FYI xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 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 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2006 12:52:54 +0900 From: SSJ-Forum Moderator <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: ssj-forum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [SSJ: 4136] Re: Gaps / kakusa From: Peter Matanle ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) 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 - ***************************************************** SSJ-FORUM Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo http://forum.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ *Please obtain the consent of the author before quoting any message. *****************************************************
