Money, Happiness and Culture

Author: Aaron

Our new cabinet plans to issue our domestic “Happiness Index” this year. Happiness, as we know, is a kind of subjective concept and it could be different from every individuals according to the life value, economic status even and nationwide culture.

So, start from the fundamental-material aspect-could be more practical and reasonable.The most-asked question about this aspect must be: how much money makes us happy? According to the research made by Princeton Professors Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton, the threshold is $75,000; that is, around NT$ 2,200,000 dollars. Back to review our domestic statistic data, our average current receipts per household of 2011 is NT$1,157,895 dollars. On the other hand, the threshold of 90% household disposable income is NT$ 1,612,282. To sum up, most people income in Taiwan(R. O. C.) have not reached the basic standard of happiness mentioned above.

However, could we make the judge that most Taiwanese is unhappy according to the statistic data? Of course not. As I said, happiness is a subjective and complex concept. It’s impossible to evaluate it by one-dimension measure. So, we have to keep eves on the cultural aspect, especially the “relative” character of happiness, not just on the material one.

 “Inequality rather than want is the cause of trouble,” Confucius said. That is, in out society, whether we feel satisfied or not eventually depends on the gap between each others. So, the wider the income gap is, the unhappier people feel. According to this principled stand, we go back to check another statistic again.

 In Taiwan, it’s 4.14 when it comes to the ratio of highest 20% per capita share income to lowest 20%. Comparing to other main nations, only Finland, Germany, Luxembourg, Norway and Sweden are under 5. As for nearby Asia nation, such like Singapore(12.75), Malaysia(11.44), South Korea(5.73), Japan(5.13) and China(9.58), are all above 5. Of course there is significant correlation with the domestic social welfare policy, which make impact on low-income household and individuals. For the past decades, because of the public expectation and political manipulation, Taiwan social welfare budget is growing and in 2011 it has been up to about 21% GDP of Taiwan. Under the situation, people should feel happy, but of course the fact is not.

 Among the main nations, Brazil is considered one of the happiest nations around the world; however, it has the largest income gap between the wealthy and the poor(20.21). So we still have to consider another factors which affect our feeling of happiness.

Some said it’s much more likely about the personality of people: Latin people always look on sunny side of life. Of course, it should be taken into consideration. But we all realize that it could not have a final consequence. That’s exactly because the “subjective” character of happiness. What we have to do is placing this topic in the broader context and keeping cross-culture conversation.

References

http://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2013/02/18/how-much-happiness-can-money-buy/

中華民國主計總處台灣地區家庭收支調查(http://win.dgbas.gov.tw/fies/a11.asp?year=100)