Pursuit of happiness

In general, do you feel happy? What would make you happier? It seems almost gratuitous to be posing such questions in a country where income levels have increased fivefold in half a generation. But the Chinese are discovering one of life's greatest lessons: that money doesn't necessarily buy you happiness. And increasingly, they are asking themselves and each other not "Did you eat today?"— a traditional greeting in China — but "Are you happy?" The concept of happiness, xingfu, is somewhat alien here, there being no equivalent of Thomas Jefferson, credited with enshrining "the pursuit of happiness" at the same level as life and liberty in the Declaration of Independence.

"Everything we do is aimed at letting people live more happily and with more dignity," Prime Minister Wen Jiabao declared in his New Year's address to the nation. During the National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in March, it came up so often that the official New China News Agency proclaimed, "No doubt, ‘happiness' is the key word for the two sessions."

At the local level, municipal governments are drawing up happiness indexes and competing with one another for the title of "China's happiest city". "It even sounds a little weird in Chinese to ask, ‘Are you happy?', but now there is so much talk about happiness, it's almost become a cliché," said Christopher K. Hsee, a Chinese-born University of Chicago professor who is credited with bringing happiness studies to China.

Why is the Chinese government suddenly jumping on the happiness bandwagon? Cynics might argue that officials are looking for an alternative measure of success for that inevitable point when economic growth plateaus. But Hsee believes the concept of happiness is a natural corollary of the Communist Party's propaganda about creating a "harmonious society". "Happiness is a subject that is consistent with harmony," Hsee said.

Nearly a dozen different polls, some commissioned by government agencies, have recently tried to gauge the happiness of the Chinese people. The answers aren't always what the leadership is looking for. In advance of the National People's Congress, a state-owned information portal, China.com.cn, polled 1,350 people and discovered that only 6 per cent listed themselves as "very happy", as opposed to 48 per cent who were distinctly "not happy". (The rest were "so-so" or "unsure".)

A news story reporting the unhappy results in the English-language China Daily was promptly zapped from the internet. The results of another poll must have been even more alarming to the powers that be. Gallup ranked China 92nd out of 124 countries in a poll in which people assessed their own "wellbeing". Only 12 per cent of Chinese described themselves as "thriving".

Denmark led the pack, with 72 per cent of people reporting that they were thriving, while the United States came in at No 12, with 59 per cent. Many countries, including Britain and France, are considering "happiness indexes" as a supplement to more traditional measures of success, but there is perhaps greater urgency in China because of the vertigo-inducing nature of change. And for scholars of what makes people happy — "hedonomics", as it is known in academia — China is the perfect laboratory for studying some of the most vexing questions in the field. Are people happier when everybody is equally poor (more or less the scenario in China for much of the late 20th century)? When people get richer, but some much more so than others, do the income disparities create unhappiness? The research in China builds on what is called the Easterlin Paradox, named for the economist who in the 1970s wrote that once people get enough money to meet their basic needs, higher incomes don't necessarily lead to more happiness.

Much of the academic research is being done in Shanghai at Jiaotong University's Antai College of Economics and Management. Using surveys, experiments involving volunteers and computer simulations, researchers there are studying the effect of rapid economic and social change on happiness levels. Swift change, even positive change, can breed discontent. "People respond dramatically to change, good or bad. In our studies of happiness, we find that people can't get used to the new situation," said Wang Fanghua, a professor who is leading the research.

Another phenomenon that is potentially worrisome for the Chinese: When people get richer, they quickly adjust to the new reality, taking for granted what is behind them and looking with envy at those who are ahead. "What is clear is that satisfaction with money is relative. If somebody got a higher salary this year than last, he might not be happy," Wang said. "But if his income is better than his friends', then he will be happy."

The rub for the Chinese is also that aspirations often outpace reality. "In a time of rising expectations, people are often unhappy because they have higher expectations about what they need. It is obvious from the surveys that social development is lagging behind the economy," said Zhang Hui, who is in charge of the happiness studies at Beijing-based Horizon Research Consultancy Group, one of China's leading pollsters.

Separate polls conducted by the agency show a steady slide in both happiness and quality of life since 2005. Rising commodity and real estate prices were major causes of dissatisfaction. Many of those surveyed blamed corruption and an unfair social system for their hardships.

Happiness surveys show great disparities in China

Among the findings: Northerners are happier than southerners. Urban residents are happier than rural ones, but not by as large a margin as people would expect given that getting off the farm is a badge of success. Within the occupations, civil servants are happiest, enjoying the security of a steady paycheque rather than the stress of entrepreneurship. Men are happiest at the age of 41. Women are happiest at 28. The most unhappy group of people are women ages 40 through 44. Zhang, who at 40 would seem to have an enviable life, married to an academic, with an 11-year-old son, an apartment and a car, offers herself as an example. "With women my age, their parents are getting old; their children are starting puberty, and since we mostly have only one child, there is so much pressure to provide a good education. Then many Chinese women work and they have to worry about lagging behind," Zhang said. "I think when I look at my own happiness, it's maybe 85 out of 100 points. I think I can learn to do better."­­