What happened to Bhutan’s ‘kingdom of happiness’?

The Himalayan country is facing unprecedented emigration and high youth unemployment, casting doubt on its famous happiness-based economic approach

Bhutan is a tiny country of mountains and clouds nestled between giants: it shares borders with China and India. Known as “the kingdom of happiness” because of its focus on measuring gross national happiness (GNH), its approach to development is based on the Buddhist idea of the “middle way”, or the pursuit of balance, rather than extremes. But lately, the balance has been off.

GNH, first measured by Bhutan in 2008, is calculated using surveys of 148 questions, conducted in person every few years. The most recent survey from 2022 sampled 1.4% of the population and gave the country an average happiness score of 0.781 out of one, a score that defines the Bhutanese as precisely 3.3% happier than they were in 2015.