Want to really transform Singapore? Measure happiness

Richard Hartung Today Online 11 Jan 11;

The 14.7 per cent rise in Singapore's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2010 is good news for companies and economic recovery. What the average person on the street may wonder, though, is whether that jump made a real difference in their life.

If we were in Bhutan, we'd have a better answer to that question. The concept of measuring happiness conceived by former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck nearly four decades ago has come to fruition and Bhutan has started measuring happiness with its Gross National Happiness (GNH) index.

Comprised of 72 metrics, GNH measures everything from "karma in daily life" and a person's healthiness to hours of sleep and food insecurity. The results of the 2008 survey showed the happiness level at 0.76. As renowned hotelier Chip Conley said, Bhutan's GNH index is a "transformational role model for the world".

It turns out that a multitude of other countries are now moving in this direction. In 2009, for example, the European Commission approved a document called GDP and Beyond: Measuring Progress in a Changing World that outlined steps to measure social, environmental and other indicators.

President Nicolas Sarkozy announced in 2009 that France would start to measure well-being and the Office for National Statistics in the United Kingdom is also developing methods to measure "general well-being".

Here, we do have author Dan Buettner's assertion in his latest book, Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way, that Singapore is the happiest place in Asia, based on his one-time analysis.

To go beyond just a one-off review and understand how we're actually faring, perhaps it's time to start measuring happiness here regularly. Along with being a useful tool to measure and improve well-being, a GNH index could have other benefits too.

For one, it could help measure the effectiveness of social programmes. Along with tracking home ownership, for example, using Bhutan's measures like "sense of trust in neighbours" and "neighbours helping each other" would help let us know whether housing policies provide more than just shelter.

Measuring whether the elderly believe that "your family is a real source of comfort to you" could help assess how older people feel they're treated. Policy-makers could use a multitude of data from the GNH index to figure out whether new programmes are needed or old ones should be phased out.

The index could benefit business, too. If a company wants to attract top talent to Singapore and can point to how well people live using actual measurements rather than just saying "it's a great place", it may be easier to attract the skilled people the country needs to increase its competitiveness.

A GNH index could also help in evaluating whether Singapore is reaching the Economic Strategies Committee's goals of being "a vibrant and distinctive global city" and "a home that provides an outstanding quality of life".

Simply announcing the indicator and plans to measure happiness could have an additional side benefit of generating tremendous publicity for Singapore. It's good when a small country like Bhutan starts to measure happiness. It's even more noticeable when a highly developed nation like Singapore takes a similar approach.

Tourists, companies and scholars alike could well take greater interest in Singapore once it starts to measure happiness. Singapore would need to act fast, though, to be among the first movers.

Starting to measure happiness isn't necessarily easy and measurement is unlikely to happen overnight. Even with the commitment of the King in a small country like Bhutan, it took a long time to refine the index and conduct the first survey. While it would take time to start measuring happiness here too, Singapore could leverage its expertise in statistics to develop the indicator relatively rapidly.

Measurement could have some risks, of course. If happiness declined, there could easily be soul-searching about why Singaporeans don't feel as happy as before. Yet the indicator would also be a tremendous boon in helping to identify what needs to be done and how to continue on the path to greater happiness.

Singapore does well in measuring GDP and the economy is powering ahead. Now, measuring more than economics and developing the Gross National Happiness too seems like an idea whose time has come.

Richard Hartung is a consultant who has lived in Singapore since 1992.