A Measure of Happiness
HuMANS LovE To MEASuRE THINGS. We’ve devised scales
to put a number on everything from intelligence (Stanford-binet IQ
test) to the power of an earthquake (Richter scale) and the strength of
a hurricane (Saffir-Simpson scale).
There’s even a measure for the “
hotness” of chili peppers. Chemist Wilbur
Scoville devised his scale of heat units
(SHUs) to help us distinguish between a
jalapeño (about 4,000 SHUs) and a habanero (300,000 SHUs) before it’s too late.
And “Sesame Street” once featured
a character, the aptly named Count von
Count, who was obsessed with counting
anything, anytime, anywhere.
But leave it to the people of the
Kingdom of Bhutan to try to measure
happiness.
In 1972, King Jigme Singye
Wangchuck coined the term gross national happiness (GNH) as part of the
unifying vision of his country’s five-year
planning process, and adherence to its
principles continues to this day.
The 10th five-year plan (2008-2013),
enacted by the government of Bhutan
and published on its official website
( www.pc.gov.bt), is a 169-page document replete with graphs and charts and
sections on education, trade, roads and
bridges, and health and human services.
But it also includes this rather remarkable guiding principle:
The single unifying idea that
guides the nation’s long-term
development is the Bhutanese
concept of maximizing Gross
National Happiness. The spirit and
intent of this concept as articulated
in the Bhutan Vision 2020 document
is to “maximize the happiness of
all Bhutanese and to enable them
to achieve their full and innate
potential as human beings.”
The Bhutanese intend to measure
their progress with a numerical yardstick
designated as the Gross National Happiness Index (GNHI), which was formally
adopted in November of 2008 to coincide with the coronation of the fifth king
of Bhutan.
The GNHI is composed of 72 variables spread across nine equally
weighted categories:
Psychological Well-Being
1.
Time Use
2.
Community Vitality
3.
Culture
4.
Health
5.
Education
6.
Environmental Diversity
7.
Living Standard
8.
Governance
9.
The GNHI variables (more fully described at http://grossnationalhappiness.
com/ Default.aspx) include a fascinating
array of items ranging from spiritual and
emotional well-being to family and cultural values and health and education
measures. They can be studied individually, distilled into a single number, or
decomposed by age, gender, occupation,
and locale.
Speaking at the Second International Conference on GNH in 2005 in Nova
Scotia, Lyonpo Jigme Thinley, former
prime minister of Bhutan, explained
that “the measurement system for a
GNH economy must necessarily be different from conventional measurement
of GDP. It must value social and economic contributions of households and
families, free time and leisure given the
roles of these factors in happiness. The
indicators must not be biased towards
consumption. It must take into account
conservation of social, environmental
and human capitals.”
In 2005, when the world economy
was roaring ahead, stock market and
housing prices were escalating and unemployment remained at low levels, it
would have been convenient to dismiss
such ideas as the musings of someone
under the influence of the thin Himalayan air. But today, at a time when the
industrialized world is facing an unprecedented convergence of economic
and environmental challenges, alternative ways of measuring progress demand
greater attention.
Are the Bhutanese on the right
track?
Only time will tell. But it’s interesting to note that researchers at Britain’s
University of Leicester, who examined a
range of statistical data to devise a ranking of the world’s happiest countries,
ranked Bhutan—“a small Asian nation
with relatively low life expectancy, a literacy rate of just 47 percent, and a very
low GDP per capita”—as the eighth happiest country in the world.
In reporting on the Leicester study
in the Oct. 11, 2006 issue, Business Week
called Bhutan’s high ranking counter-intuitive, despite the beautiful scenery
and unspoiled culture but admitted that
Bhutan “seems to have found a recipe for
happiness.”
And they now have a measure to
prove it.
bIGSToCkPHo To / boNo ToM STuDIo
RICHARD T. ZATORSKI is an actuary
who works for Munich Re in Princeton,
N.J. He is a fellow of the Casualty
Actuarial Society and a member of the
Academy.
