Any government’s primary and obligatory aim must be to provide for the happiness of its people.
Thus, their political and economic policies must be formulated to plan and implement strategies to keep the people happy, supplying the necessary infrastructure, facilities, resources, and provisions to make their living comfortable in a peaceful environment devoid of social and political calamities. The economics of happiness is an area in economics that explores the relationships between economic factors and individual well-being or happiness. Traditional economic indicators such as GDP do not capture individuals’ happiness. Instead, mental health, self-reporting, life satisfaction, and peer influence must be considered in evaluating how happy people are.
In this context, the concept of Subjective Well-being plays a vital role in understanding whether a population lives happily. It generally refers to individuals’ self-reported assessments of their well-being and satisfaction. We can know whether a government is suitable according to the SWB of the people. If they are, they must be seen leading a contented life. This is a very delicate area. The view that economic development brings happiness among the people needs to be clarified. To think that massive development projects, when completed, benefit the people is a misnomer. Therefore, one of the essential responsibilities of any government is to find out how its people become happy and introduce policies accordingly.
In other words, the quality of life decides whether people are actually happy. Here, we have to think beyond material wealth and take into account factors such as health, education, social relationships, and even environmental conditions that contribute to individuals’ quality of life. In short, what any government plans to do is to improve people’s quality of life. The Minister of Health seems to be keen on immediately finding solutions to the existing problems in the health sector, and President Ranil Wickremesinghe himself, addressing the 28th session of the Conference of Parties (CoP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climatic Change, highlighted the importance of protecting our environment.
It is interesting to pay attention to the concept of the Hedonic Treadmill. It usually means that individuals in any society adapt to changes coming under different circumstances and return to the baseline level of happiness. For instance, when their income increases, their happiness consequently goes up. However, over time, they get used to the higher income level and experience a diminishing impact on their overall well-being.
It must be noted that a decline in people’s income level does not directly relate to their happiness. In this situation, they also try their best to adapt to the new situation by limiting their needs or making necessary choices yet still maintaining their happiness. That is why we say that one’s economic standard is not proportionately related to one’s happiness.
An area we tend to overlook is that the strength and quality of social relationships and community connections are significant contributors to happiness. This brings to our notice that yet another essential aspect of a government is to create an environment where people have good social networks, trust, and a sense of community for their well-being. Undoubtedly, the ethnic conflict plunged the people, whether they were The Sinhalese, Tamils, or Muslims, into fathoms of unhappiness. Now that the war is over, the government must build trust between and among different communities through reconciliation and other measures.
We have seen policy implications in measuring the relationship between economic development and individuals’ happiness levels. It is high time we adopted the latest social development measures alongside traditional indicators to obtain a comprehensive , vivid picture of individuals’ overall happiness. It will allow us to compare our happiness level with that of other countries objectively. In 2023, Finland was chosen as the country where the happiest people live, whereas Sri Lanka was ranked 112th. Has the government and its different institutions taken this phenomenon seriously?
