Happiness lags behind prosperity: survey
OTTAWA – Canada’s economy may well be muddling through, but on a more personal level, Canadians generally are not, a new study of well-being suggests.
The Canadian Well-being Index, led by researchers at the University of Waterloo, shows that quality of life in Canada deteriorated by 24 per cent between the onset of recession in 2008 and 2010.
Canada’s main economic indicator, gross domestic product, only declined by about 8.3 per cent over the same period and began to make a turnaround by the end of 2010.
“When Canada’s economy was thriving, Canadians only saw modest improvements in their overall quality of life,” said former Saskatchewan premier Roy Romanow, who is co-chair of the index’s advisory board.
“But when the economy faltered, our well-being took a disproportionate step backward.”
The same trend is true over the past two decades, the index of 64 different indicators shows. Most of the indicators are based on data from Statistics Canada.
“Despite years of prosperity, our economic growth has not translated into similar significant gains in our overall quality of life, says the report.
“Even more concerning is the considerable backslide Canadians have experienced since 2008.”
Researchers have spent years devising a methodology and compiling data to put together the index, which is meant to serve as an improvement over GDP as a measure of how well Canadians are faring.
“GDP tells us nothing about our people, our environment, our democracy, or other aspects of life that matter to Canadians,” Romanow and board co-chairwoman Monique Begin state in the introduction to the report.