Comparison of the Determinants of Well-Being Between India and Japan: Implications for the Future of the Economy and Society of India

Future economic changes in India should be predicted with consideration of not only macroeconomic factors such as consumption, investment, and financial situation, but also social factors such as well-being. In this chapter, we start with the premise that changing social factors interactively affect economic behavior. The overview of happiness suggests that the well-being of the Indian people is relatively low and declining, and that the difference between India and Japan is growing. This implies that economic development did not work to improve the well-being of the Indian people on average. It might be that inequality of well-being in India has been expanding, with the people who have benefited from economic growth enjoying increased well-being and low-income groups having decreased well-being. Against this background, we need to analyze the effects of economic factors on well-being in India more rigorously from various aspects, including social value judgements or religious factors, by using micro data. In this chapter, we discuss how the pursuit of happiness affects the society and economy of India by comparison with those of Japan.