Editorials

Happiness index

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-11-20 07:48

China ranks 125th on the Forbes' gross national happiness (GNH) index, though its GDP is now the second largest in the world. This does not surprise us, because 35.97 million people in China still live in extreme poverty.

A high GNH may sound like pie in the sky, partly because the poor have to toil hard even to get enough food and clothes to survive. Some people have been having noodles and Chinese cabbages for supper for years; others live in such remote places that it takes them a whole day to get to a town.

Such people encounter untold suffering even at the slightest rise in food prices. They suffer the most because of environment degradation, soaring housing prices and dwindling jobs, especially decent ones.

Economic growth amid bipolarizing income certainly cannot solve their problems. The beautification projects - taller buildings, wider roads and bigger cities - only makes these vulnerable people invisible.

Households move in and out of poverty primarily because of shocks such as poor weather and crop failure, sickness or injury, and loss of job for the migrant worker in a family.

Social inequality is growing wider in China. Farmers make only about one-third of what their urban counterparts earn. The poor face other adversities, too.

Few rural residents can settle down in cities permanently and enjoy the health, education and pension benefits taken for granted by urbanites.

Protecting the poor against such adversities requires strengthened social protection, including medical assistance for the rural poor, a comprehensive rural medical cooperative program, free basic education, and minimum income support in rural and urban areas.

Although economic output has increased sharply over the past three decades, the corresponding rise in the satisfaction level of the majority of the people has been low. Instead, there has been substantial increase in depression and distrust.

Economic growth is important, but it alone cannot raise the level of people's happiness. For that to happen, the benefits of economic development have to reach every person in society or, in official terms, "the fruits of development (have to be) shared by all the people".

The poor desperately need help. Whatever gains have been made against abject poverty risk being undone by rising food prices.

The government needs to implement a variety of programs aimed at creating the conditions to improve the quality of life of all the people, especially the poor, in the most equitable way.

In this sense, the Ministry of Finance's decision to allot 10.5 billion yuan ($1.58 billion) for the improvement of education in rural areas is welcome news. But more support will be needed to raise the overall happiness of the people.

(China Daily 11/20/2010 page5)