By EMMA VANDORE – Jan 9, 2008
"PARIS (AP) — What price happiness? French President Nicolas Sarkozy is seeking an answer to the eternal question — so that happiness can be included in measurements of French economic growth."...
..."Frustrated with the what he termed Tuesday "the growing gap between statistics that show continuing progress and the increasing difficulties (French people) are having in their daily lives," Sarkozy said new thought should be given to the way GDP is calculated to take into account quality of life."...
..."Richard Layard, a professor at the London School of Economics and author of the 2005 book "Happiness: Lessons from a New Science," said Sarkozy may be seeking recognition for policies, popular in Europe, that promote well-being but don't show up in the GDP statistics.
Governments are rated on economic performance, and this influences policy in favor of boosting GDP, the value of goods and services produced over a calendar year, he said.
"But people don't want to think they live in a world of ruthless competition where everyone is against everyone," Layard said. "Valuable things are being lost, such as community values, solidarity."
His book shows that depression, alcoholism and crime have risen in the last 50 years, even as average incomes more than doubled."...
..."France's unemployment rate is stubbornly high, and when French people do work they spend less time on the job — 35.9 hours per week compared with the EU average of 37.4."
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jiYUyUscJjjQo8vBQ1Sv888iKi2AD8U2RQJ00
