Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Reports on Happiness

Happiness Indicators or Subjective Wellbeing Indicators tell where people perceive themselves to be hurting and thriving.

The Happiness Initiative is the only social cause 501(c)3 offering an internally and externally validated subjective indicator of wellbeing based on Bhutan’s GNH that is available for anyone to use at any scale. This is a deeply grassroots project – and the point is to use the GNH subjective indicator to motivate and inspire people and move the conversation and culture to happiness. We can issue anyone a unique code (and results once a group has taken the survey) with a hyperlink so they can use this in their work.

A Meta Analysis of Happiness Indicators:
The World Happiness Report - John Helliwell, Jeffrey Sachs and Robert Layard

There are many other Subjective Indicators of Well-being. Some of them are:

Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness report and policy tool
UK Happiness Index 2012 (the Happiness Wheel and see a report issued 2012)
European Social Survey
Gallup World Poll
Authentic Happiness - Martin Seligman at University of Pennsylvania
World Values Survey
World Health Organization Quality of Life
Detroit Area Study - Assessing Community Quality of Life
General Social Survey
Centre for Economic Performance Recommendations for Measuring Subjective Well-Being

A Few Objective Indicators of Wellbeing and Happiness

OECD Better Life Index
Canadian Index of Wellbeing
Happy Planet Index

Please send suggestions to info@happycounts.org