Wellbeing Through Humanism : Devising an Alternative Barometer of Urban Social Progress in Malaysia

Today, there is a growing attention towards a widespread myth that a nation's economic prosperity inevitably leads to its citizens enjoying a greater wellbeing. However, foundation of human wellbeing, especially mental wellness, and life satisfaction of individuals in economically advantaged countries remain fragile. Malaysia, as the third-largest economy in the ASEAN region and has one of the best economic records in the world likewise struggling with unbalanced harmony between economic development and societal progress. Despite government constant effort to strengthen sustainable development of the society, individuals who yet to meet the criteria for flourishing is far and wide, and rates of flourishing is believed to diminish at the presence of COVID-19 pandemic. In view of this, effort to put social progress on par with post-pandemic economic revitalization as well as prosperity of the nation in years to come is undoubtedly imperative. Rooted by the fundamental principle of humanistic economics as well as the nation of collective wellbeing envisioned by the Bhutanese concept of happiness, the present study is motivated develop an alternative barometer of social progress for the urban populace in Malaysia. The Humanistic-Enabled Barometer of Social Progress (H-BSP) blends the philosophical theories of wellbeing, happiness psychology as well as neoclassical and welfare economics into the creation of a holistic metrics of social progress. The realization of the H-BSP yardstick serves as a critical move towards a humanized facets of measuring the subjective and non-monetary gains of the growing Malaysian economy

Development of the Happiness Index as Footsteps Towards Sustainable Development in Malaysia

The goal in the economics of happiness is to improve the living conditions of people in their everyday life. Thus, it is essential to know how the circumstances of lives and societies can influence index of social well-being of Malaysian. The study involved 302 respondents and were questioned for the pilot study. This study will focus more on what makes people in Malaysia happy and how to measure the index of social well-being (ISWB). The study will be initially analysed using primary data that will be gained by conducting a survey questionnaire then follow by pilot testing. The data will be collected and analysed by descriptive statistical analysis, correlation analysis, frequency analysis, reliability test, factor analysis test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), independent sample test. The computation procedure of the ISWB is also applied to complete the observation in this study. Furthermore, this researcher created the overall ISWB, which is made up of nine essential domains. According to the findings of this study, Malaysian society's existing Cantril ladder and desired happiness in the next five years are greater than the overall ISWB