Measuring well-being and progress
For more than 10 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
some of the projects on
“Going Beyond GDP”
currently being carried
out by the OECD Statistics
Directorate.
“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
The OECD Better Life Initiative: Measuring
well-being and progress
The OECD Better Life Initiative (www.oecd.org/betterlifeinitiative), launched
in May 2011 on the occasion of the OECD’s 50th Anniversary, 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.
On-going research on measuring well-being
and progress
The OECD Better Life Initiative also encompasses a range of research and
methodological projects on measuring well-being. This work can be grouped
under the three conceptual pillars of:
» Material conditions
» Quality of life
» Sustainability
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
The two main pillars of the OECD Better Life Initiative are
t h e H o w ’s L i f e ? r e p o r t a n d Yo u r B e t t e r L i f e I n d e x
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.
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 4. In the two years since the first edition was published, the report had a
significant influence on the ways in which well-being is measured across the world
and on the public debate on what matters to citizens. The publication of this report responds to a demand
from citizens, analysts and policy makers for better and more comparable information on people’s well-being
and societal progress.
The second edition of How’s Life? was released in November 2013. This edition provides an update on the
most important aspects that shape people’s lives and well-being. In addition, the report contains in-depth
studies of four key cross-cutting issues. First, this report analyses how well-being has changed during the
global economic and financial crisis: even though some effects of the crisis may become visible only in the
long-term, the report finds that the Great Recession has had serious implications for both the economic
and non-economic well-being of households. Secondly, the report looks at gender differences in well-being,
showing that the traditional gender gap in favour of men has reduced but has not disappeared; it also finds
that women and men do well in different areas of well-being and that they are increasingly sharing tasks
and roles. Third, the report looks at the quality of employment and well-being in the workplace; it presents
evidence on the main factors that drive people’s commitment at work and that are key to strengthening
their capacity to cope with demanding jobs. Finally, the report studies the links between current and future
well-being by looking at ways to define and measure the sustainability of well-being over time.
www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org
Measuring Well-Being and Progress
2
Your Better Life Index
11 topics to define well being
The Better Life Index
Each flower represents a country
The Better Life Index (www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org), released for the first time in May 2011, has been
Your Better Life
Index
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
acrosswell
countries
of the eleven dimensions explored in the OECD
11 topics to define
being by giving their own weight to5 each
circles
well-being framework. The web application allows
users
to see how countries’ average achievements
to set
flower
represents
country users to share their index
compare, based on the user’s own personalEach
priorities
in
life, and aenables
your priorities
and choices of weights with other people in their networks, as well as with the OECD.
ter Life Index
As of October 2013, the Better Life Index has attracted over 2.6 million visitors and over 6 million page
views from 184 countries. Over 47,000 users have shared their indexes with the OECD, generating
pics to define well being information on the importance that
5 users
circles attach to various life dimensions and on how these preferences
Your
Better
Life
Index
is
an
interactive
tool that
allows citizens
to measure
differ across countries and the demographic
characteristics
of users.
The feedback gathered from
to set
and
compare
well-being
across
countries,
based
on
the
topics
the
OECD
identified
Each
flower
represents
a
country
your life
priorities
these users shows that, on average,
satisfaction, health status and has
education
are the dimensions
as essential in the areas of material living conditions and quality of life.
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
5 circles indicators and key measures on inequalities and gender differences. It also
Your Better
Lifecovers
Index isthe
an
interactive
tool thatand
allows
citizens
to measure
toRussian
set
now
Federation
Brazil.
The Better
Life Index is currently available in English,
and compare well-being acrossyour
countries,
based
on
the
topics
the
OECD
has identified
priorities
French, Russian and Spanish, with a German version to be added soon. The latest version of the tool
as essential in the areas of material living conditions and quality of life.
is also available on portable devices (tablets and ipads) and can be embedded in website and blogs.
our Better Life Index is an interactive tool that allows citizens to measure
pare well-being across countries, based on the topics the OECD has identified
s essential in the areas of material living conditions and quality of life.
Each flower represents a country
and each petal represents a topic
Rate the topics
according to their
importance to you
gro.xedniefilrettebdceo.www
3
Measuring Well-Being and Progress
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 of the past few years 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 (the so called “household perspective”) 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. Assessing such
progress requires looking not only at the functioning of the economic system but also at the diverse
experiences and living conditions of people. 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 StiglitzSen-Fitoussi Commission – convened by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, 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 aggregating these outcomes for broader communities, and
considering both population averages and inequalities, based on the preferences and value judgments
of each community.
