Conglomerative Radar of Happiness in Bhutan

1. Conglomerative Radar of Happiness in Bhutan GNH 3 Conference Bangkok 26 November 2007 Dr. Prabhat K Pankaj IILM Graduate School of Management Greater Noida NCR New Delhi, India prabhatpankaj@yahoo.com

2. Is happiness measurable? • What is happiness? • What determines happiness? • The growing literature on the happiness research suggests that individual self-reported happiness can be measured and its determinants can be quantified. • Triandis(2000) • hptt://www.eur.nl/fsw/research/happiness • Well-being and Life Satisfaction • Rutt Veenhoven and his website

3. Self-reported happiness • Individual happiness depends on the present circumstances, past experience and future expectations. • Interpersonal comparison plays an important role. • Happiness is a collective or aggregate expression. • Subjective expression can be measured by asking questions on individual’s subjective well being. • Several studies have found valid and significant results.

4. Empirical literature on happiness • Jermy Bentham- calculus of pain and pleasure; 32 circumstances explaining pleasure and pain. • Utilitarian; Utility is akin to welfare; More income brings enhanced consumption, enhanced consumption increases utility and hence welfare. • Happiness is not entirely a personalized phenomenon, it depends on conditions like unemployment, inflation and income (Clark and Oswald 1994; Oswald 1997; Easterline 2002) • Attempt has been made to quantify the impact of freedom (Frey and Stutzer 2000), air pollution (Welsch 2002), aircraft noise (Praag and Baarsma 2001) and climate (Rehdanz and Maddison 2003).

5. Empirical literature on happiness Layard [2003] GDP is a hopeless measure of welfare demonstrated by the fact that despite several fold increase in per capita GDP the happiness of the population tended to stagnate. Layard points out that Pareto optimality lends us to a situation where no one could be happier without someone else being less happy. Even if we account for problems such as asymmetric information, short-sightedness, externalities and diseconomies of scale, it only can suggest that higher real wage will make population happier. It fails to realize that out wants once we are above subsistence level, are largely derived from society and they are major factors affecting happiness.

6. Empirical literature on happiness A house may be large or small; as long as the surrounding houses are equally small, it satisfies all social demands for a dwelling. But if a palace rises beside the little house, the little house shrinks into a hut. Karl Marx A rational policy-making is possible since happiness is a real scalar variable and can be compared between people.

7. Empirical literature on happiness Helliwel [2001] Analyzes international and inter-personal difference in subjective well-being while making use of data from three waves of the World Value Survey covering about fifty different countries. Happiness depends on a lot more than people’s purchasing power. It depends on tastes which people acquire from environment and on the whole social context in which we all live. Therefore, situation such as pertaining to income, work, family, and health do contribute to happiness and they also account for the overall happiness rating/index. Layard’s discussion also focuses on factors such as pertaining to freedom, religion, trust, and morality as important facets of life resulting in upward movement in happiness index.

8. Empirical literature on happiness • Growth is a holistic concept. PQLI: Physical Quality of Life Index HDI: Human Development Index ISEW: Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare GPI: Genuine Progress Index ISH: Index of Social Health GNH: Gross National Happiness

9. Three Critical Dimensions of Well-Being UNDP Human Development Report Framework: • Longevity: Longevity is the ability to live long and healthy life. • Education: Education is the ability to read, write and acquire knowledge. • Command over resources: Command over resources is the ability to enjoy a decent standard of living and have a socially meaningful life.

10. Domain Satisfaction vs Lifetime Satisfaction • Happiness is derived both from domain satisfaction as well as lifetime satisfaction. • Both are necessary and initially they tend to reinforce each other. Researchable question is: To what extent improvements in dimensions of well-being ensures happiness?

11. Data and Methodology • Census enumeration and Standard of Living Data pertaining to 2005. • District level data used for analysis. • Conglomerative Radar on 0-5 scale. • Development Diamond vs Deprivational Perspective. • Econometric estimation using SPSS. • Happiness elasticity.

12. Dimensions of Well-Being • Happiness Happiness has entered into the study as dependent variable and the ultimate goal of individual and society. • Employment • Literacy • Access to piped water • Access to safe toilet • Ownership of land • Ownership of house

13. Dimensions of Well-Being • Safe source of lighting • Safe source of cooking fuel • Distance from motor road • Telephone • Computer

14. Results

16. Conglomerative Radar of Happiness of Bhutan 2005: URBAN Happiness 6 Computer Employment 4 Telephone Literacy 2 0 Distance from Motor Road Access to Piped Water Safe Cooking Fuel Access to Safe Toilet Safe Source of Lighting Ownership of Land Ownership of House

17. Conglomerative Radar of Happiness in Bhutan2005: Conglomerative Radar of Happiness in Bhutan 2005: Conglomerative Radar of Happiness in Bhutan 2005: BUMTHANG District THIMPHU District PARO District Happiness Happiness 6 Computer Employment Happiness 6 Computer 4 Employment Telephone 6 Literacy 4 Computer Employment 2 Telephone Literacy 4 Telephone 2 Literacy Distance from Motor Road 0 Access to Piped Water 2 Distance from Motor Road 0 Access to Piped Water Distance from Motor Road 0 Access to Piped Water Safe Cooking Fuel Access to Safe Toilet Safe Cooking Fuel Access to Safe Toilet Safe Source of Lighting Ownership of Land Safe Cooking Fuel Access to Safe Toilet Safe Source of Lighting Ownership of Land Ownership of House Safe Source of Lighting Ownership of Land Ownership of House Ownership of House

18. Conglomerative Radar of Happiness in Bhutan 2005: GASA District Happiness 6 Computer Employment 4 Telephone Literacy 2 Distance from Motor Road 0 Access to Piped Water Safe Cooking Fuel Access to Safe Toilet Safe Source of Lighting Ownership of Land Ownership of House

21. Discussions

22. Implication for understanding rural-urban migration • Districts with better performance in terms of level of achievements are generally the districts demonstrating better balanced achievements. • Urban performance in general seems to be better than rural, both in terms of level as well as balanced performance. • This helps a great deal in explaining the rural-to-urban migration in the country.

23. Understanding Distribution of Happiness • Happiness as such does not demonstrate much variation across districts, while the conglomerative elements represent a lot of variation. • This indicates to the fact that while various critical elements of well-being add to the happiness in general, they do not add to happiness greatly and also equally.

24. Extent of happiness secured by domain satisfaction • Econometric estimation suggests that 81 per cent of aggregate happiness can be secured without reference to any well-being indicators. • Domain satisfaction and lifetime satisfaction move side-by-side till 20-25 per cent of happiness is secured, thereafter most of the reinforcement to happiness is secured from lifetime satisfaction pursuits. • Studies have pointed out some of the lifetime satisfaction pursuits come from freedom, religion, trust, and morality.

25. Technology and Happiness • The estimated coefficients for computer and telephone are low, insignificant and also negative. • This indicates to the fact that computer and telephone are causing unhappiness. • Perhaps, advancement of technology is causing the feeling of relative deprivation grow.

26. Implication for GNH research • The causation between well-being indicators and overall happiness exists, and hence individual happiness and GNH is closely intertwined. • GNH Index needs to include the critical elements of well-being and lifetime satisfaction indicators. • The list of indicators would differ across country, as also within broad regions of a country.