Mr. Ma Jiantang Participated the 4th OECD World Forum and Introduced China's Practice in Measuring Well-Being

The 4th OECD World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Policy

16-19 October 2012, New Delhi

Round Table I: Measuring Well-Being Initiatives in Individual Countries

17 October 2012

China’s Practice in Measuring Well-Being

Ma Jiantang, Commissioner

National Bureau of Statistics of China

Distinguished Ms. Chair, and Friends,

Good morning.

It is my honour to be here to say some words about the well-being measurement in China.

To my regret, my simultaneous interpreters did not get their visas, so I have to speak English by myself.

Now, I want to talk about China’s Practice in measuring well-being.

At the national level, the NBS China has not formally done well-being measurement. However, the Guangdong Province, the largest province of China, has done well-being measurement in two ways.

The first one is to make the Guangdong well-being Index. This Index consists of 10 first-level indicators and 48 second-level indicators. The 10 first-level indicators include employment and income; education and culture; health care; social security; consumption and housing; public facilities; social safety; social services; rights and interests protection; and human habitat environment.

The second is the Guangdong Well-being Satisfaction Survey. The survey has 7 first-level indicators and 36 second-level indicators. The survey asks people to answer questions. Each question in the survey has 5 optional answers: very happy; fairly happy; happy; unhappy; and very unhappy. This survey was done in 2011, and selected nearly 7000 households in the province.

Although the NBS has not officially done the well-being measurement, it has made efforts to do some similar work.

The first is the Xiaokang Society Measurement.

Xiaokang is a very Chinese concept. It means that people live a comfortable life and do not worry about their food, clothing and housing. The Xiaokang Society is regarded as a development stage in between just adequacy in food and clothing on the one hand and rich stage on the other.

The Xiaokang Society Measurement is to measure the progress that China has made between the two stages. This measurement includes 6 first-level indicators and 23 second-level indicators. The 6 first-level indicators include: the economic development, the social harmony, the quality of life, the development of democracy and rule of the law, the culture and education, and the natural resources and environment.

The measurement shows that China has made a good progress towards the Xiaokang Society. The data are published at the NBS web site at the end of the following year.

The Second is to set up the Development and Life Index.

This index is to evaluate the development and life of the people in China. This measurement includes 6 first-level indicators and 45 second-level indicators. The 6 first-level indicators include the economic development; improvement of people’s life; social progress; biological development; science and technology innovations; and public comments. In the component of improvement of people’s life, there are 3 second-level indicators: income distribution, quality of life and employment. In the component of social development, there are 6 second-level indicators: expenditures on public services, regional coordination, culture and education, health care, social security, and social safety.

The NBS calculated the Development and Life Index for China and for all the provinces for the years of 2000-2010, and the results were released in 2011.

Last, I want to make two points:

First, if we have GDP only, we may not be happy enough. But if we do not have enough GDP, we cannot feel happy. We need to go beyond GDP, but we cannot give up GDP. We statisticians and economists may have to refuse the extremes of GDP and happiness.

Second, to a large extent, happiness is a matter of philosophy, and a matter of perception. A good measurement is big challenge. We statisticians and economist have to be aware of it.

Thank you.