Yet people all over the world are doing their best. Moving from one place to another looking for a job opportunity, a vacation, a family reunion and so on.
That is why it is crowded all over. Traveling to any direction, any time of the year and almost through any airline is the same to the extent that sometimes it is becoming difficult to change the booking timings.
No wonder. It is the age of globalization and the communication revolution.
But that is part of the explanation.
Specifically, it could be added that more and more people are in great mobility looking for new opportunities where they can improve their lives and even adopt new countries to be their homes.
A recent poll by US Gallup found out that 13 percent of the adults on the globe, or more than 640 million people, would like to leave their home countries and adopt new ones.
Saudi Arabia is among the top 15 countries that people would love to settle in. The US topped the list. Around 150 million people or 23 percent expressed their desire to settle in.
Another 31 million or 5 percent wanted to take Saudi Arabia as their second home.
The figure exceeds the current population of the Kingdom.
The list of the countries is dominated by European states. It included the UAE, the only second Arab and Muslim country in the list, where 13 million people or 2 percent would like to settle in it — in addition to other non-European places like Canada, Australia, Russia, Japan and even South Africa.
The survey, which covered random samples in 151 countries around the world, found out that the main motive for such movement is the look for an opportunity. Such an opportunity could be making family reunion, new jobs, or careers, free environment or a better living environment to live in and raise children.
But for Saudi Arabia there is an added reason. That it hosts the two holy mosques. These are in themselves an attraction. A number of regional organizations or businesses found that it is easy for them to attract some staff because they have this unparalleled spiritual competitive edge over others.
However, generally speaking, moving to a new country is driven by the idea of moving into a new, better life. But does that mean a happier one?
For quite a long time economists have been using the gross domestic production (GDP) indicator, which is the universally recognized scale to measure progress. The more there is GDP growth, the more that country is better off.
Analysts focus on this measure to speak about growth and recession not only in economic terms, but also to see their political and social implications that in the end impact happiness.
But in effect, the GDP measure is used because it is easy to quantify, though growth does not necessarily translate into equitable distribution of wealth, nor in the quality of life. And that is where other factors start to surface like the quality of air, education, culture, and so on.
More important, such growth may not equate happiness. That is why places with high growth rates like the US or China do not fall under the category of happy states.
Actually though the material means in terms of transportation, communication, access to information are more at hand for many people around the globe even in poor countries, but one can hardly say people are happier now compared to what they were two decades ago for instance.
The general perception is that places like northern European countries, namely Denmark, Finland, Norway and Netherlands are in a better shape as far as happiness is concerned compared to others.
A quick and closer look at these counties find out that they are rich ones, having political freedom, a good social safety net, no corruption and in addition to job security and an overall good standard of living.
However, the issue of how to define or measure happiness has moved to new quarters.
For more than three decades, the OECD has been pushing to adopt the concept of ‘Happiness Economics’ and ‘Better Life Index’, but that of course is an elusive concept. If the universally accepted GDP measure could be used in different ways around the globe to get different results, one can imagine what ‘Better Life Index’ can generate in terms of debate and counter arguments.
After all what counts most is the peace of mind and heart, but that is a concern for the individual person.
States and governments are something else though in theory they should be working for the sake of that very individual.
But the established norms of governance are changing under the sheer weight of globalization and communication revolution and pushing at the same time the elusive concept of happiness further.
— Alsir Sidahmed ([email protected]) is media consultant, trainer and freelance journalist.
