“It is startling to find that Chinese people’s feelings of well-being have declined in a period of such momentous improvement in their economic lives.” (Source: NY Times)
Richard Easterlin in NY Times: China demonstrates that "growth alone, even at sustained, spectacular rates, has not produced the kind of life satisfaction crucial to a stable society — an experience that shows how critically important good jobs and a strong social safety net are to people’s happiness."
Another piece of evidence that it is time for a new economic and social development model. Read on the same subject “Does economic growth make you happy?”, a Times Literary Supplement review by Robert Skidelsky of the latest book “Economics after the crisis” written by Adair Turner.
For those in Brussels interested in this topic, there is a great conference organised by the ETUI on 15-16 October: “From ‘uneconomic’ growth to future well-being”