9 Domains NINE DOMAINS OF GROSS NATIONAL HAPPINESS

Psychological Well-being

The literature on psychological well-being has progressed rapidly since the emergence of the field over five decades ago. As recent surveys show psychologists and other social scientists have taken huge steps in their understanding of the factors influencing psychological/ subjective well-being.

Psychological well-being refers to how people evaluate their lives. According to Diener (1997), these evaluations may be in the form of cognitions or in the form of affect. The cognitive part is an information based appraisal of ones life that is when a person gives conscious evaluative judgments about ones satisfaction with life as a whole. The affective part is a hedonic evaluation guided by emotions and feelings such as frequency with which people experience pleasant/unpleasant moods in reaction to their lives. The assumption behind this is that most people evaluate their life as either good or bad, so they are normally able to offer judgments. Further, people invariably experience moods and emotions, which have a positive effect or a negative effect. Thus, people have a level of subjective well-being even if they do not often consciously think about it, and the psychological system offers virtually a constant evaluation of what is happening to the person.

In this paper we have defined psychological well-being in terms of internal experience of the respondent and their own perception of their lives. We focused both on momentary moods and long term states of their mental well-being.

Current social indicators can capture phenomena such as crime, divorce, environmental problems, infant mortality, gender equality, etc. Thus, they can capture aspects of quality of life that add to the description drawn by economic indicators. However, these social indicators fail to capture the subjective well-being of people because they do not reflect the actual experiences such as the quality of relationships, the regulation of their emotions and whether feelings of isolation and depression pervade in their daily life. On the other hand, economic indicators fail to include side effects and the tradeoffs of market production and consumption. For example, the environmental costs of industries certainly are not observed from the national accounts. Another disadvantage of economic and social measures in terms of their links to psychological well-being is that they are based on models of rational choice, whereby

people follow a set of logical rules when making development plans. However, works by Kahneman (1994) in psychology and economics reveal that people do not always make rational choices, and that these choices do not necessarily enhance psychological well-being.

Currently in Bhutan, economic and social indicators are available and frequently updated as most organisations do some research on it. Even the media and policies provide emphasis on such indicators, while no national measures of psychological well-being exist. The measurement of psychological well-being has advanced so much over the years that it is time to give a privileged place to peoples well-being in policy debates. A GNH society calls for the inclusion of well-being indicators at par with economic ones. Media should provide attention to how a society is progressing in terms of psychological well-being and politicians should base their campaigns on their plans for reducing distress, increasing life satisfaction and happiness level.

Psychological well-being leads to desirable outcomes, even economic ones, and does not necessarily follow from them. In a very intensive research done by Diener and his colleagues, people who score high in psychological well-being later earn high income and perform better at work then people who score low in well-being. It is also found to be related to physical health. In addition, it is often noticed that what a society measures will in turn influence the things that it seeks. If a society takes great effort to measure productivity, people in the society are likely to focus more on it and sometimes even to the detriment of other values. If a society regularly assesses well-being, people will provide their attention on it and learn more about its causes. Psychological well-being is therefore valuable not only because it assesses well-being more directly but it has beneficial consequences.

Standard of Living and Happiness

Standard of living refers to the material basis of well-being, which is reflected in a persons consumption level. Because of this, academics and policy analysts often use real income as a proxy to measure living standard. But this focuses on cash-income alone and leaves out the possible effects of non-cash income on the well-being of individuals. Non-cash incomes such as use of stock of consumer durables, goods and services received as gifts, assistance, health, recreation, etc. affect the peoples standard of living. Thus, standard of living of an individual or group of individuals is determined by their access to resources, which comprise of both cash and non-cash income.

Standard of living, in turn, is one of the important determinants of well-being or happiness. Obviously, improvement of living standard constitutes the most important objective of plans and programs of both developed and developing countries. Given this important role in actualizing the overall well-being of their citizens, it has been (and continues to be) a subject widely studied by various disciplines and agencies- governmental, non-governmental, multilateral, academic, etc. These studies also have a variety of themes, with poverty being the most common one. Studies on poverty have looked at its causes, effects, and prevalence and the extent to which it improved or worsened following change in government policies and programs. Inequality is another popular theme. These studies looked at the disparity in standards of living between rich and poor, sub-populations, ethnic groups, etc. Studies have also focused on how standards of living have changed over time.

