How Are Canadians Really Doing?
Oct 25, 2012
A new report by the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW) takes a look at the changes in the wellbeing of Canadians that took place over the 17-year period from 1994 to 2010. It then focuses on how these changes compared to changes in Canada’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over the same period.
Most industrialized countries of the world (and other developing ones as well) have traditionally relied on GDP as a measure of wellbeing in general and not just in a purely economic sense. However, the 2008-2009 global recession and the years of social and economic turmoil that have followed have served to increase skepticism about GDP being a sufficient indicator of our overall wellbeing.
The CIW has provided an alternative measure of quality of life that it claims assesses things that matter to Canadians beyond the economy. In How Are Canadians Really Doing, it draws on data from Statistics Canada and tracks 64 specific indicators that are grouped into eight quality of life categories: Community Vitality, Democratic Engagement, Education, Environment, Healthy Populations, Leisure and Culture, Living Standards, and Time Use. The CIW then combines these into a composite index and provides a “snapshot” of how our wellbeing is changing.
The results reveal some “troubling truths” about the connection between our wellbeing and the economy, and lead one to question whether our governments are really responding to the “needs and values of everyday Canadians.”
From 1994 to 2010, while Canada’s GDP grew by almost 29 percent, improvements in Canadians’ wellbeing grew by only 5.7 percent. Canada’s continued economic growth over this period was not reflected in similarly significant gains in Canadians’ quality of life. Furthermore, there has been a considerable backslide in quality of life since the economic turmoil that began in 2008.
Although Canada’s GDP dropped by 8.3 percent following the recession of 2008, the CIW index declined by some 24 percent over the same period. This gives further credence to the argument that Canadians are not seeing any of the benefits of improved economic productivity.
Only two of the eight categories, Education and Living Standards, came close to keeping pace with GDP. The others all have shown little growth since 1994 and, since 2008, are showing signs of even greater decline.
The CIW report seems to confirm two things: First, that GDP is not a very good indicator of “quality of life,” and, secondly, that the significant growth in Canada’s GDP and concurrent miniscule growth in wellbeing over the same period leads one to question whether our governments are really responding to the needs and values of Canadians.
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