Economic Wisdom to Apply in Your Twenties

Chapter 91

Chapter 11 Section 7 What is your happiness index
In recent years, Western economists have begun to pay attention to the inevitable connection between GDP and national happiness.The New Economics Foundation (NEF), a London-based think tank, has even gone so far as to suggest that a happiness index could replace GDP.

NEF adopts a new set of calculation methods, taking into account people's satisfaction with life, life expectancy, resources invested in environmental protection and the results achieved.By their calculations, the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu is the happiest in the world.

The order from 10nd to [-]th is Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica, Panama, Cuba, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

China ranks [-]st.

Italy ranked [-]th, the highest among European countries; Germany [-]st; Japan [-]th; UK [-]th; Canada [-]th; France [-]th; the United States [-]th and Russia [-]nd.

The average performance of African countries is the least satisfactory, taking 10 of the last 7 places, and Zimbabwe has become the bottom one.

Since the 20th century, assessing whether the people of a country are living well is no longer simply looking at GDP as in the past, but also looking at GNH, the National Happiness Index.That is to say, to evaluate whether a country is truly prosperous or strong, we should not simply look at the growth rate of the gross national product, but also look at the real feelings of the people—do they feel safe?Does he feel happy?Does he identify with his own life?

For many years, due to the one-sided emphasis on the rapid growth of GDP and the neglect of the coordinated development of resources, population and environment, one or another social problem has been caused.As sociologists say, people used to be superstitious about GDP. Now that the economy has developed, people's living environment has deteriorated. Problems such as air pollution, urban noise, and difficulties in going to school and seeing a doctor have begun to appear.People's quality of life has actually declined in some ways, and many feel they are not living happily enough.

In 2006, relevant officials from the National Bureau of Statistics stated that my country has launched a happiness index to digitize happiness, an invisible but intangible thing that always affects our lives.The country lists GNH as an assessment content, which reflects the people-oriented requirements of people-oriented, comprehensive coordination and sustainable development.Through the approval of GNH, the one-sided guiding function of GDP can be corrected, focusing on people as the core, and taking people's life satisfaction index or happiness index as the measurement scale.

The happiness index measures people's sense of well-being, which mainly includes three aspects:

First, it is people's satisfaction with life in general and major areas of life;

Second, it is the sense of happiness that people experience;
Third, it is the sense of value that people get from the realization of their potential.

With the increasing voice of GNH, some people believe that GDP cannot measure resource consumption and environmental degradation, cannot fully reflect the current and future net welfare changes of a country and a region, and cannot directly reflect the ultimate demands of citizens for happiness. Therefore, the happiness index can replace GDP.

In fact, this view is biased. GDP is an important indicator that reflects the growth of the national economy and the quality of people's lives.Without the accumulation of material wealth and the improvement of people's disposable income, there will be no sense of happiness.Relevant experts conducted a sample survey of urban residents in a province and city and found that there is a positive relationship between residents' per capita income and happiness, that is, urban residents' happiness increases with the increase of per capita income.Therefore, the role of GDP as an economic indicator should not be underestimated, and the happiness index is more of a necessary supplement to the GDP indicator, making it an important basis for examining the degree of social harmonious development.

Wisdom Pieces: Three Types of Indicators to Measure Residents’ Sense of Happiness
Type A index: Life satisfaction related to the cognitive category includes living conditions (such as employment, income, social security, etc.) and quality of life satisfaction (such as living conditions, medical conditions, environmental conditions, education conditions, etc.).

Type B indicators: the state of mind and the degree of emotional joy related to the emotional category, including the degree of tension, state of mind, etc.

Category C indicators: Refers to the degree of harmony between people and the individual and society, including the relationship between satisfaction with interpersonal communication, identity, personal happiness, and social and urban development.

(End of this chapter)