measuring well-being and progress - oecd.org well-being and progress brochure.pdf · measures...

Measuring well-being and progress

For many years, the OECD has been looking beyond the functioning of the economic system to consider the diverse experiences and living conditions of people and households. Measuring the well-being of people and the progress of societies is a key priority for the OECD, whose overarching mission is to promote “Better Policies for Better Lives”. Since the launch of the OECD Better Life Initiative in 2011, various research projects and many national and international initiatives have demonstrated the strong global interest in indicators and analysis that go beyond GDP. This brochure presents the OECD Better Life Initiative and its related projects on measuring well-being.

The OECD Better Life Initiative (www.oecd.org/betterlifeinitiative) focuses on developing statistics that can capture aspects of life that matter to people and that, taken together, help to shape the quality of their lives.

Two important elements of this initiative are the How’s Life? report and the Better Life Index. How’s Life?, published every two years, provides a comprehensive picture of well-being in OECD countries and other major economies, by looking at people’s material conditions and quality of life across the population. The Better Life Index is an interactive web-based tool that allows citizens to compare well-being across OECD countries and beyond.

The OECD Better Life Initiative also encompasses a range of research and methodological projects on measuring well-being. This includes developing measurement guidelines (e.g. on income, consumption and wealth; subjective well-being; trust; and the quality of the work environment), and building the evidence base on the distribution of well-being outcomes (e.g. income, wealth, and health inequalities).

Measuring Progress of Societies, […] has become fundamental for development and policy-making in general. Improving the quality of our lives should be the ultimate target of public policies.

Angel Gurría, OECD Secretary-General

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2OECD Better Life Initiative

Understanding the issues

Why measure well-being and progress?

Recent years have seen an increasing awareness that macro economic statistics, such as GDP do not provide policy-makers with a sufficiently detailed picture of the living conditions that ordinary people experience. While this awareness was already evident during the years of strong growth and “good” economic performance that characterised the early part of the 2000s, the financial and economic crisis has further amplified this sentiment – because indicators like GDP alone cannot show the full human costs of the crisis. Developing statistics that can better reflect the wide range of factors that matter to people and their well-being is of crucial importance for the credibility and accountability of public policies and for the very functioning of democracy.

What is progress?

Progress is about improvements in the well-being of people and households. The OECD Framework for Measuring Well-Being and Progress (see illustration below) is based on the recommendations made in 2009 by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress – also known as the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission – to which the OECD contributed significantly. It also reflects earlier OECD work and various national initiatives in the field. This framework is built around three distinct domains: material conditions, quality of life and sustainability. Each of these domains includes a number of relevant dimensions. While the well-being of each person can be described in terms of a number of separate outcomes, the assessment of conditions for society as a whole requires considering both population averages and inequalities, since there can be large differences in outcomes between groups within countries.

The Measuring Well-Being and Progress website: www.oecd.org/measuringprogress

OECD Framework for Measuring Well-Being and Progress

CURRENT WELL-BEING

RESOURCES FOR FUTURE WELL-BEINGSustaining well-being over time through preserving:


Adaptingthe framework for new uses:

Well-being for development; How’s Life in Your Region?;

How Was Life?;Business Impacts on

Well-being

ReportingHow’s Life? seriesmeasures well-being

in 11 dimensions;Measuring Distance to the

SDG Targets

Communicatingwith citizens and the media:

Better Life Index www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org

Developingbetter metrics for those

aspects of people’s life that are missing (e.g. life satisfaction, wealth

distribution, trust, quality of jobs, governance)

Buildingwell-being measures into OECD

country reviews: OECD Economic Surveys;

Multi-dimensional Country Reviews

The Better Life Initiative at a glance

Understandingthe distribution of well-

being in society:Health inequalities;

Compare your income ;Income Distribution Database;

Wealth Distribution Database


www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org

How’s Life?

How’s Life? Measuring Well-Being (www.oecd.org/howslife), a report released every two years, is prepared under the oversight of the OECD Committee on Statistics and Statistical Policy. It paints a comprehensive picture of well-being in OECD countries and other major economies, by looking at people’s material conditions and quality of life in eleven dimensions, i.e. income and wealth; jobs and earnings; housing conditions; health status; work-life balance; education and skills; social connections; civic engagement and governance; environmental quality; personal security; and subjective well-being. The OECD Framework for analysing well-being and societal progress is shown on page 2. Since the fi rst edition has been published in 2011, the report has had a signifi cant infl uence on the ways in which well-being is measured across the world and on the public debate on what matters to citizens.

