Most of us would agree that economic growth is a good thing. We should be celebrating the fact that at the end of the first quarter of 2011, Hong Kong's GDP grew 7.2 percent while the mainland achieved a rate of 9.7 percent in the previous 12 months.

Yet open the newspapers or listen to the radio and it becomes clear that many people are not satisfied by our apparently healthy economy. The richer we become, the more we seem to want. Much of this is certainly due to the rising inequalities in society. For people on lower salaries, the inflation in prices of necessities such as food can make a major difference to one's living standards. Even for the better off, access to health care and the affordability of homes can be big financial worries.

Just because there is growth in wealth does not mean that everyone is getting a fair share. Governments need to play a role here by redistributing more wealth to the poorer parts of society, by directing investment to less developed areas and by opening up economic opportunities for the disadvantaged.

Yet some politicians and academics are going much further. They are looking beyond GDP as a measurement of material well-being and asking a much deeper question: are people happy? And if so, how much?

This is not a new idea. The American founding fathers referred to the pursuit of happiness as a right, along with life and liberty. The kingdom of Bhutan in the Himalayas is famous for measuring what it calls gross national happiness as an indicator of government performance.

The notion of national happiness as an aim of government has been spreading in China. The 12th Five-Year Plan approved at the National People's Congress in March places relatively less stress than before on simple economic development in purely material terms. But there is more on the quality of life and the satisfaction levels of the nation's people. This recognizes a great truth: that pure GDP growth is not everything, and it should be balanced and sustainable in order to benefit and satisfy the whole of the country. This could lead to a potentially major shift in thinking. Traditionally, the performance evaluation of provincial and local officials has largely reflected GDP.

Several provinces and cities now use happiness indexes. Experts who have studied such measurements elsewhere say that ideally such indexes should be relatively simple and focus on things like life-expectancy, educational levels and distribution of wealth. They should also, they say, include subjective measures directly reflecting public opinion, using polls that ask people to gauge their sense of security, quality of governance, the environment and so on.

Surveys give us some interesting insight into the happiness of Chinese people in different parts of the country. A recent paper showed that the three provinces of Jiangsu, Sichuan and Fujian, as well as Chongqing municipality (formerly part of Sichuan), are among China's happiest regions. The regions with the lowest sense of happiness, on the other hand, were big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.

What is especially interesting is that people in the richest places are among the least happy. Maybe life in the big cities is busy and tiring and full of pressure. Perhaps people are never happy when there are richer people around them and feel they are losing out.

These happiest regions do not have a great deal in common. Jiangsu and Fujian on the coast are wealthier than average, while Sichuan in the upper Yangtze River region is relatively poorer. But in all cases, most people have enough wealth to enjoy reasonably comfortable lives, and at the same time they are living in more relaxed and in many ways more pleasant surroundings than people in the biggest cities.

In the end, this whole subject of happiness is about improving governance and putting people and their needs and wishes first in policymaking. In the past the dedication to GDP growth has resulted in great improvements in material prosperity - but look at how narrowly we define prosperity. The pursuit of GDP growth has led to unwise and careless use of land and capital as well as to environmental damage. In some cases, it has made life worse for certain people, as traditional job opportunities are displaced and the cost of necessities such as housing increase. The statistics show the country is getting richer, but for many people life is getting worse.

A new focus on the wider aspects of well-being should give policymakers a new way of looking at development, and the chance to rethink their priorities. Ideally, it would lead to a more balanced approach to economic development, with more emphasis on consumption - notably via expenditure on education and health care - and on outcomes such as clean and safe environments as well as affordable homes. That represents the true wealth that underpins broad social development and leads to a happy society.

The author is a deputy to the National People's Congress.

(HK Edition 06/02/2011 page3)