You are God For a Week - Bhutan, etc.

I Can’t Get No Satisfaction
Time Balance, Financial Security Biggest Barriers to Happiness in Capital

You are God for a week. You have one more miracle left. You can cure the blind or relieve chronic back pain.

Which choice will make for a happier world? Hmmm. A difficult decision isn’t it?

Surprisingly, relief of chronic back pain is the clear winner. Like lottery winners who get happy for a short burst, or, at the other end of the spectrum, paraplegics who lose the use of their legs and become depressed for a time, we humans get used to things quickly and return to a certain steady state of happiness. Those ‘cured’ of their blindness will likely get used to seeing and return to a level of happiness somewhere near where they started. Chronic pain, however, is a constant irritant and, unless treated, will make us very unhappy for a long time.

The economics of happiness looks at evidence to better make these trade-offs. The trick is finding and measuring things in a systematic, meaningful and accurate way. If the pursuit of happiness seems silly to you, consider that the World Bank, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), United Nations and others have recently declared developing better measures of progress – happiness (also called subjective well-being), quality of life, sustainability – as priorities.

When last I left you we were somewhere in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan, population 700,000, trying to find ways of measuring their country’s progress using a newly developed Gross National Happiness (GNH) Index. No policy or program can be developed without considering GNH in this country that’s twice the size of the RDCK.

The Bhutanese have recently tried their first happiness survey, one that takes seven hours to complete. Ouch! One of the survey’s developers, Mike Pennock, an epidemiologist for Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA), thought the idea so great, he brought the survey home and tested it in Greater Victoria. Not the seven hour version, though.

With support from eight organizations including the province, the regional district, VIHA, the United Way and Victoria Community Foundation, Victorians became the guinea pigs for the rest of the world in November 2008. While questions of well-being have often been part of surveys, this survey was ALL about happiness and satisfaction.

Greater Victorians scored 76 out of a possible 100 in both happiness and satisfaction, scoring highest in freedom from deprivation (92) and availability of social support in times of crisis (83). Some of the lower scores were in interpersonal trust (69), ability to participate in cultural, arts and recreational events (65), satisfaction with governance (67), and the quality of the local environment (63). The lowest scores were in the areas of satisfaction with financial circumstances and security (53) and time balance (46).

Pennock was surprised at the very low score in time balance. He believes that financial and time-related stresses are affecting many people as well as people trying to care for and provide activities for their kids. Interestingly, the richest and poorest reported the most stress. Long commuting times are also taking their toll, with commuters from Sooke, Colwood and Metchosin scoring much lower than those living in the core of Victoria. About one in four Victorians spends little or no time doing what they really enjoy.

When Victorians were asked what would given them the most additional satisfaction in their life, less stress and more financial security were the top two answers, with 66% of the 2,400 respondents wanting these. Only 6% believed more possessions would bring them additional satisfaction.

While Victoria’s score of 76 may seem high, it ranked 35th of 45 Canadian communities recently surveyed using the basic happiness and satisfaction question. The highest scoring community was Granby, Quebec with many East Coast communities also scoring near the top. Pennock credits the East Coast dominance to their tight social networks. In a country comparison, Canada stands in the top 5, slightly behind leaders Denmark (82) and Switzerland (80).

With Greater Victoria’s survey information, the Capital Regional District and its partners hope to make some decisions that improve the happiness and satisfaction of Victorians. For instance, more resources may go towards chronic and mental illness, changing commuting patterns or better informing Victorians of what makes them happy (study after study shows we’re pretty hopeless at recording our happiness accurately unless we keep a record and ask the right questions).

With a few tweaks, the survey next travels to some Brazilian communities. Now that is has a benchmark established, Victoria hopes to do an on-line version of the survey on a yearly basis and offer a toolkit to other interested communities. If you’re interested in bringing this to the Kootenays, please e-mail me at happyeconomist@gmail.com.

Who knows, maybe we can solve the riddle of my chronic back pain or at least get happier trying to find a solution!

Mike Stolte is Executive Director of the Centre for Innovative & Entrepreneurial Leadership (CIEL – www.theCIEL.com). He also writes as the Happy Economist (www.HappyEconomist.com).

Originally published in the Nelson Daily News.