How can you tell if your life is getting better? One answer is to ask a statistician. The problem, however, is that you might not like, understand or remotely identify with the answer you receive.<\/p>\n
For much of the postwar period, statisticians have concentrated on dry, macro-economic measures to document the changes going on in societies around the world \u2013 changes in gross domestic product and international trade flows, for example. That was fine for policymakers, for whom economic growth and advances in globalisation were evidence of a job well done. But for ordinary people, measures like these were too detached from their everyday life to have real meaning, and worse, sometimes contradicted their own experience. Relentless economic growth often seemed to pass many people by; many felt life was not improving, and that globalisation was bringing notable downsides.<\/p>\n
Who can get genuinely excited about a rise in foreign direct investment when jobs are being outsourced to a far-away country? Why should we have faith in gross domestic product when, for example, it only counts the care of our elderly relatives when we put them into an institution, not when we care for them in the family home? How much real use is a measure that disregards disasters or the discovery of natural resources, which affect a nation\u2019s welfare and its ability to prosper?<\/p>\n
There is a growing sense that we are not measuring the right things, that what matters is not just macro-economic growth but a more general notion of \u201cprogress\u201d. Central to this is the need to capture more of the changes that affect people in their daily lives \u2013 local crime figures, health outcomes and so on \u2013 and so to provide information that will have more meaning for them.<\/p>\n
At one extreme is the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, which has long asserted its preference for a concept of \u201cgross national happiness\u201d over measures of GDP. The country\u2019s new king, Khesar, proclaimed on his recent accession to the throne that his main aim would be \u201cthe creation of an enlightened society in which happiness and wellbeing of all people and sentient beings is the ultimate purpose\u201d. Based on his view of nearby Nepal, opening up a country to modern influences did not always lead to what a population would consider progress. The theory behind GNH is simple \u2013 economic growth is not the end in itself but a means to achieve other aims, such as peace, security, greater well-being and happiness.<\/p>\n
The Centre for Bhutan Studies, the country\u2019s autonomous research centre, now collects data on a wide range of variables, many of which are rooted in Buddhism, the state religion. These include psychological wellbeing, health, education, time use and balance, cultural diversity and resilience, good governance, community vitality, ecological diversity and living standards. This is no mean challenge \u2013 the 290-question survey takes at least half a day to complete and requires researchers to cross the country\u2019s mountainous terrain and to conduct interviews in many dialects.<\/p>\n
The first responses, showing, for example, how often Bhutan\u2019s citizens prayed, felt jealous or frustrated, their attitudes towards lying and the proportion of local plant and animal names they know, among more traditional variables, were published to coincide with Khesar\u2019s coronation last November. The picture they paint is a far cry from the west\u2019s preoccupation with economic growth, but it will be the results of future surveys revealing trends \u2013 and the government\u2019s reactions \u2013 that will be most interesting.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s clear that the new agenda is gaining ground in the developed world, too: crystallising around terms such as wellbeing, quality of life, social capital, sustainable development, progress, community strength, working together, competitiveness reports and benchmarking.<\/p>\n
In France, the \u201cCommission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress\u201d, established by president Nicolas Sarkozy last year, chaired by Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz and aided by Professor Amartya Sen, will report in the spring. Many expect Obama\u2019s presidency to herald a similar reappraisal of the way statistics are collected and used in the US.<\/p>\n
A session at this week\u2019s World Economic Forum meeting in Davos on how statistics can help to set policy featured Enrico Giovannini, chief statistician at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and a cheerleader for the progress movement. Giovannini, in collaboration with numerous partner organisations from around the world, runs the \u201cGlobal Project on Measuring the Progress of Societies\u201d, which \u201cseeks to become the worldwide reference point for those who wish to measure and assess the progress of their societies\u201d.<\/p>\n
There are many ways to measure progress. GDP can be purged of the negative elements of economic expansion that do not enhance welfare (such as pollution, commuting costs or deaths from motor accidents), while valued attributes such as leisure time can be added. Surveys can also question people about their wellbeing \u2013 are they happier than last year? Are they suffering from any health conditions?<\/p>\n
A way forward is the \u201cdashboard\u201d approach. This involves bringing together typically 100 or more indicators, thereby allowing the reader to see if the overall trends are positive or negative. Ireland, Australia, Spain and Canada are among the countries that have collated and presented information in this way to make it more relevant and accessible to people, and to create more useful tools to support evidence-based policymaking. Some projects go on to aggregate multiple sets of data to give a single headline number. The UN\u2019s Human Development Index does exactly this \u2013 each country appears in a global ranking, but could be higher or lower in each of the 200-plus individual indicators.<\/p>\n
The biggest project coming online in the months ahead is a non-profit called \u201cThe State of the USA\u201d. Its website will \u201cprovide easy access to credible, reliable local and national information as well as a forum that allows Americans to engage on the issues that matter\u201d. Covering the economy and education, health and the environment, families, children and public safety, it is designed to \u201chelp people to assess where our nation is moving forward and where it has stalled\u201d. David Walker, former comptroller general of the US, endorses the scheme, saying: \u201cto be a leading democracy in the information age means producing … scientifically grounded, and widely shared quality information on where we are and where we are going\u201d.<\/p>\n
Leading statisticians have high hopes for this approach. Professor David Hand, president of Britain\u2019s Royal Statistical Society, speaks of the \u201cawesome power\u201d of statistics and says data will become \u201cthe corner stone of modern civilisation\u201d, stripping away layers of mystification and obscurity to reveal truth and improve understanding. Like radar or the microscope, he says, statistics allow us to see things previously invisible to the naked eye.<\/p>\n
Numbers are universal, regardless of nationality, age or gender \u2013 they can reduce misunderstanding and ambiguity. Some even claim that debates based on the sound foundation that figures can offer could help to bind the world, benefit democracy and improve engagement. The big buy-in to the OECD\u2019s measuring global progress project from the developing world offers some evidence for this view \u2013 developing nations see benefits but also a downside to \u201cwesternisation\u201d and feel that better information will help them to decide which elements of the west\u2019s \u201cdevelopment\u201d they want. There is a little bit of Bhutan\u2019s thinking in most people\u2019s minds.<\/p>\n
By Simon Briscoe<\/p>\n
Source: The Financial Times Limited<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How can you tell if your life is getting better? One answer is to ask a statistician. The problem, however, is that you might not like, understand or remotely identify with the answer you receive. For much of the postwar period, statisticians have concentrated on dry, macro-economic measures to document the changes going on in … Continue reading A More Humane Way to Measure Progress<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,11],"tags":[205,610],"class_list":["post-421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gross-national-happiness","category-news","tag-bhutan","tag-gross-national-happiness-gnh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bridgetobhutan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}