While measuring well being and happiness is very parcial, limited and imperfect, it help us to show that GDP and economic growth is a very poor indicator and policy to prioritize our economic efforts.
One of the clear obervations is that mean life satisfaction and GDP per capita have a weak relantionship after around 12.000 dollars in 2000 PPP. While richer countries tend to have slightly higher reported happiness on average, the growth of GDP has decoupled with change in life satisfaction since 1950s in most countries in the North.
The reasons why this is happening is that our expectations of income and fairness are not absolute after a threshold, but rather related to our relative position in the income distribution.
Another reason is our capacity to adapt and take as normal new income levels, which makes ineffective in the long term increases in income.
To revert that, degrowth could reduce the amount of inequality, improving most people relative position, while not affecting wellbeing in the north, as the sustainable income will be sufficient and people will adapt easily to that level.
Happiness and wellbeing is not only an invidual phenomenon, is very tight to the quality, instensity and fairness of our relantionships. Any proxy to measure wellbeing should consider the quality of the relantionships and the roles that individuals play in it.
Recommended literature
Wilkinson (2009) demonstrated the deleterious impact on population segments, as well as society
overall when GDP is the main measure guiding public policy.
Kasser’s research indicates that
measurements have a direct influence on cultural values, which drive behavior. So, to change
behaviors, sometimes it is necessary to change what is measured (Happiness Alliance, 2014).
Kasser’s (2002) findings identified that “a strong relative focus on materialistic values is associated with low well-being” (p. 21), supporting an earlier finding by Kasser and Ryan (1993) that when pursuit of wealth is synonymous with pursuit of happiness, a culture emerges in which financial success, image, and status are highly valued, and family, personal happiness, and caring for others and the environment is diminished.
Eurostat (2015) also identifies the three ways of measuring subjective well-being as “three distinct
but complementary sub-dimensions: life satisfaction, based on an overall cognitive assessment;
affects, or the presence of positive feelings and absence of negative feelings; and eudaimonics*, the
feeling that one’s life has a meaning” (p. 2). These three subjective measurements, life evaluations
(which include circumstances), affect, and eudaimonia, compose “happiness measurements.”
In the 2013 World Happiness Report, O’Donnell writes, “Governments are increasingly realizing that
using well-being as a success measure will lead to better policies” (p. 101).
[subjective well-being measurements] complement existing well-being
measures at an aggregate national level; enable us to understand better the
drivers of subjective well-being at the level of the individual, and to quantify
the importance of different outcomes; and assist in understanding human
behavior and decision making, particularly where non-market outcomes are
involved, for input for other analysis, particularly cost–benefit analysis.
The OECD Guidelines (OECD, 2013b) cover gathering subjective well-being data in terms of life
evaluation, affect, and eudaimonia (p. 9). The OECD
Guidelines for Measuring Subjective Well-Being (OECD, 2013b), leave the question of “whether it is
possible or desirable to move towards a greater degree of international standardization” and “provid[ing] a resource for data producers developing
their own surveys as well as a guide for ensuring that the data collected will be more internationally
comparable” (p. 11).
Governmental agencies are in the awkward position of needing a better understanding of how to use subjective well-being measures in order to confidently replace purely economic measures. The development of subjective indicators of well-being would be aided by three activities: research into the interconnections between aspects of satisfaction with life, affect, and eudaimonia by economists; the gathering of subjective well-being data and experimentation into its application by international agencies and place-based communities; and an effort on behalf of international agencies and national governments to explore harmonization. The transition from purely economic metrics to wider measures of well-being could bring about the evolution of economics from a social science narrowly focused on production of goods and services to the good and service of society and result in a future in which sustainability, social justice, thriving economies, and individual happiness are harmonious and realistic goals.
*Eudaimonia: According to Aristotle, every living or human-made thing, including its parts, has a unique or characteristic function or activity that distinguishes it from all other things. The highest good of a thing consists of the good performance of its characteristic function, and the virtue or excellence of a thing consists of whatever traits or qualities enable it to perform that function well. (Thus, the virtue or excellence of a knife is whatever enables the good performance of cutting, that of an eye whatever enables the good performance of seeing, and so on.) It follows that eudaimonia consists of the good performance of the characteristic function of human beings, whatever that may be, and human virtue or excellence is that combination of traits or qualities that enables humans to perform that function well. Aristotle believes that the characteristic function of human beings, that which distinguishes them from all other things, is their ability to reason. Accordingly, “if the function of man is an activity of soul which follows or implies a rational principle,” and if the human good is the good performance of that function, then the “human good turns out to be [rational] activity of soul in accordance with virtue,” or rational activity performed virtuously or excellently (Nichomachean Ethics, Book I, chapter 7).
Nic Marks: el Índice de Planeta Feliz
We need to stop using fear to grab people attention, and this is not productive, as it leads to scape and not confronting an agenda of radical change. The environmental justice movement should stop silence in talking about progress, now taken only by economical discussion. We need to stop focusing on our productive capacity, reflected by the GDP, and instead consider indexes that measure what makes life worthwhile. Social justice, sustainability, wellbeing should be the base of that indicators.
The happy planet index measure how successful a nation is able to create healthy and happy lives within planetary bounderies. The data should that some countries achieve high levels of happy life years with way lower ecological footprint that other countries. The efficiency of some countries, mainly latin american countries, is way better that USA, UK, Germany and others that require a lot of ecological footprint.
Trends in rich nations on the ecological happiness efficiency are not pointing to the reduction of footprint for an increase on wellbeing. A total reversal of the footprint increase while wellbeing is improve has to be in place, in short, degrowth. How can we improve wellbeing while ecological footprint go down?
- CONNECT with people and your community
- BE ACTIVE, do sports, the one you like ideally outdoors
- TAKE NOTICE, mindfullness is key for wellbeing
- KEEP LEARNING, be curious and keep working on skills tha you like
- GIVE, our generosity and compansion will increase our wellbeing
They do not require much, only your time and dedication, to focus on your wellbeing and the one of your community. We need to focus on this five items instead of producing more, because happiness, does not need to cost us the Earth ; )
Comments
Post a Comment