Novel method uses new benchmarks to measure well being.
At the heart of any countrys progress lies the well-being of its people. How to accurately and effectively determine well-being is the subject of a recent study at the University of Cambridge.
‘Flourishing across Europe’ scored 23 European countries across 10 distinct elements that define well-being. The study is significant as it employs an objective, multi-dimensional technique that highlights particular areas of strength or weakness for each nation.
The study’s lead author, Professor Felicia Huppert of the University of Cambridge, said: “The key message is that the UK government, like many around the world, now recognises that economic measures such as GDP do not provide adequate information about a society’s progress. Governments need also to evaluate how citizens experience their lives, that is to measure their well-being.”
The study, by Professor Huppert, Director of the Well-being Institute at Cambridge and technical advisor for the ‘Measuring National Well-being’ initiative, and PhD student Timothy So, first set out to identify well-being at the opposite end of the spectrum to the common mental disorders: depression and anxiety. By examining internationally agreed criteria for depression and anxiety, and defining the opposite of each symptom, the study sought to identify the features of positive well-being that set the operational definition of ‘Flourishing’.
The ten features that define Flourishing are: competence, emotional stability, engagement, meaning, optimism, positive emotion, positive relationships, resilience, self-esteem and vitality. The definition of Flourishing was then applied to 43,000 respondents from 23 countries which participated in the European Social Survey in 2006/2007.
Within the three regions of Europe, the study shows remarkable constancy. Nordic countries are ranked first and Eastern European countries third on all but one feature – vitality (or energy) where Eastern European countries have the highest ranking. Southern/Western European countries are ranked second in all 10 features.
At the country level, some nations showed consistently high (Denmark) or low (Portugal, Slovakia) rankings, while others showed very marked variability in their rankings. The UK was near the middle in overall well-being as well as in almost every feature, leaving plenty of room for improvement.
France had extremely high and low scores. France was highest on engagement but had the lowest result on self-esteem and is in the bottom two or three on optimism and positive relationships. These were surprising results, given the country’s wealth, short working hours, early retirement age and commitment to leisure activities. Spain and Bulgaria also showed scores that were extremely high in one area, and very low in others.
The countries with the highest well-being tended to be those with greater wealth, low income inequality, high employment and high education. This was reflected in the Nordic countries that performed generally well in the study. At the opposite end of the scale are Eastern European countries that were formerly under a Communist regime. These countries are less wealthy, have high income inequality, little welfare provision, more perceived corruption and poor governance.
Implications of this study are that a multi-dimensional approach can provide a deeper understanding of well-being than single indicator approaches, such as measures of happiness or life satisfaction, which have been widely used to date. In the same way that improving the GDP involves identifying the specific components of the GDP, which need adjusting, so too improving well-being requires identifying the specific components of well-being which could benefit from policy interventions.
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