Studies pertaining to the relationship between well-being and happiness emerged largely during the early 1970s. This upsurge in studies of well-being, or happiness, and living standard was provoked by the failure to notice commensurate improvement in well-being along with increased income. In his seminal article, Easterlin (1974) saw that while industrialized countries had experienced phenomenal economic growth over the past 50 years, there had been no corresponding rise in the happiness of their citizens. He observed that within a country, satisfaction of individuals with their lives varied with their level of income; i.e. richer people on the whole were more satisfied than their poorer fellow citizens. But he saw that average satisfaction levels within a country remained stable over time even in the face of rapid economic growth. He also saw that average level of satisfaction is not strongly correlated with income. In his updated study, he explicated that happiness or subjective well-being, varies directly with ones own income and inversely with incomes of others (Easterlin 1995). In his most recent study, Easterlin (2001) argued that impacts of income on happiness or subjective well-being depend upon standards which change over time according to the individuals expectations and social comparisons.

Several studies have then been carried out following Easterlins seminal work of 1974. Veenhoven (1988 and 1991) found that people with higher income levels had higher levels of happiness or subjective well-being. He also found that after a certain threshold level of income, it did not impact subjective well-being so much. Clark and Oswald (1994) studied the relationship between unemployment and happiness and concluded that unemployed people had much lower levels of mental well-being than those with work. Oswald (1997) saw that in a developed nation economic progress buys only a small amount of extra happiness. Di Tella et al. (2001) found that people were happier when inflation and unemployment were low, and that unemployment affected happiness more than inflation. There are several other studies along the same vein. This paper does not intend to review the whole gamut of studies on happiness and income. What might, however, be appropriate is to sum up some common findings of these studies. Most of these studies come to the following conclusions: i) in several industrialized countries where income has drastically increased, subjective well-being or happiness has not increased or in some cases it has fallen; ii) relative income affects happiness

more than absolute income; happiness or subjective well-being depends on expectations and social comparisons, iii) income affects well-being of people but beyond a threshold level, it ceases to influence well-being; and iv) people adapt to circumstances and those with higher adaptation capabilities tend to be happier even when their incomes are very low.

Following the framework of past studies, this paper will study the relationship between the economic living standards of people and their reported level of happiness. This study goes a step further than past studies in that it also looks at how non-cash income affects the wellbeing of people. The remaining part of the paper describes the survey; presents the empirical results of the survey, which are analysed in terms of districts; studies the relationship between various aspects of living standard that people experience and their reported level of happiness; and summarizes the findings of the study.

Good Governance and Gross National Happiness

There is a plethora of definitions of governance; various institutions define it differently depending upon their own contexts. For instance, from the development view point, the World Bank identifies three aspects of governance: i) the form of the political regime; ii) the process by which authority is exercised for the management of a countrys economic and social resources; and iii) the capacity of government to formulate and implement policies and discharge functions.[1] Similarly, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA 1996) defines it as the exercise of power by various levels of government that is effective, honest, equitable, transparent and accountable. Daniel Kaufmann et al (2005), in aggregating governance indicators, identifies six dimensions of governance: i) voice and accountability; ii) political instability and violence; iii) government effectiveness; iv) regulatory quality; v) rule of law; and vi) control of corruption. In general, most of the literature agrees on common dimensions of governance like participation, rule of law, transparency, accountability, effective delivery of services and equity.

