467 за 2012 год
На 30% больше, чем в 2011 году
Рост уровня жизни (через призму ВВП/GDP) также означает увеличение стресса?
...
http://therealsingapore.com/content/record-suicide-rate-whats-ailing-singaporeSingapore recorded 467 suicides in 2012 – the highest number in 20 years. On average, more than one person took his/her own life everyday in Singapore last year. That's a 30 percent jump from 2011.
The Samaritans of Singapore (SOS), an organisation that works to prevent suicides, attributes the tragedy to extremes in stressful living conditions in Singapore.
Such a trend is but one manifestation of the quality of life in this country where our people are driven harder and harder by the Government to pump up GDP growth, often at our own expense.
The Government recently launched its population white paper announcing its plans to increase Singapore's population to 6.9 million. One of the reasons for such a drastic increment is the need to expand GDP figures.
Read also Why the SDP does not propose a target population
What ails this country is the Government's obsession with GDP growth, wrongly interpreted as a measure wealth and progress. The latest suicide statistic attests to the degeneration of the quality of life in Singapore. The continued inability and unwillingness of the PAP to re-evaluate the definition of economic progress is much cause for concern.
Pushing up GDP figures for its own sake often leads to a deterioration of life for Singaporeans. As we strive to generate wealth, we must also ensure that this is not done at the expense of our health, both mental and physical.
Work-life balance, family values, and social relationships must also be taken into account when we measure success. Without these non-economic and life-affirming aspects of our well-being, we cannot claim to be a prosperous nation.
This is why the SDP advocates that we introduce another index to measure success – the Genuine Progress Index, or GPI. The GPI, like the GDP, is an economic indicator. But unlike the GDP which only takes into account the production of goods and services in monetary terms, the GPI also measures factors like public health, pollution, juvenile delinquency, family breakups and, of course, suicide rates.
Read also GDP - a cancer causing agent?
The gains that we make in GDP are counter-balanced by losses we incur from deterioration of our quality of life. The result, captured in the GPI, will give us a more accurate and holistic reading of our progress.
A high GPI would mean that as we get materially richer, our quality of life is also improving. Governments, in particular cabinet ministers, should not measure their success (and the size of their salaries) by just pointing to GDP growth but rather to the growth of the well-being of Singaporeans.
The happiness of our people should be the main driver of government policy. There is hardly any point in registering record GDP figures when our people continue to live under stressful conditions to the point where the only way to relieve the burden is to end life itself.
Singapore Democrats
YourSDP.org
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Тема: Рекордное количество самоубийств в Сингапуре за последние 20 лет (Прочитано 1614 раз)