Indexing Happiness – Why where we are?

Introduction

Every year when there is a survey report that is publicized about hundred and fifty countries across the globe graded in terms of ‘happier’ to ‘unhappy’ countries range, we find that there are countries consistently come up in the top ten or twenty list. There are also countries that come in the bottom list, and consistently. Recently when we scored a position of 125/126 for recent two years in about 140 countries, a protest got registered and the very process of happiness measuring was questioned. We are not that unhappy was the summary. An honest exploration can be done around the happiness notion, measurement practices and possibilities, better ‘dimensions’ to capture, and finally on a normative dimension, we close by discussing whether it is possible to ‘action it out’ for better.

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Happiness as a feeling

We all know what happiness is and what unhappy situation is. Simultaneously, we may be experiencing both in our life, at different places. We may not be able to perfectly quantify how happy we are on a scale of say one to seven, but qualitatively we can mention whether we are unhappy or happy or very happy. The same incident or experience shall make us happy to less happy. If we learn that the info is a false, then happiness turns into unhappiness. Very happy incident that happened like topping the school or qualifying a job interview loses its happiness level over next few days. The happiness of topping the school gets replaced by anxiety about next program admissions. Happiness of qualifying in the job interview gets replaced by the posting location or when the training shall start now etc. Thus, every happiness probably has a shelf life, and utility reduces over a period. Obviously, these are the material happiness situations, and there could be perennial happiness condition or state that is beyond the bounds of current discussion. Transcendental states etc. are more subjective and individual experiences. ?

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Why happiness is important

Money may be important for fulfillment but money per se may not provide us the ‘end state’ of happiness. Money is a mode and a medium. Many of the qualitative and subjective feelings too contribute to happiness. Thus, it is natural to expect that as a metric ‘GDP per capita’ will be a dominant factor. Inequalities on the front of income shall contribute to more ‘unhappiness’. For example, a country with about Gini index of 0.5 can’t claim that they shall be close to happy-top-twenty or so. Moving away from GDP and to further modifying it to ‘median family income’ may be a better metric. Secondly, the question of ‘Are you free?’ or to put the question specifically ‘Do you think you are free to make choices?’ decides whether we are happy on this count. Other economic and social conditions too shall matter whether we have happiness or the reverse. Opportunities, inclusions, social calmness, hopefulness, and more such parameters shall determine whether it shall move towards happy or otherwise. We have to have minimum in terms of economic, social, and psychological dimensions to be happy.

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The dimensions add to happiness

Governance should be in right position and give the confidence to the citizens that ‘all is well’. Corruption should be minimum. Here too there are G2B and G2C dimensions. Unless someone makes a big case out of G2B issues, these won’t affect the individuals. For their quality life these nee G2C to be absent for their immediate neighbourhood. Do we feel the social support is there is decided by community level engagement. Feeling good is also dependent on their neighbourhood and the embeddedness. Lonely in a richer place may not be better than median levels in an average neighborhood with lot of positive engagement. Education’s quality and access too adds. Quality of life in terms of leisure, able to engage beyond ‘survival’, environmental access and engagement, all these give better life experience. Health front adds too, so also the work front. Are we happy in our life greatly depends on the positivity of the workplace, compensation adequacy, and the general outlook. Work is very important in one’s life for survival and also because of the reason that it takes out our 60-70% of wakeful hours including travel commitment.

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Theorizing to practicing – Facts on the ground

Two decades ago, a close friend submitted the doctoral thesis that postulated that ‘happier workplaces are better’ in terms of productivity and other related factors like esteem, better retention etc. However, beyond validating the hypotheses that are drawn based on the Positive Psychology, how do we ‘action it out’ is the question. A nation burning out is not a good sign. For the minimum to achieve, much more is being spent means, it is a case of ‘lower productivity’ or RoI is lower. Do we know this, and if we, then why we are not improving the level where we stand out. A large country with so many resources, systems and processes set over last century or more, why are we trailing. Why are we in the fourth quartile and not in the first? Discounting the sabotage theory, a quick check of the facts shall make it clear to us why are we are at where we are.

Smaller than our smaller states, the Nordic countries record consistent position in the top ten list. Either the ‘scale’ is aligned for them, or we do not do what they do to be at the top of the ladder. Lower state support including on education and health dimensions, perceived security, poor governance quality including on ‘C’ front, lower art/culture/leisure activities, ecological balance, workplace burnouts that happen including long hours of work and harsh travel conditions, these quickly and briefly answer us why we are at, where we are.

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On a more ‘open’ closing note

Do we dismiss away that such indices are brought out to demean us and show us in poor light, reduce our global ranks, pull us down or analyze the way we did above with a sense of unbiasedness. The answer shall be obvious if we follow the second path. Inequity is high on many parameters; inequality has been on the rise in the last decade plus. The governmental investments in health and education sectors have reduced over last two decades. Social coherence and bonds have come down due to many reasons including rapid urbanization and associated migration. Employees are unhappy at workplaces due to many reasons including stagnating salaries, meaningless work profiles, and general toxicity level being high due to poorer implementation of protective frameworks. List looks like long, but can’t these be divided as actionable points and worked upon? The genuine answer is a positive YES, we can, and we should. One encouraging fact to set the journey on is, we need to commit lesser hard investments and more soft investments to showcase the progress. Working on the low hanging fruits, ensuring that the existing laws and frameworks are implemented better, improving the informational flows through communication, decentralizing the administration ideally as G2C through leveraging digitization shall help. One step in the right direction shall make the momentum build up, and we too shall be happy. GOD bless our journey with ‘maa-vid-vishavahai’ spirit.