Well being index

According to global surveys, smaller countries such as Singapore are placed at the top of global wellness ranks while countries with large and booming economies are at the bottom.

Background

Gross National Wellness or Well-being (GNW) is a socioeconomic development and measurement framework. The GNW / GNH Index consists of 7 dimensions: economic, environmental, physical, mental, work, social, and political. Most wellness areas include both subjective results (via survey) and objective data. It is also known as the Gross National Happiness index.

The Gross National Happiness phrase was coined in 1972 by Sicco Mansholt, one of the founders of the European Union and the fourth President of the European Commission, and was later popularized by Bhutan in the late 1990s. However, no GNH Index existed until 2005.

The GNH philosophy suggested that the ideal purpose of governments is to promote happiness. The philosophy remained difficult to implement due to the subjective nature of happiness,  the lack of exact quantitative definition and the lack of a practical model to measure the impact of economic policies on the subjective well-being of the citizens. The GNH was designed to treat happiness as a socioeconomic development metric that would provide an alternative to the traditional GDP indicator. 

Analysis

Global surveys have indicated that big countries with booming economies when ranked based on global health, wealth and happiness are increasingly placed at the bottom. However, smaller countries are dominating the top of these lists.

A new analysis known as the Global Wellness Index published by investment firm LetterOne, ranks Canada as the best country out of the 151 nations evaluated. The U.S. trails far behind, coming in at 37. In a tighter ranking of G-20 nations combined with the 20 most populous countries on the planet, South Africa comes in the last, below Ukraine, Egypt and Iraq. The ranking is done from the weakest to the strongest across every metric.

The assessments derived from these surveys was based on a range of aspects in which these countries were ranked. The Global Wellness Index utilises 10 matrices to determine these ranks and these are: blood pressure, blood glucose, obesity, depression, happiness, alcohol use, tobacco use, exercise, healthy life expectancy and government spending on healthcare. The data collected to assess are from general sources such as the World Health Organization’s Global Health Observatory and the United Nations, as well as the World Happiness Report and public health data.

According to Richard Davies, a former Bank of England and U.K. Treasury economist who compiled the Global Wellness Index, “The old concerns about growth—that it does not include every country or every person in growing countries—are ever present.” He also explains the primary reason why Canada topped the list and South Africa was at the bottom. When compared Canada has good scores for blood pressure, life expectancy and government healthcare spending. While South Africa scores poorly for life expectancy, alcohol use, depression and diabetes. He also said that “the low scores for countries like South Africa—an economy lauded for its growth rate in the 2000s—shows that simply ranking an economy based on traditional economic metrics like GDP alone can miss important parts of the story when it comes to the well-being of a nation.”

According to Mr. Davies, in the future economies would be judged on three specific criteria. Those could include traditional measures of the whole economy, such as GDP and employment rates; indicators that point to how equitable and fair a country is; and a new layer including measures of health, happiness and well-being. Some countries that fall under the global top 10 include Oman, Iceland, Maldives, Netherlands and Singapore. Big countries such as Japan, Germany, France or even Italy failed to make the news survey’s global top 25 due to a high number of blood pressure cases. Key G20 nations failed to make it in the top 25 list.

Assessment

Our assessment is that the index is a reminder that the world should be measured beyond economic growth or GDP. We feel that an economy will grow only if it attains a certain degree of development and welfare. The happiness quotient is a crucial category that plays a significant role in attaining this welfare. We believe that large economies tend to embrace larger populations which lead to a significant rise in demand and desire.

India Watch

An observation made in the Wellness Index is that among the G20 nations, India is ranked just above South Africa. Notably, South Africa is last in the main lists. Besides, the UN 2018 World Happiness Report show that India ranked as 133 out of 156 countries. This was a slight improvement when compared to its 2017 rankings as it moved 11 places below. The country's 2018 ranking placed it far below most developing nations around the world and near the very bottom for the South Asian countries surveyed. Many private surveys conducted by independent research centres reveal the same. One such is Cigna TTK Health Insurance; their research shows that about 89% of the population in India suffer from stress compared to the global average of 86%. In addition, one in eight people has serious trouble in dealing with stress, with millennials suffering more than other groups.