Jay Shetty & Jan-Emmanuel de Neve ON The Simple Daily Habit for Happiness

Have you ever wondered if the pursuit of more money is actually the very thing stealing your happiness? In a world increasingly defined by digital isolation and economic uncertainty, understanding the actual drivers of human well-being is no longer just a philosophical exercise; it is a necessity for survival in the modern workplace.

In this On Purpose episode, Jay Shetty sat down with Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, a professor of economics and behavioral scientist at the University of Oxford and the director of the Well-Being Research Center. His latest book, Why Workplace Well-being Matters, explores the profound ways in which workplace well-being shapes our lives, our businesses, and the broader fabric of society.

The Steep Decline of American Happiness

Jan-Emmanuel De Neve shared with Jay Shetty the abrupt decline in well-being among U.S. nationals, which recently exited the top 20 of the happiest countries in the World Happiness Report.^1.He explained that the decline is, however, heterogeneous, revealing a massive inequality between how generations experience their lives.

The data show that while older Americans (aged 60 and above) still rank among the top 10 globally for happiness, youth happiness has taken a plunge. According to De Neve, if the well-being of young people in America were measured in isolation, they would rank approximately 62nd or 63rd in the world. He explained to Jay Shetty that this disparity suggests a systemic failure to support the younger generation as they navigate an increasingly volatile world.

The Youth Crisis

In De Neve’s opinion, social media and the economy play a crucial role in the decline of young people’s happiness. He told Jay Shetty that focus groups revealed the reality of an affordability crisis, starting with the education costs that have increased considerably, outpacing inflation by a wide margin.² Compared to their parents, young people now have the financial burden of education.

Beyond education, young people also worry about the future of work, De Neve told Jay Shetty. Many are questioning the value of their studies in an era where artificial intelligence tools, such as ChatGPT, are rapidly evolving. This has disrupted the traditional social contract that suggested each generation would inevitably do better than the one before it, which De Neve describes as an existentialist Zeitgeist. It’s a crisis in which uncertainty about career stability and financial independence is manifesting in a significant drop in self-reported life satisfaction.

Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

De Neve notes that companies and organizations have historically maintained a monopoly over the requirement for degrees, which has allowed universities to extract a premium in tuition. However, as AI begins to handle more complex tasks such as coding and data science, the value of traditional tertiary education is being challenged. De Neve shared with Jay Shetty his belief that physical jobs, such as nursing or plumbing, might drive greater interest in the near future.

Moreover, the discrepancy between university curricula and the realities of the world of work is increasing. De Neve told Jay Shetty that, while universities often take a long time to change, the job environment moves rapidly, making skills more relevant than degrees. So, he believes that one of the most relevant abilities of the future will be asking the right questions rather than finding answers.

How Much Money is Enough?

One of the most debated topics in the economics of happiness is the relationship between income and well-being. Jan-Emmanuel De Neve references the famous study by Nobel laureates Angus Deaton and Daniel Kahneman, which originally identified $75,000 as the gold number for happiness.^3. While this figure must be inflation-adjusted for modern times (approx. between $100,000 and $150,000), the core principle remains: there are significant diminishing marginal returns to additional income once basic needs are met.

De Neve explained to Jay Shetty that the relationship between money and happiness is logarithmic; to achieve the same boost in well-being that you felt moving from $20,000 to $40,000, you would eventually need to jump from $160,000 to $320,000. While having more money can solve certain problems, jobs that pay those higher salaries often come with trade-offs in mental and physical health, such as increased stress and a reduced work-life balance. As a result, the advantages of earning more money significantly decrease.

Eating Alone Makes You Unhappy

Jan-Emmanuel De Neve shared with Jay Shetty data from the World Happiness Report showing that in the U.S., dining alone has increased by 53% over the last two decades; young people under 30 are now almost twice as likely to dine alone on a daily basis as they were 20 years ago.⁴ He warns that it’s a critical indicator because humans frequently underestimate the importance of social ties to their overall happiness.

De Neve told Jay Shetty that a person’s life satisfaction doesn’t only come from their relative income or employment status, but also from the number of shared meals in the past week. While Latin American countries might share 12 out of 14 meals per week, the U.S. average has dropped to about 7.

Life Satisfaction Has Political Implications

Traditionally, happiness science followed a U-shape where people were happiest in their youth, hit a so-called midlife crisis in their early 40s due to the peak of mortgages and responsibilities, and then became happier again in their later years. However, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve points out to Jay Shetty that this universal truth has vanished in the United States, as young people are essentially experiencing a midlife crisis before they even reach middle age.⁵

De Neve believes that this shift is a direct result of the combined pressures of the affordability crisis, anxiety over the future of work, and the isolating effects of social media. He told Jay Shetty that this unprecedented loneliness and distress rate among the youth leads to a lack of social support and a decrease in social trust. De Neve added that when people limit their social interaction, they also tend to believe those around them are less kind.

