Recently, there have been articles in the newspaper that Gross Domestic Productivity (GDP) alone is not a clear indication of the progress of a nation, leading to call for a Happiness Index to measure the quality of life.
It reminds me of an economic essay I did back in JC as an economics student. The essay is "Is GDP the sole indicator of how developed a nation is?". My answer is a "NO". This is because while GDP can measure the quantity of life, it can never measure our standard of living because it fails to take into account the quality of life. While the economy has been growing as seem in data such as GDP growth, falling unemployment rate, higher inflation rate, our standard of living may not have improve as much as we have hoped for. Sometimes, I wondered if the average pay increase is about 2 to 3 percentage, while inflation has climbed to 4 to 5 %, are we effectively getting a pay "reduction" instead?
Furthermore, most of here may not necessarily feel better off, even if it seems that the economy is growing. Inconvenience such as trying to get into the train every morning, having a mad rush to get to work on time every day etc really put people off living in a small country which is trying to contain as many people as it can in its pursuit of economic growth.
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