The 2017 edition of How’s Life? charts the promises and pitfalls for people’s well-being in 35 OECD countries and 6 partner countries. It presents the latest evidence from 50 indicators, covering both current well-being outcomes and resources for future well-being, and including changes since 2005. During this period there have been signs of progress, but gains in some aspects of life have been offset by losses elsewhere. This fourth edition highlights the many faces of inequality, showing that gaps in people’s achievements and opportunities extend right across the different dimensions of well-being. It exposes divisions according to age, gender, and education, and reveals pockets of inequality in all OECD countries. It also brings to light the many well-being disadvantages that migrants face in adapting to life abroad. Additionally, the report examines governance as seen from the citizen’s perspective, revealing gaps between public institutions and the people they serve. Finally, it provides a country-by-country perspective, pinpointing strengths, challenges and changes in well-being over time in 41 country profi les.



The Better Life Index

The Better Life Index (www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org), released for the fi rst time in May 2011, has been designed to involve people in the discussion on well-being and, through this process, to learn what matters the most to them. This interactive web-based tool enables citizens to compare well-being across countries by giving their own weight to each of the eleven dimensions explored in the OECD well-being framework. The web application allows users to see how countries’ average achievements compare, based on the user’s own personal priorities across the different dimensions of well-being, and enables users to share their index and choices of weights with other people in their networks, as well as with the OECD.

Since its launch in May 2011, the Better Life Index has attracted over 8.5 million visitors from just about every country on the planet and has received over 22.5 million million page views. Nearly 130,000 indexes have been shared with the OECD, generating information on the importance that users attach to various life dimensions and on how these preferences differ across countries and the demographic characteristics of users. The feedback gathered from these users shows that, on average, life satisfaction, health status and education are the dimensions deemed as most important, although all dimensions are found to resonate with people’s sense of well-being.

The Better Life Index is regularly updated and enhanced. Since its creation, the tool has been enriched with additional indicators and key measures on inequalities and gender differences. The Better Life Index is currently available in English, French, Italian, Russian, Spanish, German and Portuguese. The tool is also available on portable devices (tablets and smartphones) and can be embedded in website and blogs.

Your Better Life Index

11 topics to define well being

Your Better Life Index is an interactive tool that allows citizens to measure and compare well-being across countries, based on the topics the OECD has identified

as essential in the areas of material living conditions and quality of life.

Each flower represents a country

5 circlesto setyour priorities













Each � ower represents a country and each petal represents a topic

Rate the topics according to their importance to you



How’s Life? series

Publications

How’s Life? 2017 - Measuring Well-beingwww.oecd.org/std/how-s-life-23089679.htm

Measuring and Assessing Well-being in Israelwww.oecd.org/std/measuring-and-assessing-well-being-in-israel-9789264246034-en.htm

How Was Life? - Global Well-being since 1820www.oecd.org/std/how-was-life-9789264214262-en.htm

How’s Life in Your Region? - Measuring Regional and Local Well-being for Policy Makingwww.oecd.org/gov/how-s-life-in-your-region-9789264217416-en.htm



Other key publications

OECD Guidelines on Measuring Trustwww.oecd.org/std/oecd-guidelines-on-measuring-trust-9789264278219-en.htm

OECD Guidelines on Measuring the Quality of the Working Environmentwww.oecd.org/std/oecd-guidelines-on-measuring-the-quality-of-the-working-environment-9789264278240-en.htm

OECD Guidelines for Micro Statistics on Household Wealthwww.oecd.org/statistics/guidelines-for-micro-statistics-on-household-wealth.htm

OECD Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-beingwww.oecd.org/statistics/guidelines-on-measuring-subjective-well-being.htm

OECD Framework for Statistics on the Distribution of Household Income, Consumption and Wealthwww.oecd.org/statistics/icw-framework.htm

OECD Statistics DirectorateParis, November 2017

www.oecd.org/[email protected]

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