Moreover, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve argues that there is a direct connection between individual well-being and national political stability: when people are unhappy with the way their lives are going, they are far more likely to vote for anti-system or populist candidates.⁶ He shared with Jay Shetty examples such as the Arab Spring and the 2019 Hong Kong riots, in which GDP was growing significantly while subjective well-being was in decline.

In Egypt, double-digit economic growth did not prevent a revolution, as people became increasingly dissatisfied. Similarly, while Hong Kong’s GDP grew by 60% over a decade, life satisfaction declined by 10% to 12% during that same period. According to De Neve, this movement argues that economic growth is merely a means to an end, and that the true measure of a society’s progress lies in the quality of life experienced by its citizens.

The Disconnect Between Leadership and Employees

In the corporate world, the state of well-being is particularly dire, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve told Jay Shetty. He shared that only about one in four people in the United States would report high workplace well-being.⁷ Similarly, studies have found that feeling sick in bed is the only activity people find more unpleasant than working, yet many senior leaders fail to prioritize the health of their employees.⁸

Studies have found that CEOs mention customers eight times more often than employees; when employees are mentioned, it is often in the context of a challenge or problem, whereas customers are discussed as opportunities.⁹ Jay Shetty believes that this lack of care stems from leaders who were never cared for themselves, as many senior executives have sacrificed their own health and work-life balance to reach the top, and they struggle to empathize with those who want something different.

Why Happy Workers Sell More

Jan-Emmanuel De Neve shared with Jay Shetty a ten-year study conducted with British Telecom (BT) to prove the causal link between happiness and productivity.¹⁰ By tracking call center employees’ moods weekly and comparing them with granular performance data, the researchers found that a significant increase in well-being led to a 12% increase in weekly sales.

For complex tasks that require social intelligence, emotional intelligence, and creativity, the impact of how an employee feels can account for 20% to 25% of their performance. De Neve explained to Jay Shetty that it is nearly impossible to generate the empathy and creativity needed for these roles if you are bogged down by personal worries or stress. They agreed that, as AI takes over routine tasks, these human-centric, social-emotional skills will become the primary driver of value in the future of work.

Building a Future of Belonging and Smart Hybrid Work

To improve workplace well-being, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve believes that companies must look beyond individual perks like mindfulness apps or yoga classes. Instead, the most important driver of job satisfaction is social capital, a sense of belonging and feeling cared for as a person, which is more predictive of happiness than flexibility or even pay.

To maintain work friendships in a remote-work world, Jay Shetty and Jan-Emmanuel De Neve advocate for hybrid options in which teams agree to be in the office on the same days and enjoy group activities, such as brainstorming and client meetings. The individual tasks (such as writing emails and reports) can be done at home, but they recommend using office time for synchronous tasks to maintain social connections, since the average person spends a third of their life at work.

More From Jay Shetty

Listen to the entire On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast episode “Jan-Emmanuel De Neve: The Simple Daily Habit Linked to Happiness (Do This ONE Thing Every Day and Significantly Improve Your Life!)” now in the iTunes store or on Spotify. For more inspirational stories and messages like this, check out Jay’s website at jayshetty.me.

¹Gallup, “The Happiest Country on Earth,” March 20, 2024, https://news.gallup.com/poll/612125/happiest-country-earth.aspx.

²College Board, Trends in College Pricing Highlights, https://research.collegeboard.org/trends/college-pricing/highlights.

³M.A. Killingsworth, D. Kahneman, & B. Mellers, Income and emotional well-being: A conflict resolved, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 120 (10) e2208661120, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2208661120 (2023).

⁴Gili Malinsky, “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, July 14, 2025, https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/14/25percent-of-young-americans-aged-18-to-24-eat-every-meal-alone.html.

⁵Blanchflower, David G., Alex Bryson, and Xiaowei Xu. “The Declining Mental Health of the Young and the Global Disappearance of the Unhappiness Hump Shape in Age.” PLOS ONE 20, no. 8 (2025): e0327858. Accessed June 24, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0327858.

⁶Layard, Richard, and Jan-Emmanuel De Neve. “How Government Affects Wellbeing.” Chapter. In Wellbeing: Science and Policy, 252–65. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023.

⁷Gallup, “Employee Wellbeing Is Key for Workplace Productivity,” August 11, 2017, https://www.gallup.com/workplace/215924/well-being.aspx.

⁸Alex Bryson, George MacKerron, Are You Happy While You Work?, The Economic Journal, Volume 127, Issue 599, February 2017, Pages 106–125, https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12269

⁹Columbia Business School. “Treating Employees Just Like They Treat Customers: New Research Calls on Companies to Value Employees.” CBS Newsroom, published January 31, 2023. http://business.columbia.edu/press-release/cbs-press-releases/treating-employees-just-they-treat-customers-new-research-calls.

¹⁰Bellet, Clement and De Neve, Jan-Emmanuel and Ward, George, Does Employee Happiness have an Impact on Productivity? (October 14, 2019). Saïd Business School WP 2019-13, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3470734 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3470734.

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