Monday, February 25, 2008 Amante: Happy talk By Isolde D. Amante
GUESS who’s happier, in general, Filipinos or South Koreans? Filipinos, you say? Not quite.
A graph that compares countries’ subjective well-being (SWB) and gross national product (GNP) per capita shows that our northern neighbors score higher on both scales. They make more money, on average, and rate themselves as happier too. (That might help explain the flamboyant fashion sense.) Don’t be too quick, however, to ditch that quip about how money can’t buy you happiness.
The same graph, you see, also shows that Filipinos record a higher average SWB than residents elsewhere who make more money. These countries include Brazil, China, Peru, South Africa, Russia, Turkey and Argentina. (Who knew? Here I thought the birthplaces of samba and tango would be happier indeed.)
The graph appears in a paper presented in Thailand last year by Robert Cummins of Melbourne’s Deakin University, as part of the “Happiness and Public Policy” conference. In it, Cummins raises the need for countries to measure subjective indicators—and not just objective ones like money and health—when leaders study the quality of life.
Scoot over, poets and philosophers: that terrain called “the human condition” is no longer just yours to explore. “Gross national happiness” now makes the rounds of the international lecture circuits.
The oldest measure of subjective well-being (because social scientists don’t favor such fuzzy terms as “happiness”) consists of one question: “How satisfied are you with your life as a whole?” By tracking answers, community leaders can identify groups in the population, using variables like age, gender and income, that face a higher risk of depression, Cummins says. Or they can use the information to measure whether government resources are allocated in a manner that improves the people’s well-being.
Also worth noting is that even among countries with similar levels of GNP per capita, SWB scores can vary greatly. That is, people who make the same amounts of money may not consider themselves equally happy. “This indicates,” according to Cummins, “that a population’s subjective well-being can be heavily influenced by other factors such as civil disturbance, food shortages, disease and bad governance.” This would explain why Filipinos despair over the state of the nation, despite the Malacañang spin machine’s glowing reports about the economy.
“Are you happy living in Cebu City or in Metro Cebu?” Cebu City Planning and Development Officer Paul Villarete asked this in an urban planning forum last week, reported Sun.Star Cebu’s Nancy R. Cudis. The question bears asking because, Villarete pointed out, as “decision-makers in development,” the people need to vent not just about traffic or taxation, but also about their general well-being.
How the City or any other government unit plans to find out—or if it even intends to ask the question systematically—we still do not know. But it’s a good question for now, 22 years since the day we thought we had won a fresh start for this country. How satisfied are you with your life? How much has the government contributed to your well-being? The test starts now.
(Let’s talk: isolde.amante@gmail.com or http://peryodistang-pinay.blogspot.com)
