Britain will introduce a "happiness index" to gaugeits population's psychological and environmental wellbeing, a government source told the Guardian newspaper Monday.
Prime Minister David Cameron will ask the Office of National Statistics to prepare methods which will measure the "general wellbeing" despite reservations about the timing.
"The aim is to produce a fresh set of data ... to be published at a frequency to be decided that assesses the psychological and physical wellbeing of people around the UK," the source told the paper.
"That's objective measurements of, for instance, how much recycling gets done around the UK, alongside more subjective measures of psychology and attitudes."
Cameron is expected to put the index at the heart of future policy-making, but is in danger of receiving unwelcome results following the government's recent announcement of deep cuts to the public sector.
Canada is investigating the viability of adopting of a similar initiative and French president Nicolas Sarkozy announced last year that he intended to use happiness levels as one method of assessing the country's economic progress.
Britain already polls the public on their life satisfaction levels, but could become the first country to officially monitor its general happiness.
據(jù)《衛(wèi)報(bào)》報(bào)道，英國(guó)政府內(nèi)部人士本周一透漏，英國(guó)將引入“幸福指數(shù)”，以評(píng)估國(guó)民的心理健康狀況和對(duì)環(huán)境的滿意度。
英國(guó)首相戴維 卡梅倫將請(qǐng)國(guó)家統(tǒng)計(jì)局制定出衡量國(guó)民“總體幸福程度”的方法，但具體時(shí)間目前尚不可知。
知情人士告訴《衛(wèi)報(bào)》說(shuō)：“此舉的目的在于產(chǎn)生一套新的數(shù)據(jù)，并定期發(fā)布，以評(píng)估英國(guó)各地居民的身心健康狀況，不過(guò)發(fā)布頻率尚未確定。
“這一評(píng)估既有客觀測(cè)量標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，例如英國(guó)各地循環(huán)利用的情況，也有對(duì)居民的心理狀況和心態(tài)等主觀因素進(jìn)行的測(cè)評(píng)。”
卡梅倫想要把這項(xiàng)評(píng)估指數(shù)置于未來(lái)決策過(guò)程的核心地位。但是，由于近期政府宣布要大幅削減公共部門開(kāi)支，他將面臨著不受歡迎的危險(xiǎn)。
加拿大也在調(diào)查引入類似的方案的可行性，法國(guó)總統(tǒng)尼古拉斯 薩科奇去年就曾宣布，有意將幸福度作為評(píng)估法國(guó)經(jīng)濟(jì)發(fā)展的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)之一。
英國(guó)已經(jīng)就公眾的生活滿意度進(jìn)行了民意調(diào)查，而且，也可能成為首個(gè)由官方出面調(diào)查國(guó)民總體幸福指數(shù)的國(guó)家。
