Jan 06
The third annual World Conference on Gross National Happiness has just finished a couple months ago, and I just came across this interesting report on the conference. I like this article, contrasting Western and Eastern values. I can also refer you to a somewhate dated but much more detailed NY Times article on the topic.Â
Here is a map of Gross National Happiness among nations:
Gross National Happiness Map
Grab The Bookmarketer For Your Site
February 5th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
nternational Institute of Management published a policy white paper titled “The American Pursuit of Unhappiness: Gross National Happiness (GNH)”. The paper provides a link between socioeconomic policies, money and citizen’s happiness. The paper provides a macro-analysis or a system view of the external forces that shape and influence the happiness of the individual.
It makes reference to results of the University of Michigan’s World Values Surveys (WVS) and The New Economics Foundation (NEF) as supporting arguments proving that financial prosperity does not equal happiness. According to Med Yones, the president of the institute, “The ideologies and governments of this century that promised happiness, have left people with more material possessions, but less psychological well-being”… The demands of life in our current socioeconomic system require that we keep running and running with little or no breaks. With increasing life costs, economic demands, and work pressures, most people eventually experience stress, burnout, exhaustion and/or depression. He continues… “Like most world governments, the U.S. Government’s main concern is economic growth: even security, health, education and foreign policies are designed to promote economic growth above all. Governments have metrics to monitor your money: they use metrics such as Gross National Products (GNP) and consumer confidence to monitor and track economic health. Do they use a metric to measure people’s own well-being?”
The paper suggests a solution built on the concept proposed in 1972 by Bhutan’s King Jigme Wangchuck, who coined the term Gross National Happiness (GNH), to emphasize the holistic values of economic development policies. Wangchuck asserts that economic growth does not necessarily lead to contentment.
To improve Gross National Happiness, the institute makes several recommendations addressing 6 main public policy areas: Government, Economics, Work, Media, Education and Environment. The full text of study can be found at:
http://www.iim-edu.org/grossnationalhappiness/
I would also be curious to see the results of the Gross National Happiness Survey sometime this year.
http://www.iim-edu.org/polls/GrossNationalHappinessSurvey.htm