Don't worry, we're happy

As for the argument that the relentless demands of a deregulated economy have a bearing on child neglect, it should be noted that child abuse is most serious in societies with poor economic growth.

Wealth may appear to have come at the expense of simple, virtuous modes of living but social complexity pre-dates the plough, let alone the Internet.

Take, for instance, an island fisherman in the Pacific, before contact with Western traders, living his days in the sun a world away from Prozac, interest rates and cholesterol. Surely he is a perfect example of the pre-industrial order of certainty and security: strong family ties, hard work, profound religious convictions. So far so good.

But a traditional fisherman's life was a complex web of social and familial obligations placing considerable strain on his time and resources. He was required to provide food and labour for his wife's family as well as his own. Depending on the order of his birth and marriage, he was at the beck and call of nominated senior relatives. He had to deliver labour and tribute to local chieftains.

Francis Hezel, director of the Micronesian Seminar, describes him as "a man enmeshed in a rather tight system". For our fisherman, the work-life balance was tough going and, with rare exceptions, it has ever been thus in every community, on every continent, in every century.

The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women was adopted in 1979 because women in all manner of communities around the world were in various states of danger, distress and fear, arising from their ordinary, normal, daily circumstances. As the convention notes, these practices are in most cases the result of belief systems that have held sway for hundreds of years. That is to say that normal has been difficult for a long, long time.

Modern life, especially its freedoms, should be celebrated and yet it is being blamed for a manufactured epidemic of sadness. The facts show it's just not plausible.

Modern life can't actually be making us crazier but it may well be reshaping the way we outwardly manifest our craziness. You may be feeling stressed about your mortgage but you may be the sort of person who would otherwise have stressed about lions, poor growing seasons or miscegenation.

Some writers suggest our relative position to others is a growing cause of profound anxiety, exacerbated by living in an information age in which we can see exactly how difficult it is to keep up with Paris and Nicole, and the Joneses. But research indicates comparing ourselves with others works both ways.

It turns out that while we are sometimes jealous of success, we also take inspiration from it. We compare our plot with the greener grasses over the hill but also with the filth. We've seen Paris but also Rwanda and that awareness of others who have less provides us a sense of gratitude and perspective.

Success, like happiness, is objective and subjective. So while our relative position may cause concern, we have still the wit to be pleased with the improvement in our absolute position.

When scientists and psychologists began studying happiness, or what they call subjective wellbeing, early studies showed that happy people were most likely young, healthy, educated, well-paid, extroverted, optimistic, relaxed, religious, married.