Reminds me of movies "Aliens attack Earth. By Earth by obviously mean USA. By USA we obviously mean New York City. By New York City we obviously mean Manhattan.".
Half of Europe was literally undergoing complete economic collapse in 90's.
Your supposed connection of country-level economic situation and happiness reminds me of this great comment:
"I can't stand the conflation of "satisfied" and "happy." It's insane. There is more happiness in one Zimbabwean (country "happiness" rank: 143) than in one hundred Icelanders (country "happiness" rank: 2, worldwide antidepressant consumption rank: 1.) Go stand in a crowd of people and count the fucking smiles and the fucking laughter.
"It is all part of this broader wave of newspeak. If you can quite literally redefine happiness, you can redefine anything. Nothing has meaning anymore. You will live alone, you will consume antidepressants, you will be protected from the sunlight, you will not smile, you will not laugh, and you will be happy." [0]
Hmmmm maybe economic success removes discomforts which removes unhappiness but this means that moments of happiness don't feel as good compared to the baseline. Like, people in rich countries are more stably content, while people in poor countries have more emotional variance over time.
We periodically see posts on HN about the 'loneliness epidemic' and simultaneously the solution for home prices is to live in a rural area where you have maybe two neighbors and it's a 30-minute drive to see your friends or colleagues.
As someone who grew up in a rural area I don't miss it and I think people who call it a good standard of living have interesting criteria. That cheaper rural home also comes with secondary costs, like a longer commute.
Housing prices are not binary: they have skyrocket in every major city and city-adjacent suburb. The middle class has consistently declined since the 70s.