Good governance is one of the nine domains of Gross National Happiness (GNH) aimed towards enhancing the well-being of the Bhutanese people. Unlike other domains, governance cuts across all domains/sectors and therefore, its effect on the society at large arises from the cumulative efforts of all sectors. Article 9 of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Bhutan states, the State shall strive to promote those conditions that will enable the successful pursuit of Gross National Happiness. Though the constitution has been adopted only recently, happiness has been the main concern of all our monarchs, especially the Fourth Druk Gyalpo. Happiness has also been the ultimate purpose of social and economic development plans and programs since the early seventies. Although GNH was not expressed explicitly then, the provision of

free health and education services, development of basic infrastructure, supply of clean drinking water, allotment of free timber to build houses, granting land and other kidu have been all aimed towards reducing misery and enhancing the welfare of the citizens. The pursuit of GNH is further continued by changing the political system from a monarchy to a parliamentary democracy.

It is evident from the reigns of all the successive Kings of Bhutan that the ultimate purpose of governance has been to bring greater well-being and happiness to a greater number of people. In this respect, governance in Bhutan has always been an integral part of the system of government and of political structures, which reflect and internalise GNH values. In particular, efficiency, transparency and accountability have been the main thrust of the good governance exercise carried out in 1999 and revised in 2006 to enhance good governance in the country.

Health

Promotion of health and happiness of its citizens are the ultimate goal of most state policies. State policies are increasingly directed towards enhancing well-being of its people, which for so long have been concentrated only on economic fronts. Health and happiness, although are two distinct and different things, have very thin line separating from one another. Most of the determinants of health and happiness are common. For instance, education, income and exercise can lead to good health as well as happiness. Whether happiness leads to better health or vice versa is a chicken-and-egg problem.

A study by Gerdtham et al (1997) found good health to have a significant positive effect on happiness. They categorised health states into good health and bad health and tried to see the probability of being happy. They found out that with bad health the probability of being happy most of the time was 0.42, while with good health the probability was 0.60.

Bhutanese also believe that happiness is the result of good health. Happiness in Bhutanese context is often summed up in a popular statement of lus lu na tsha med, sems lu sdug sngal med which roughly translates to no physical illness and mental worries. This correlates with WHOs definition of health: is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. In general, if you ask any Bhutanese about what will make them happy, the obvious answer will be the above phrase. This reiterates the importance of good health as a dominant and important determinant of happiness. This also shows how much people place value on health vis--vis happiness.

If health is a strong determinant of happiness, as discussed above, then there is every reason for enhancement of health to be a policy priority of the state. Since the start of planned development in the early sixties, the Royal Government has accorded a high priority to promotion of good health of its population.

The WHOs definition of health is a holistic one. All the areas mentioned in the definition are beyond the scope of this paper. Mental health and social health indicators are included under other domains like psychological well-being, community vitality, and living standard of the same survey. This paper, therefore, focuses only on physical health.

Although indicators in this study are designed for the Gross National Happiness Index, it must be clarified that all the indicators may not necessarily relate to happiness of an individual or it may not directly improve well-being. Some of them are like any other conventional health indicators which have a bearing on the overall health of an individual, but have little direct relevance to happiness. These indicators are indirectly related to happiness and well-being of individuals through its impact on health. Education

It is not education, but education of a certain kind, that will serve us. And the current model of western, urban-centred, school-based education, which is so often more focused on turning children into efficient corporate units rather than curious and open-minded adults, will only lead us further down the wrong path.

David W. Orr

Conventional education in Bhutan largely focused on structured school based outcomes like pass percentages, dropout rate, school infrastructures, pupil-instructor ratios and enrolment rates. Therefore, the conventional education indicators that are currently available to assess educational attainments are inadequate. Many other learning outcomes which took place outside of formal structured education systems have not been assessed so far. This paper will go little further in its scope from the conventional system of reporting educational attainments. It will, for the first time, try to assess different types of knowledge and skills that people have acquired in their life course such as history, culture, civic, ecology and indigenous knowledge and skills which are mostly acquired informally.

Although Bhutan made a late entrance into the system of formal school based education, people had and still have other forms of informal education through which they acquire many vital values and principles outside of formal education institutes. T.S Powdyel (2004) notes:

Our myriad humble homes and hamlets have been our university of a special kind to [t]each us the timeless lessons of humility and tolerance, the power of love and compassion, the need to care and share, the laws of action and consequence, the essence of simplicity and the value of thadamtsi, the love of our sacred institutions, and the goodness of humanity.

