If I were tasked with improving Bhutan, one of the things I would focus on is probably lead. 3/4 of Bhutanese children have elevated levels of lead in their blood.

https://www.unicef.org/bhutan/press-releases/national-blood-...

If you don't get past the headline you might miss the most interesting part of this story. Bhutan is building a special economic-zone city, based on Singapore as a model, and designed by Bjarke Ingels. The renders are really striking, many of the major and most important buildings are designed to double as bridges over the river. Skip to 16:52 in the video to see the renders of the planned development "Gelephu Mindfulness City".

Despite the headline CBS gave the article, it seems the problem is not with happiness, but with the seductive appeal of materialism and the effects of exposing one culture to another.

Social comparison theory is the idea that our satisfaction with what we have isn't an objective measure, but is actually based on what we see other people have. Young people generally seem to have an innate desire to leave their hometowns and seek out what else might be waiting out there for them. When you add in globalization and media influence exposing them to what looks like a "better" life with more things, it's not surprising that they've seen ~9% of young people leave Bhutan.

The other question is, what will happen if Bhutan does increase their financial wealth as well as their happiness? Will they then see a net influx of people through immigration, looking for the lifestyle Bhutan promises? And will those new people be able to maintain the culture Bhutan has cultivated?

It sounds like the concept of Gross National Happiness is a successful one, on its own, but it brings new challenges that couldn't have been forseen originally. That doesn't mean they can't solve them without giving up their core values.

Bhutan's economy is growing, but it still has a nominal GDP per capita of only $3,700. Their youth unemployment rate is 16%, but 24% in urban areas. For all the talk of gross national happiness, it's hard to imagine a young person feeling happy in a poor country with very limited opportunities for upward mobility.

I'm also not sure that mass emigration should be seen as an existential threat. Many developing economies have very successfully leveraged emigration and remittances as an engine of economic growth. If Bhutan can modernise into a more open economy, those young people could start returning home with the skills, experience and capital to do great things.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location...

https://www.nsb.gov.bt/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2023/1...

https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2024/03/11/a-stron...

Southern Bhutan’s Lhotshampa people, who were 100,000 mostly Hindu ethnic minority were cleansed under the “One Nation, One People” policy aimed at forced ethnic, cultural, and religious cohesion. They now live as refugees in Nepal.

Behind Bhutan's Shangrila facade is a discriminatory policies favoring Buddhists & Drukpa culture remain in place as do discriminatory citizenship laws and restrictions on civil, religious and linguistic rights.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lhotshampa