Beyond GDP: The power of lollipops, green space and chirping birds

A UN adviser has suggested that when determining a country’s wealth, non-material signifiers like hours of sleep and city birds are as important as GDP.

Forget GDP. When we work out a country's overall wealth, we should also take into account things like a good night’s sleep, lollipops and city birds.

That's the view of UN adviser Professor Anantha Duraiappah of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP).

What’s important about popsicles?

Though the popsicle issue might seem slightly bizarre at first glance, it’s actually an indicator of an overall social situation. The question being asked is, “Can your child leave their home, go to the nearest vendor and buy a popsicle or snack, and return safely?”

The IHDP suggests that this reveals whether the neighbourhood is safe, the neighbours are trustworthy, how safe the food is to eat and whether or not there is money to spare to treat the child.

Likewise, seeing teenage schoolgirls on the street in the UK is hardly a big deal, but in other places it means a lot. Fewer than one in five girls in sub-Saharan Africa are able to attend secondary school. And her attendance means that she is statistically likely to marry four years later than a girl who did not, and have 2.2 less children, therefore helping to curb exorbitant population growth rates. Plus, she’s raising her future wage by 15-20%.

Seeing birds in the city is an indicator of local environmental health, and getting enough sleep improves interpersonal relationships and empathy, as well as emotional intelligence and self-regard. Meanwhile, smiles are a “countable, nearly-universal symbol of happiness,” that could reveal a lot about a nation’s social well-being.

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The value of green land

While the above factors are indications of how well a society is faring, there should also be attention paid to the capital of a country, says Cambridge Professor Partha Dasgupta.

That is, its capital which “extends beyond re-producible assets to include human capital, natural capital, and knowledge and institutions… we need to stretch the notion of ‘investment.’ To leave a forest unmolested would be to invest in the forest; to allow a fishery to restock under natural conditions would be to invest in the fishery, and so on.”

“With policymakers focusing on complex indicators to measure societies’ success” the IHDP states, “it often seems as if they are missing some of the most meaningful and simple signs there are.”

Do policymakers miss the obvious signs that show a societies’ wealth? Is GDP very useful as an indicator of a country’s well-being? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

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