Besides these values, our people learn many other knowledge and skills, which are very essential to day-to-day living such as arts and crafts, outside of formal educational institutes.

Education contributes to the knowledge, values, creativity, skills, human capital, and civic sensibility of citizens. It strongly boosts a nations economy and enables efficient and wise decision-making. T. S. Powdyel (2004) aptly puts knowledge will decide the quality and destiny of nations.

Education qualification is found to positively impact the quality of life experienced by people although the degree of impact differs across countries (Doh S. Shinn 1986). A study by Culvert Group, Ltd. and Hazel Henderson in their Culvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators study found that individuals with lower literacy skills were much more likely to be living in poverty than individuals with higher literacy skills. The same study also found that people with higher level of literacy skills are more likely to be involved in democracy through voting.

Community Vitality

The study of measuring community vitality is relatively a new subject. Not much research has been done on it. For meaningful development and vitality of the community the emphasis on the quality of life of the community, not just on the economic aspects of it, is clearly important. This is because research has shown that an increase in material well-being over time does not increase the happiness of the people (Blanchflower and Oswald 2000; Diener and Oishi 2000; Myers 2000; Kenny 1999; Lane 1998; and Easterlin 1974, 1995; cited in Frey and Stutzer 2002). An increase in income definitely raises the happiness of the people with low income, but stops to do so beyond a certain level (Inglehart 1999). Besides an excessive focus on material development has led to a diminished sense of community in some countries.

Definitions of community are varied, but show three general characteristics: it is a social group, people in it have common activities and experiences, and it occupies a definite territorial area (Hoffer 1931). This paper is mainly concerned with geographic communities of people living in villages and towns.

This study pertains to determinants and methods that could maximize well-being and vitality of the community, as well as revitalize moribund communities. It examines interactions and relationships within and, to some extent, across communities. By looking at specific dimensions of community vitality, such as giving and volunteering, social cohesion, safety, family, and duration of stay in the community; this paper gives some ideas on the state of community vitality in Bhutan. Relationships between these variables are also analysed. Cultural Diversity and Resilience

The significance of cultural diversity for humanity is now being increasingly recognised by several international organisations. The UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity represents the first international instrument aimed at promoting cultural diversity. Developing cultural resilience is also given importance, which can be understood as the cultures capacity to maintain and develop cultural identity, knowledge and practices, and able to overcome challenges and difficulties from other norms and ideals.

The key importance of culture, as I perceive, includes: to instill values for the full development of human being, to meet spiritual and emotional needs, to temper the pace of modernisation and the negative impacts of globalisation, to safeguard and strengthen the countrys sovereignty and security, to develop resilience, and to promote diversity for meaningful contribution.

Culture is a concept that cannot be easily explicated and quantified. As such, not all variables of culture are included in this study; priority was given to those that have a strong relation to ones sense of well-being. The data was largely collected based on existing cultural practices, values and norms as traditionally laid out in Bhutan. This paper attempts to assess the strength and relevance of various aspects of culture in Bhutan through the perceptions of respondents towards basic cultural elements such as language; sense of identity; core values, change in values, beliefs, norms, and customs; and participation in various cultural activities, such as festivals, sports, and songs. Also, a modest attempt has been made to see whether Bhutanese culture as a whole is capable of maintaining and developing itself in spite of challenges from other ideals and norms a feature of cultural resilience. Time Use and Happiness

Time is an important resource for everyone. It is also a limited resource in that we have only 24 hours in a day to put to competing uses. How we use this limited resource is important and has implications for our economic and social well-being.

Given this importance, the use or allocation of time has been studied by academics and policy analysts since the early twentieth century (Harvey and Pentland 1999). However, more systematic collection of time use data originated only in 1924, when significant quantities time use data were collected by Soviet Union (Juster and Stafford 1991). Since then, smaller bits and pieces of information on time use were collected with a focus on specific activities such as leisure and travel patterns, but it was not until 1960s that more systematic attempts was made to collect comparable data for large group of countries. The first such study was conducted by Alexander Szalai in 1963 for a group of 13 countries (Harvey and Pentland 1999).

