eastern european state to see lots of ethnically pure, yet miserable populations.

EDIT: those countries are getting better, but still...

Most of them are recovering from communism, and cleaning up the economic and social damage will take a long time.

That. And not to forget that many of the countries that are left over are the failed attempt to have different ethnic/cultural groups exist under one umbrella (USSR, Czechoslovakia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Yugoslavia)...not unlike the pressure in places like Iraq, Syria, etc that we see today.

This is a strange conclusion from the data provides. One counterexample is Switzerland (4th): "Switzerland and Australia, with about a quarter of their population born outside the country, are the two countries with the highest proportion of immigrants in the western world." [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Switzerland

The largest immigrant groups in Switzerland are from Italy and Germany--countries with which Switzerland has close ethnic and linguistic ties. Same thing with Australia. By far the largest foreign-born groups in Australia are from the U.K. and New Zealand, again countries with which Australia has close ethnic and linguistic ties.

Canada seems to be second from the top in that scale (though I have no idea how you would choose the scale for a chart of "ethnic diversity"), and only 7th from the top of this "happiness survey".

I don't think either dataset is gathered reliably, but if you're looking at a correlation there, there are glaring exceptions.

As somebody who lives in Canada, I think cultural compatibility is important, but ethnic homogeneity is unnecessary. Ethnicities are generally a proxy for cultures, Canada has a great deal of success in separating the two, though the prime minister doesn't seem to get it.

Anyway, not a hard-and-fast opinion, but I think ethnicity is a weak bond, and probably should be.

i doubt it. japan and south korea are pretty homogeneous and they have some of the highest suicide rates in the world

That would be an argument against it being the sole factor, but has little to do with whether it's a contributing factor.

Why is this considered a reasonable factor that's often brought up in discussions rather than other somewhat unique aspects of their government and society?

Because making it possible for ethnically/racially/culturally diverse groups to live happily together is and has historically been a major challenge. So a country that has immigration policies that promote homogeneity will avoid many of those challenges. It's certainly not the only factor...but I can't imagine that it doesn't play a major role.

I gave it 4 days and I still think it's a rhetorical Trojan horse for white nationalism. I've quite literally never seen that argument trotted out in any other context.

True as per Putnam http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/t...

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