Ruut Veenhoven (26 November 1942 – 9 December 2024) was a Dutch sociologist and a pioneer on the scientific study of happiness,[1][2][3] in the sense of subjective enjoyment of life.
[10] He graduated from the Nederlandsch Lyceum [nl] in The Hague in 1962 and received a master's degree in sociology, specializing in public management, from Erasmus University Rotterdam in 1969.
[11] Between 1970 and 1990, Veenhoven was a leading advocate of abortion law reform and in promoting acceptance of voluntary childlessness in The Netherlands.
On that basis, he developed the World Database of Happiness,[16] which now covers some 40,000 research findings taken from 8,000 empirical investigations.
His main aim was to add to happiness for as many people as possible, by allowing individuals and organizations to make better informed decisions.