Eventually, as research progressed, academics formulated a theory of time allocation, providing a proper framework to study time. In 1965, Gary S. Becker introduced the theory of allocation of time in which time was considered to have a cost on the same footing as the cost of market goods. At the heart of his analysis were households which were seen as both producers and consumers. He suggested that households produced commodities by combining inputs of goods and time according to the cost-minimisation rules of the traditional theory of the firm. Quantities of commodities produced are determined by their utility maximisation function subject to prices and constraints on resources. In other words, time is seen as a scarce input which is allocated between alternative productive activities as determined by utility maximisation and its cost in relation to other factors.

Since the 1960s, time use studies have been carried out in most of the industrialised countries and, lately, in developing countries as well, in five to ten year intervals (Juster and Stafford 1991). Much bigger multinational time use studies have been carried out recently; EUROSTAT conducted time use studies in 18 European countries in 1996 and 1997 (Harvey and Pentland 1999).

Turning now to the context of the study, i.e., the rationale for choosing time use as an indicator for Gross National Happiness, let me begin by saying that time use studies provide useful information missing in conventional economic accounts. The system of National Accounts, which is used to calculate GDP, does not measure productive activities accurately. A national accounting system that fails to recognise the total of productive capacities could lead to a conception and implementation of policies that are useless and harmful. In addition to paid work, productive activities include a series of unpaid activities such as household work, childcare, care of the sick and old, and time allocated to various other activities for the upkeep

of societies. In addition to activities done for oneself and members of ones household, productive activities also include voluntary activities carried out for members of the community or for people outside ones community. These activities are fundamental to the well-being of both those who provide and who receive such services. A true picture of wellbeing can be obtained only if these activities are taken into account. Time use studies provide information on such activities that are fundamental to the well-being of society.

The detailed nature of information collected by time use studies enables policy makers to understand the needs of special groups of people, such as the old or disabled. As people age, their demands for assistance and care increase. If these demands are not satisfied, the wellbeing of the old and sick will deteriorate (Andorka 1987). Similarly, it is important to have adequate information on the time parents devote to their children. The quality of care children receive is correlated with their cognitive development (Hill and Stafford 1980). Sound policies related to these issues can only be formulated with the help of such detailed information.

Time use studies give information on what people actually do in their lives and, therefore, provide information on work and labour allocation (including that of children) within households, both at a point of time and over a period of time. Time use studies are, therefore, very useful for understanding the overall transformation or change experienced by societies. Such information is useful for designing comprehensive and balanced economic and social policies; needless to say, the well-being of societies can only be improved by informed policy formulation.

Time use studies provide information on the work-life balance of individuals in society. They provide information on the number of hours an individual spends on work and other activities, such as socializing with family and friends, sports, and other leisure activities. Imbalance in time allocation between work and other activities is caused by a number of factors among which the increased number of work hours is the most prominent. An increase in work hours, in turn, is, among other factors, caused by ones desire to make more money. Money becomes the focus or the driving force behind long hours of work for many individuals. These individuals exaggerate the importance of money for their well-being, and they get into a situation of what has been called focusing illusion. As they devote more time to work they do not find time to do things that they enjoy. Such people are not happier but are much more stressed than others (Kahneman et al. 2006). The European Quality of Life Survey of 2003 revealed a strong correlation between time use and subjective well-being. In most of the countries covered by the survey, it was found that people who had long work hours and poor work-life balance generally had low subjective well-being (Bhnke 2005).

As individuals juggle to do so many things, they easily become stressed. Research has documented a series of stress related impacts on the health of workers. Workers in high-strain

jobs have been shown to have a higher variety of disease than their fellow workers who are not or are less stressed. Cardiovascular disease, gastro-intestinal disorders, musculoskeletal problems, and the immune system are all affected by stress. Behavioural problems such as poor relations with colleagues, absenteeism, and loss of self-confidence and self-esteem are often caused by stress. All these consequences affect both the actual as well as the perceived well-being of individuals.

