This study of women in Bhutan is based on the country’s unique development concept known as Gross National Happiness (GNH). Whereas in most countries, a western approach to development concentrates on increasing Gross Domestic Product to improve a country’s economy, Bhutan follows a different approach based on improving the general well-being of the people. The thesis argues that Bhutan has relegated Gross Domestic Product to the background where it can be used as a means to enhance “happiness” but not as an overall goal of development and that the impacts of this on women require separate study. There are four elements that form the core of the Gross National Happiness concept: good governance, environmental conservation, cultural preservation and socio-economic development. This thesis has focused on only two elements of the GNH concept, questioning the nature of cultural preservation and socio-economic development. This is because cultural preservation is one of the areas that affects women particularly. In the path of development, many socio-economic policies inadvertently discriminate against women although their intentions are gender neutral. Thus, the overall purpose of this thesis is to explore women’s position, especially in the education sector and the impact of tradition and culture on Bhutanese women. The relationship between women in Bhutan and the government policy of preserving culture is analysed in order to determine if there is conflict between preserving culture and sustaining happiness against the backdrop of the fast pace of economic development. The methodological approach for this thesis is both qualitative and quantitative. Because of the limited written material on Bhutan, it was important to talk to members of the public to explore general perceptions, feelings and opinions relating to government policies and the impact of development activities and culture on their lives and also to bring in unofficial perspectives. Participants consisted of twenty households in the village and twenty-two participants from the urban area to address urban/rural differences. Literacy is less in rural areas as is access to information and exposure to western influences. Official documents, newspapers, on-line discussion forums, school curricula and films were also drawn on to explore the role of culture and the impact of development policies on the Bhutanese people. The thesis concludes that cultural preservation, particularly when followed uncritically, remains a major obstacle to women’s empowerment towards achieving their development goals.

Being a small landlocked country located in Eastern Himalaya ranges, makes it difficult for Bhutan to secure and sustain its national food security. Thus, Bhutan highly depends on the import of food from neighboring countries. This paper aims to improve the food security in Bhutan by giving a specific focus on the egg value-chain which starts from the import of parent stocks until the consumption within the country. Methods to identify potential constraints within the value-chain and provision of possible solutions used in this paper are a combination of literature reviews, qualitative studies (interview), and personal experience/communication of the author, who had been working with the Department of Livestock in Bhutan. The results of the study indicate that animal welfare, basic farm management, and consumer education are the top three areas that all stakeholders, especially government agents, should work with interdisciplinary in order to strengthen the overall value-chain. Challenges and room for improvement in animal welfare can be found from the beginning of the value-chain, the transporting of layer Day Old Chicks (DOCs). Lack of knowledge and skills for basic farm management which includes farm data recording, egg grading, and egg labeling, are issues found in the middle of the value-chain. Lastly, in the very end of the value-chain, more education should be given to consumers regarding the health benefits and nutritional value of eggs as to alleviate the problem of low egg consumption per capita relative to other developed nations. Possible solutions provided in this paper on animal welfare standard are suggested by the international projects and organizations namely, European Animal Welfare Platform and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. For basic farm management, the government should be the one who encourages and provides skills using effective communication tools as well as law enforcement in order to improve the egg quality. At the same time, consumers should be stimulated to demand higher quality as this will be a driving force for future improvement and create higher liquidity in the market.

Several researchers in happiness studies have called for an increased sociopolitical interest in indicators of societal happiness. However, recent evidence for the proposed paradoxical effects of valuing happiness suggest that an increase in society’s perceived value of happiness may exert a detrimental, inverse influence on well-being. This notion is based on previous research demonstrating that manipulating participants to value happiness causes them to experience less positive emotions, compared to controls, when viewing positive film clips. Following the humanistic notion that the maximization of societal happiness is an advantageous sociopolitical endeavor, the proposed paradoxical effects of valuing happiness present a psychological barrier that researchers must strive to understand and, ideally, overcome. Previous experimental research on the paradoxical effects of valuing happiness has focused on participants’ emotionality as an operational definition of happiness. However, drawing from the Subjective Well-Being construct, emotionality is only one of several components of happiness. Building from this Subjective-Well Being framework, this study expands upon previous research by investigating whether a valuing happiness manipulation influences participants’ emotionality while they contemplate their own happiness. To examine this, nineteen participants were divided into two groups, one which received a valuing happiness manipulation (n=9) and the others served as a control group (n=10), and instructed to contemplate their personal happiness for 45 seconds. To measure participants’ emotions during this task, facial electromyography data were collected from the corrugator supercilii and the zygomaticus major facial muscles, a measure that previous research suggests is sensitive to the emotional value of thought. Results indicated that participants manipulated to value happiness did not experience significant differences in facial electromyography activation compared to controls. However, although non-significant, the correlation between facial electromyography activation and participants’ rating of happiness differed substantially for participants manipulated to value happiness (average r=.41 for corrugator, average r=-.09 for zygomaticus) and controls (average r=.-.29 for corrugator, average r=.14 for zygomaticus). The counterintuitive correlations for participants led to value happiness, despite not experiencing significant difference in the emotional value of the happiness contemplation task, provide preliminary evidence that these participants utilize the information retrieved from the contemplative stage in a qualitatively different way than controls when judging their own happiness. More specifically, the correlations for participants led to value happiness trend in the opposite direction of controls, demonstrating that increases in positive emotion during happiness contemplation actually are associated with lower scores on a self-report of happiness. This study suggests that the paradoxical effects of valuing happiness does not influence the retrieval of information when contemplating ones’ happiness, but may influence (in an apparently detrimental fashion) how this information is utilized when judging one’s happiness. Although the between-condition differences in correlations failed to reach statistical significance (more specifically, p=.09 for corrugator), this study provides preliminary evidence for the existence of a new dynamic of the proposed paradoxical effects of valuing happiness that is novel to the happiness studies discourse. Limitations, implications, and future directions are discussed.

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付記する学位プログラム名: グローバル生存学大学院連携プログラム / 京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(社会健康医学) / 甲第23823号 / 社医博第123号 / 新制||社医||12(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院医学研究科社会健康医学系専攻 / (主査)教授 川上 浩司, 教授 木村 剛, 教授 山本 洋介 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Public Health / Kyoto University / DFAM

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The aim of master thesis is finding answers to the question, if inhabitants of western Europe are happier than inhabitants of eastern Europe. I want to compare standards of living in these regions based on the indexes of living standards. Further I want find out, if the happiness is measurable. Europe during the economic crisis has shown that GDP of countries slowed down, but is this economic indicator showing happiness of nations? Does it present satisfaction and well-being of the population? Can we identify some relation or dependence between GDP and happiness of the population? What are the indicators that are able to answer this question? A substantial part of my work will be comparison of the individual indexes of living standards and I will specify, what means standard of living and what are the components. In the practical part I want to compare reality in different areas of human life, which is related to the standard of living and to compare these data between the nations in western Europe and eastern Europe.