Happiness index of Thais continues to decline

BANGKOK, Feb 5 - Thailand's Gross Domestic Happiness (GDH) has continuously declined due to the overall political situation and household economic circumstances, according to Assumption University's ABAC poll released on Sunday.

The poll, which surveyed the happiness index of Thai people over 18 years of age, was conducted between Jan 23 - Feb 4 with 3,231 respondents in 17 provinces, indicating that the GDH index at the end of January stood at only 6.66 out of 10.

Ms Puntharee Issarangkul Na Ayutthaya, a researcher at the ABAC Poll Happiness Center, said Thai people's overall happiness index has kept declining since last July when it was measured at 7.55 out of 10 points.

Political factors contributed to the decrease of the overall happiness index, explained Ms Puntharee, in particular the conflict on the charter amendment and Article 112, which is related to the nation's revered monarchy, as well as the persistent political divisiveness among the Thai people.

Another negative factor, according to the researcher, is the household economic situation, as the cost of living has risen while income has remained the same.

Ms Puntharee added the happiness index on the political situation stood at 4.27 while the household economic situation was measured at 4.39 points.

Ms Puntharee however, revealed a positive aspect for the happiness index of Thai people, saying that loyalty for the monarchy was as high as 9.29 points, while the index on relationships within the family was at 8.14.

Regarding politics, Ms Puntharee said 60.8 percent of respondents still wanted Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to have a chance to continue her work as she has just started the prime minister job not so long ago. She noted that Thai people like to give opportunity to a person as long as it does not mean too many problems for the nation. Moreover, the people do not want to see more disturbances and divisiveness in the country. (MCOT online news)

-- TNA 2012-02-05

The cost of living is rising.... most Thais are worse off this year than last year. Simple enough.

Costs rising, where is my 300 bts, where is my tablet comps for the kids (8)? Last July I thought we were all going be richer. No compensation for the floods, what a surprise then! I bet they put the price of beer up just before Songkran.

The personal and financial impacts of the flooding has a lot to do with the recent/continuing decline of the happiness index.

Same as the UK and most places in Europe then, great story!

Same as the UK and most places in Europe then, great story!

And North America. The big difference though is that there aren't wholesale plant closings with the transfer of jobs elsewhere.

Looking at the business stories for the past week, Hungary's national airline shut down stranding 7000, Spanair shut down stranding 20,000. American Airlines, in bankruptcy protection, announced that it was terminating thousands of employees. Caterpiller in Canada announced that it was shutting down one of Canada's largest locomotive manufatcuring plants and transferring the assets, intellectual property and jobs to the USA and Mexico. A few days before, Canada's last remaining manufacturer of home appliances announced it was shutting down and transferring the jobs to Mexico. Thailand is fortunate (for now). As bad as it is, it is still better than most other places. And that's not even considering places like Syria, or famine stricken Ethiopia or Russia right now.

Ms Puntharee Issarangkul Na Ayutthaya, a researcher at the ABAC Poll Happiness Center, said Thai people's overall happiness index has kept declining since last July when it was measured at 7.55 out of 10 points.

When was it that Yingluck took office and began mismanaging the floods?

.

I am sure that I remember more than 6 months ago one of the PTP campaign promises was that everybogy would be rich in 6 months.

Mind I have been wrong a couple of times (only) before.