Time use data enable academics, policy analysts, policy makers and policy implementers to understand poverty better. A significant part of the survival of poor households in developing countries is through home production, for which time available to their members constitutes the main resource (Ilahi 2000). The more time they spend at work, the less time they have for leisure and, to the extent leisure is important to well-being, it could be said that the poor not only suffer from economic poverty but also from time poverty and therefore low well-being. This has been substantiated in the findings of studies by the World Bank in Sub-Saharan Africa. These studies revealed that poor farmers, especially women, face competing demands for their time (Blackden et al. 2005). They work on the farm, cook, attend to the sick, fetch water, tend to animals and do a host of other household activities. They do not find time to take up other productive activities even if there are opportunities to do so. They are often unable to take their sick children to health clinics because they are tied to several activities at the same time. They are not able to send their children to school even if there is an opportunity to do so. Children are required to stay back to help their parents who are caught up in unending cycles of work. In such cases, time poverty reinforces economic poverty. Understanding such situations would make it possible to formulate better policies to combat poverty.

In addition to these utilities of time use studies, time use merits inclusion as an index of Gross National Happiness for the number of direct linkages they provide to assessing the well-being of individuals. Juster, Courant and Dow (1985) developed a concept called process benefits which refers to well-being derived from doing an activity independently of its end results. According to these scholars, time plays a crucial role not only as an input into a variety of market and non-market production activities, including leisure, but that time use is equally important as a direct source of satisfaction. In other words, activities that an individual engages in not only yield observable and measurable outcomes in the form of market and non-market goods but outputs in the form of satisfaction from doing those activities. Such information can be obtained and understood through time use studies.

In 2004 Kahneman, Krueger, Schkade, Schwarz, and Stone developed a method called Day Reconstruction Method (DRM) to quantify subjective well-being. Respondents, who comprised 909 working women from Texas, were asked to reconstruct their previous day in terms of how they spent their time and how they experienced a particular activity. It asked the participants to rate different activities in terms of levels of enjoyment, and it was found that socializing with friends and other leisure activities topped the enjoyment scale while being with the boss

and commuting to work were at the bottom of the scale. They next used the scale to characterise the effects of a variety of circumstances and observed a very strong positive correlation between the scale of enjoyment and circumstances. For instance, women who did not sleep well the previous night did not enjoy activities they engaged in the next day. By enabling researchers to understand the way people spend their time and experience their activities, time use studies provide a meaningful lead to assess the well-being of individuals.

In 2006, Kahneman and Krueger developed another method to quantify or measure wellbeing. They developed a concept called the U-Index, which is defined as the proportion of time an individual spends in an unpleasant state. An episode is classified as unpleasant if the most intense feeling reported for that episode is negative. Using time use data, they show that respondents who report less life satisfaction as a whole spend a greater fraction of their time in an unpleasant state.

From this review of literature it is clear that time use studies provide critical information related to allocation of time (a scarce resource) and its distribution among different members of households. It provides data which could be used to assess the impacts of policies, compare cultures and societies, gauge lifestyle changes, and assess the needs of special groups of people such as the old and disabled. From the perspective of the present study, time use studies address several shortcomings of GDP-based measures of progress or development. They provide information on unpaid work, voluntary work and other community activities. These activities are all very vital to the well-being of individuals. More importantly, time use studies enable researchers to assess or understand the well-being of individuals directly.

Within the context of the above literature, this study intends to address three objectives: i) to find out amount of time respondents allocated to various activities and, by doing so, to identify the amount of household work, care work and other unpaid work that is normally not included in conventional economic accounts, ii) to find out how patterns of time use differ by gender, age, and other social and demographic characteristics of respondents, and iii) to assess how patterns of time use relate to reported levels of happiness. The remaining part of the paper provides an overview of the survey questionnaire and describes the methodology of the survey and its analysis; reports the time spent on various activities in demographic, economic and social characteristics of the respondents; studies the relationship between time use and the reported level of happiness or well-being that people enjoy in their life; and summarizes the findings and points out some policy implications as well as some directions for future time use surveys in Bhutan.