This fully revised and updated edition of Happiness provides an accessible introduction to the concept of happiness and how it can be applied to public policy in order to help citizens achieve the good life.

Bent Greve is Professor in Social Science at the University of Roskilde, Denmark. His research explores welfare states and social and labour market policy, and he has published extensively on social and labour market policy, social security, tax expenditures, public sector expenditure and financing of the welfare state. He is the author of numerous books, including Poverty: The Basics (Routledge, 2019); Welfare, Populism and Welfare Chauvinism (2019); Myths, Narratives and Welfare States: The Impact of Stories on Welfare State Development (2020); Austerity, Retrenchment and the Welfare State: Truth or Fiction? (2020); Multidimensional Inequalities: International Perspectives across Welfare States (De Gruyter, 2021); and Rethinking Welfare and the Welfare State (2022). He is also the editor of Routledge International Handbook of Poverty (Routledge, 2019), Routledge Handbook of the Welfare State (Routledge, Second Edition, 2019), and the Social Policy & Administration journal.

1. Introduction 2. What is happiness? 3. Can we measure happiness? 4. Happiness and different core aspects of life 5. Welfare states and happiness - any connections? 6. How to measure welfare and how this relates to happiness and well-being 7. Conclusions