India surpass US, UK, Japan in new ‘human flourishing’ study

Everyone believes that the wealthier a country becomes, the more improved the lives of its people will be. That belief is put to its test by a new study called the Global Flourishing Study (GFS). The study questioned what a life that is well-lived entails. This study, the biggest such study ever conducted was a collaboration between Harvard, and Baylor Universities, Gallup, and the Center for Open Science. The researchers asked questions and heard from 207,000 people in 23 countries over five years. They, along with the World Flourishing Organization and SHAPE Global, hope to apply what they discovered to workplaces and communities around the globe.

The findings of the research suggest a remarkable truth: good life and progress are not simply amounts of money that a person possesses. Yes, the GFS identified and characterised six broad categories that enable a good life: personal character and virtues, social relationships, happiness and life satisfaction, physical and mental health, meaning and purpose, and financial stability. Maybe this is no longer news to wise people everywhere. Most Eastern philosophies and even Greek philosophy have asserted this wisdom. But it is something we forget in our modern life: merely having money does not make human beings complete or fulfilled.

African and Asian countries performed quite well on this study, relative to more affluent Western nations which performed less well. Thus, Indonesia (top nation in GFS) and the Philippines (rank third) both have high social values and community solidarity that support flourishing. Gotong royong (mutual aid) in Indonesia and bayanihan (community spirit) in the Philippines support individuals to flourish. India, which has a much lower per capita income, has a flourishing score greater than the USA or the UK or Japan. This may be due to tight extended family links and a spontaneous culture that still celebrates the non-material. Some of the African societies also possess tremendous flourishing potential, due to their societal values.

On the other hand, very developed countries like the US, UK, Japan, Germany, and Sweden face problems in spite of their affluence. Problems like mental health disorders, loneliness, and emptiness are common in some of these societies. Japan has particularly experienced a rise in social withdrawal named hikikomori, and Sweden is high in self-reported loneliness. These examples prove that economic success is not enough to ensure true human flourishing.

What the evidence suggests is that it is time to change our approach to development and progress. Simply taking on old-fashioned industrial models with a focus on individual success and profit maximization for shareholders is not delivering.

The GFS suggests the direction of travel is to focus on:

1. Community first, building cooperation and support.
2. A purpose that goes beyond mere money, into values, virtues and imagination.
3. Healthy social connections, recognizing how crucial they are to our overall well-being.

One of the Harvard scientists who participated in the GFS said that real flourishing involves building relations that make us feel part of something bigger. He called it “transcendence,” and that seems to be the key ingredient for a happy life. This sense of working together on something greater than ourselves might minimize the selfishness and greed so rife in the modern world, and that generates misery. It is hard to experience transcendence when working solely for profits or higher wages. Therefore, most of humanity suffers rather than flourishes.

It is absolutely essential that societies and governments sit together to build such transcendent values. We can’t rely on big business or the market; worse, they might be part of the crisis, according to the GFS.

True wealth is ultimately not economic numbers and increased consumption, but values, a sense of meaning and how we relate to each other. The experiences of African and Asian countries featured in the GFS can open the way towards developing societies in which people actually flourish, and feel fulfilled. If these Asian and African countries further consolidate these ideas of transcendence beyond wealth creation, they can show the world a more viable and realistic way forward, one that counters the prevalent Industrial Revolution, economic development as progress narrative.

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