on the subject of "happiness" and Japan

[Anthony D'Costa <dcosta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

FYI

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Anthony P. D'Costa, Professor   (Currently at Univ of Oslo)
Comparative International Development
University of Washington
1900 Commerce Street
Tacoma, WA 98402, USA
Phone: (253) 692-4462
Fax :  (253) 692-5718
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Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2006 12:52:54 +0900
From: SSJ-Forum Moderator <ssjmod@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Subject: [SSJ: 4136] Re: Gaps / kakusa

From: Peter Matanle (peter_matanle@xxxxxxxxxxx)
Date: 2006/08/09


Adrian White at the University of Leicester has
produced a World Map of Happiness. He takes data from
a number of places, including the New Economics
Foundation, the WHO, UNESCO, the CIA and so on.
Despite having the highest life expectancy, one of
the highest GDPs, and one of the highest levels of
access to secondary education in the world, Japan is
ranked at an extremely low 90th place in terms of
overall happiness. This is beaten by most of South
America (except Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador - Venezuela
ranked 25) and by China (82), Mongolia (59), Malaysia
(17), Philippines (78), and others in Asia. As we
might predict, the highest levels of happiness are
likely to be found in those countries with the
highest levels of development, the highest levels of
equality, the highest levels of access, as well as
the highest levels of confluence between that
society's values and their fulfillment. The data
shows that health is the most important predictor,
followed by wealth, and access to education. The
happiest people in the world are from Denmark and
others in Central Europe and Scandinavia. The UK
beats Japan at 41 and the US ranks 23. Of course,
happiness is a measurement of subjective well being,
which is dependent not simply on absolute levels of
development and equality, but on perceptions of these
in relation to the values that a society and
individuals espouse for themselves. Thus, the USA
scores reasonably highly, though American society
values material equality less than other societies
where there are higher levels of equality -
interesting.

Of course, this map is of a very vague and general
nature, but you can see it here:

http://www.le.ac.uk/pc/aw57/world/sample.html

The New Economics Foundation is the first to measure
a country's environmental efficiency in producing
overall happiness. The G8 countries score as follows:

Italy 66
Germany 81
Japan 95
UK 108
Canada 111
France 129
USA 150
Russia 172

Central America has the highest score for any region
in this index. The most environmentally efficient at
producing subjective wellbeing is Vanuatu. Of course,
Vanuatu is one of those island countries that will
probably disappear as global warming melts the ice in
Greenland and Antarctica and sea levels rise!
Currently humans are consuming nature at 22 percent
of the earth's carrying capacity - that is the
ability of nature to regenerate itself. In essence we
are borrowing from the unborn and consigning to them
the task of having to devise ways to repay nature if
they are to live as happily as us.

You can see more at the following website:

http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/

Cheers.

Peter

--
Dr. Peter Matanle
Lecturer in Japanese Studies,
National Institute of Japanese Studies and School of
East Asian Studies,
University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S10 2TN, UK.

JSPS Post-Doctoral Fellow,
Faculty of Education and Human Sciences, Niigata
University,
8050 Ikarashi 2 no cho, Niigata City, 950-2181, Japan.

general editor,
electronic journal of contemporary japanese studies -


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