Reality bites in the Himalayan 'kingdom of happiness'

High emigration and youth unemployment levels belie the mountain nation's global reputation for cheeriness

- Helen Sullivan

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 3.3% happier than they were in 2015.

But despite its cheerful reputation, the country is experiencing "unprecedented" levels of emigration, according to the ruling People's Democratic party's 2023 manifesto. Last year, 1.5% of the population moved to Australia to work and study. In 2019 an independent measure of happiness, the Oxford World Happiness report - itself inspired by Bhutan's pioneering GNH - ranked the country 95 out of 156 countries, up from 97th in 2018, and down from 84th in 2014. It hasn't been measured since.

Bhutan is a little bigger than Belgium, is home to fewer than 800,000 people, and 85% of its land is forest. Its democracy is fairly young: Bhutan held its first elections in 2007, a year after its king, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, the fifth "Dragon King", came to power. His father, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, voluntarily gave up the throne.

Tourism, one of the country's main sources of income, was brought to a standstill by the Covid pandemic and has yet to fully recover: 2023 saw just a third of the number of visitors in 2019. Its tourist levy - or sustainable development fee-jumped to $200 per persona day in 2022, before being halved in 2023.