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THE WELLBEING OF NATIONS
MEANING, MOTIVE AND MEASUREMENT
'A great book that adds much needed well-reasoned argument and weight to the global debate on how we better measure what is getting better and what is not. Hand and Allin chart a series of paths away from the beguiling simplicity of GDP, show where those routes began and to where they might lead. Slowly we are learning to better count what really matters in our lives. This book explains the international collaboration behind this new learning and moves it far forward.'
Daniel Dorling, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford
How and why to use new measures of national wellbeing
We have known for many years that standard measures of a country's economic performance, like GDP and GNP, fail to tell the whole story about progress and wellbeing.
The Wellbeing of Nations explores national and cross-national initiatives to build wider measures. It covers economic performance, quality of life, the state of the environment, progress, development and sustainability. The authors take the view that national wellbeing — how a country is doing — embraces all these aspects and so measures of real progress need these dimensions.
This book:
Presents insights drawn from a wide range of national and international developments and provides an extensive appendix of resource materials.
Provides an in-depth study of the UK measuring national wellbeing programme, with which both authors continue to be involved.
Explores all the main approaches to wellbeing, such as developments to the national economic accounts, Sen's capabilities approach and the concept and measurement of sustainable development.
Offers a historical perspective on progress and examines current developments in this field.
The authors note that it is still early days in the practical application of these wider measures by government and business, but that use should be the main factor driving their development and production. Aspirations are high and there is much to be gained by the use of such wider measures of national wellbeing, progress and development around the world.
The Wellbeing of Nations is aimed at statisticians, economists, social researchers and policy makers in government, including national and international statistics offices. Academics in development studies, economics, environmental studies, positive psychology, health research, anthropology, political studies and sociology will also benefit from this book.
Contents
List of Tables and Figures viii
Preface ix
1 What is national wellbeing and why measure it? 1
1.1 Motivation: Why measure wellbeing? 3
1.2 What is individual wellbeing? 8
1.3 Aspects of individual wellbeing 11
1.4 How to measure individual wellbeing? 16
1.4.1 Basics of measurement 16
1.4.2 What is measured matters 18
1.5 Properties of measurements 21
1.5.1 Validity 21
1.5.2 Reliability 22
1.6 Objective or subjective? 22
1.7 Combining multiple aspects 23
1.8 What is national wellbeing? 26
1.9 And how to measure national wellbeing? 27
1.10 Structure of the book 30
References 31
2 A short history of national wellbeing and its measurement 35
2.1 The good society and philosophies of the role of government, from ancient times 36
2.2 Utilitarianism 39
2.3 The American constitution 41
2.4 Official statistics - statistics about the state and about the state of society 42
2.5 National accounts and GDP 44
2.6 More to life than GDP 51
2.7 Social indicator movement and measuring quality of life 53
2.8 Health and wellbeing 56
2.9 Rise of measurement of psychological wellbeing (life satisfaction, happiness, worthwhile lives) 58
2.10 The Easterlin paradox 61
2.11 Taking note of the change in the quality of the goods and services we use 62
2.12 Capability approach to quality of life (Sen) and the human development index 63
2.13 Social capital and public value 65
2.14 Limits to growth and sustainable development indicators 67
2.14.1 Sustainable development indicators 69
2.14.2 Green growth indicators 72
2.14.3 Natural resource accounting 73
2.15 Commentary 75
References 77
3 Recent developments: Towards economic, social and environmental accounts 83
3.1 Mismeasuring our lives: The report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress 85
3.2 Replacing the Millennium Development Goals 90
3.3 A new global movement? 93
3.4 Commentary 104
References 110
4 Measuring individual wellbeing 115
4.1 On quantification 119
4.2 Single measures of wellbeing 123
4.3 Combining aspects of wellbeing 125
4.3.1 Causes, effects, and correlates 126
4.3.2 Subjective components of wellbeing 127
4.3.3 Weighted sums 129
4.4 Components of individual wellbeing 132
4.5 The frailty of memory 137
4.6 The devil's in the details 138
4.7 Conclusion 142
References 143
5 Preparing to measure national wellbeing 146
5.1 Towards a user requirement for measures of national wellbeing and progress 147
5.2 Towards a framework to measure the progress of societies 152
5.3 Constructing measures of progress and national wellbeing: Identifying and meeting user requirements 160
5.4 Commentary 166
References 168
6 How to measure national wellbeing? 171
6.1 Drawing on the national economic accounts 172
6.2 Extending the national accounts 181
6.2.1 Consider income and consumption jointly with wealth 183
6.2.2 Give more prominence to the distribution of income, consumption and wealth 185
6.2.3 Broaden income measures to nonmarket activities 187
6.3 Indicator sets describing social and environmental conditions relating to wellbeing 190
6.3.1 Improve measures of people's health, education, personal activities and environmental conditions 191
6.3.2 Quality-of-life indicators in all the dimensions covered should assess inequalities in a comprehensive way 193
6.3.3 Surveys should be designed to assess the links between various quality-of-life domains for each person, and this information should be used when designing policies in various fields 193
6.3.4 Statistical offices should provide the information needed to aggregate across quality-of-life dimensions, allowing the construction of different indexes 194
6.3.5 Sustainability assessment requires a well-identified dashboard of indicators 199
6.3.6 The environmental aspects of sustainability deserve a separate follow-up based on a well-chosen set of physical indicators 203
6.4 Survey-based data on subjective wellbeing 204
6.5 Developments in measuring national wellbeing and progress around the world 205
6.6 Important issues in the measurement of national wellbeing 209
References 212
7 Wellbeing policy and measurement in the UK 217
References 233
8 Conclusions 236
8.1 Progress 236
8.2 Measuring wellbeing 241
8.3 New technologies, new data? 244
8.4 Beyond the economy 245
8.5 The future 249
References 250
Appendix: Sources of methods and measures of wellbeing and progress 253
Further reading 269
Index 271
