How governments waste your money (ctd.)
November 16 2015
Picture: Sanrio
The debate about why governments (at least, European ones) should fund the arts goes on and on - and still they have no answer. A new survey by the UK's Department for Culture asked if people who attend 'the arts' were happier than those who did not - presumably in the hope of persuading the Treasury not to cut the budget too much. The answer? Arts participants were 0.8% happier than non participants. DCMS describes this as a 'non-trivial' difference, but really it's margin of error stuff.
And for museum visitors, there was no change at all:
Whilst arts attendance was found to be linked to happiness, no link is found with visiting a museum or gallery, or participating in arts activities. Visiting a library within the past 12 months was found to have a statistically significant association with lower happiness scores, even after other factors, including income, had been taken into account. Researchers commented: “The reasons underlying this finding are not clear. Further work will be needed to understand whether the nature of library use and/or the happiness levels of those groups using libraries are key factors.”
The survey was part of David Cameron's agenda to measure the effectiveness of government spending in terms of 'wellbeing'. I'd love to know how it cost.
Still, there's good news if you like visiting old places:
Visits to heritage sites is a predictor of higher life satisfaction and happiness and lower anxiety. Visiting museums is a predictor of lower life satisfaction and lower anxiety.
More here.
