Governments Should Track Aspirations Alongside Economic Growth
Consumer researcher Lance Katigbak argues that GDP and other economic measures can show growth without revealing whether citizens believe they are moving toward the lives they want. Drawing on a nationwide survey of more than 1,500 Filipinos, he says governments should track ambitions, barriers and perceived progress alongside conventional indicators—starting with the widespread desire for financial security against health shocks. Katigbak’s proposed “Department of Dreams” would use that data to test whether health, labor, education and industry policy aligns with citizens’ goals.
Economic progress can miss the lives people are trying to build
Lance Katigbak argues that countries have become adept at measuring outputs without asking whether those outputs correspond to what citizens want from their lives. The familiar adult questions—what work someone does, how much they earn, where they vacation—have displaced an earlier one: what they want to become. National accounts follow the same pattern, tracking growth rates, remittances and exports while leaving aspirations largely unexamined.
In the Philippines, Katigbak sees a sharp version of that mismatch. The country’s GDP is growing, he says, while millions of people leave to care for other countries’ families and millions more work through the night handling calls from abroad. Those activities count toward a growth story that positions the Philippines as Southeast Asia’s second-fastest-growing economy and on track for upper-middle-income status. But the metrics, he argues, can reward a development path that does not align with how people want to live.
The issue is not that growth has no value. It is that a country can climb indicators it never chose, on a ladder designed by people already at its top. A number moving “up and to the right” is not, by itself, evidence that people feel closer to the lives they want. In some places, Katigbak suggests, the only route upward may be leaving.
We've become really good at hitting metrics that we're never asked to begin with.
Financial security against health shocks is the shared ambition
Katigbak and his colleagues at BCG conducted a nationwide, nationally representative survey asking Filipinos about their dreams—a question, he says, no client had previously commissioned. Businesses often connect their work to national development, he argues, and understanding what people seek should inform what development is meant to accomplish.
The survey’s highest-ranked dream across every socioeconomic segment was financial security sufficient to absorb health scares.
That result was more specific than the answers senior leaders commonly expected. When Katigbak asks audiences to name the number-one Filipino dream, he says they usually offer homeownership or a happy family; fewer than about 5 percent guess correctly. Those who do are often more junior and have grown up in lower-income households before working their way up.
The interviews also showed why this form of security matters. Tidri, a 26-year-old preschool teacher, hopes to open a hair salon like her grandmother’s, alongside ambitions to become a beauty queen, host and politician. For now, her grandfather’s stroke and the healthcare bills she helps cover put those plans out of reach.
Most Filipinos, Katigbak says, dream for their extended families rather than only themselves. Joey, a 56-year-old radio technician, works from 2 a.m. to 11 p.m. most nights and wants to retire, but continues working while paying for his daughter’s education. Sweden, a 35-year-old former field reporter, started a children’s-clothing business from her garage after having her first child; she now hopes for a flagship mall store and a second home for her family.
Most respondents did not feel that public or private institutions were helping them achieve their ambitions, Katigbak says. They felt they could rely only on themselves. Measuring dreams would make those constraints visible alongside conventional economic indicators: whether people can absorb shocks, meet family obligations and see a plausible route toward the futures they want.
Dreams measure direction, not simply present wellbeing
Katigbak distinguishes his proposed measure from an effort to capture whether people are satisfied or happy today. He credits Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness framework with redefining development there around happiness, culture and spiritual fulfillment. But happiness in the present, he argues, differs from believing one is moving toward a desired future.
He points to the emigration of about 10 percent of Bhutan’s skilled and educated population in 2022 as a tension worth considering. Someone may have what they need and feel life is going well, yet still see their future somewhere else. Measuring dreams, in his formulation, would capture a vector of progress rather than only a current state.
Let's measure how much progress people feel like they made versus last year, and how much more progress they think they'll make looking into next year.
The proposed measure would not replace GDP with another single wellbeing score. Katigbak wants countries to identify what people are trying to achieve, what stands between them and those goals, and whether people see institutions as helping or holding them back.
Aspiration data would test whether policy aligns with citizens' goals
Katigbak proposes that governments treat citizens’ ambitions as something worth tracking, much as companies use HR departments to measure employee progression. If countries maintain Departments of Defense, he asks, why could they not have a Department of Dreams?
Its first task would be measurement. An annual “Aspiration of the Nation” report, presented by a Secretary of Dreams, could map aspirations by age, income and geography; examine how people form dreams, graduate to bigger ones or give up old ones; and track whether they feel they are moving forward. National dream centers could offer training on personal progress, while social workers trained as life coaches could help people stay on track.
The data would then become a test of alignment across health, labor, education and enterprise policy. Working with health authorities, a Department of Dreams could measure how healthcare emergencies affect ambition and motivation, not only health outcomes. With trade and industry, it could ask whether people who hope to start businesses have the tools to do so. With labor officials, it could compare desired jobs with jobs being created; with education authorities, it could ask whether students are being trained for those roles.
Katigbak acknowledges that free markets exist, but asks whether governments could still respond when people say they want to become writers, historians, astronauts or psychiatrists. His imagined arrangement is one in which institutions are focused on helping people achieve their ambitions, with a government official accountable for making that happen.
He hopes to repeat the Philippine survey every few years to see how aspirations change, and to run it in other markets—comparing, for example, the Filipino dream with the Malaysian or Emirati dream.