For forty years the Values Surveys have asked people in dozens of countries the same question — all things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole, from 1 to 10? Follow the countries surveyed both in the early waves and again at the end, and a clear motion emerges. The national averages, once spread far apart, have drifted together. The world has not become uniformly happy, but it has become more alike.
The engine of that convergence is the post-communist world. When the Soviet system collapsed, life satisfaction across the Orthodox-culture countries fell to a trough near 4.5 in the mid-1990s — one of the largest well-being shocks ever measured. Then it recovered, climbing to the mid-6s by the late 2010s. Meanwhile the wealthy West, starting high, barely moved or edged down.
Forty years of national trajectories — and the post-communist V
Each faint line is one country's mean life satisfaction over time (countries surveyed both early and in the latest wave). Bold lines are group averages. Hover any line for the country.
The single steepest climbs all belong to the transition states. Albania rose about 2.4 points; Ukraine, Armenia, Bosnia and Belarus each gained more than 2. These are not rounding artifacts — they are among the largest sustained movements in the entire well-being record, the slow healing of societies that had bottomed out in the 1990s.
The declines are quieter but real. Nigeria fell about 1.0 point, and the wealthy Anglosphere drifted down from its perch — Canada by roughly 0.9, the United States and Australia by smaller amounts. None of this is collapse; it is the top of the distribution settling while the bottom rushes up to meet it.
Convergence, made precise
Put every country's starting point on one axis and how much it changed on the other, and the shape of convergence is unmistakable: a steep downhill line. The lower a country began, the more it gained.
The lower you started, the more you rose
Each dot is a country: its early life satisfaction (horizontal) against its change to the latest wave (vertical). The downward slope is convergence; points above the gray line gained, below it lost.
The relationship is strong — a correlation of about −0.86, with each starting point worth roughly 0.67 of a point of subsequent change in the opposite direction. The spread itself shrank accordingly: the standard deviation of national life satisfaction fell from 1.09 to 0.56 across these countries, a 49 percent narrowing. Four decades ago, knowing a country's life satisfaction told you a lot about it; today it tells you much less.
What this does, and does not, show
A fixed cast. Convergence is measured on the 56 countries observed both early and late, so newer entrants don't distort the trend. That also means it describes this set of long-tracked nations, not literally every country on earth.
Nations, not people. Each country counts once, so this is the average national experience converging — not a population-weighted world average. A billion-person country and a small one move the picture equally.
Irregular spacing, turbulent years. The surveys arrive every several years, not annually, and the transition trajectories pass through wars, hyperinflation and state collapse. The lines are drawn at the true fieldwork year, but they connect snapshots, not a continuous record.
Evaluative only. This is life satisfaction — a reflective judgment. The Values Surveys carry no daily-mood items, so nothing here speaks to how people's days actually felt; the construct stays evaluative throughout.