OECD Framework for Measuring Well-Being and Progress
INDIVIDUAL WELL-BEING
[Populations averages and differences across groups]
Quality of Life
Material Conditions
Health status
Income and wealth
Work-life balance
Jobs and earnings
Education and skills
Housing
Social connections
Civic engagement
and governance
GDP
Environmental quality
Regrettables
Personal security
Subjective well-being
SUSTAINABILITY OF WELL-BEING OVER TIME
Requires preserving different types of capital:
Natural capital
Human capital
Economic capital
Social capital
The Measuring Well-Being and Progress website: www.oecd.org/measuringprogress
Measuring Well-Being and Progress
4
Material conditions
new Expert Group is being established with the aim
of streamlining the methodology, of improving the
consistency of the estimates of disparity indicators
for household income and consumption, as well as
of compiling more timely distributional estimates
of levels and changes in income, consumption
and savings consistent with the SNA framework.
Measuring people’s material conditions (i.e. their
command over commodities) requires looking
not only at their income but also at their assets
and consumption, and at how these economic
resources are distributed among different people
and population groups. It also requires focusing on
the economic resources of households rather than
on measures pertaining to the economic system as
a whole (e.g. GDP per capita). The OECD has been
working to improve the measurement of material
conditions through a range of initiatives, some of
which are listed below.
Measurement of services produced by
households for their own use
The measures of household consumption and
production in the SNA exclude most services
produced by households for their own use, such
as care for children and the elderly, cooking,
cleaning, etc. However, these services are
sizeable in all countries and their contribution to
overall consumption may differ significantly over
time and across countries. The OECD pursued
work to estimate the monetary value of these
services, concluding that, whatever the valuation
methodology used, consideration of these services
would lead in all OECD countries to lower gaps
relative to the United States (the country where
household final consumption expenditure per
capita is highest), with this gap narrowing from
70% to 50% in the case of Turkey (see OECD
Statistics Working Paper: “Incorporating Estimates
of Household Production of Non-Market Services
into International Comparisons of Material WellBeing” in “Further reading” section).
Measuring disparities in national accounts
The System of National Accounts (SNA) provides
information on households’ income, consumption
and wealth through a set of accounts pertaining to
the household sector. However, this information only
shows totals for the whole number of households
and average conditions in that population. These
averages will not necessarily reflect the conditions
that the majority of people experience when there
are large inequalities across a population.
To overcome
these
limitations, a joint
OECD‑Eurostat Expert Group on Disparities
in National Accounts (EG DNA) was created in
2010, under the auspices of the OECD Committee
on Statistics, to look at how information on the
distribution of households’ income, consumption
and wealth can be integrated in national accounts,
on the basis of existing surveys and administrative
data. The work of this Expert Group required
comparing the total amounts of household income,
consumption expenditure and wealth holdings in
micro and macro (SNA) sources, and in a second
stage, calculating experimental distributional
statistics consistent with National Accounts totals
(see the forthcoming OECD Statistics Working
Papers: “Distributional Measures Across Household
Groups in a National Accounts Framework” and “A
Cross-country Comparison of Household Income,
Consumption and Wealth between Micro Sources
and National Accounts Aggregates” in “Further
reading” section). As a follow-up of this work, a
Differences between growth in real GDP
per capita and real household income per
capita
In some periods, real GDP growth may
differ substantially from the growth in real
households’ adjusted disposable income
(see Figure 1), the OECD headline measure
of households’ material conditions. There are
a number of factors that might drive these
differences, ranging from terms-of-trade effects,
to differences in the pace of income growth
for households, relative to government and the
corporate sector. The OECD is conducting work to
quantify the importance of these different factors.
The exercise is expected to be completed by early
5
Measuring Well-Being and Progress
Figure 1. Differences between growth of real GDP per capita and growth in
Household real net Adjusted Disposable Income (HADI) in the United States and the Euro area
(2001=100)
United States
Euro area
125
125
120
120
115
115
110
110
105
105
100
100
95
95
90
2001
2002
2003
2004
GDP
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
90
2011
2001
Adj. disposable income
2002
2003
2004
2005
GDP
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
Adj. disposable income
Source: OECD, National Accounts database 2013
2014. A report containing a conceptual framework
for understanding the differences between GDP
and household income as well as an analysis of
empirical results is expected by end 2014. At a
later stage, the OECD will investigate the feasibility
of linking this work with parallel work on income
disparities between categories of households.
An OECD Expert Group was set up in 2011
under the auspices of the OECD Committee on
Statistics to address these limits. Guidelines for
measuring the distribution of household wealth
and for elaborating a framework for the production,
analysis and dissemination of micro-statistics in
these fields were completed in May 2013 (see the
section “Just Published”). Follow-up work is now
being undertaken to gather comparable information
on the distribution of household wealth, based
on existing surveys, with results expected by the
end of 2014.
Integrated analysis of microdata on
household income, expenditures and
wealth
Most of the analysis on the material conditions of
households at the micro level (e.g. the analysis of
poverty, or inequality) is based on income. However,
material conditions and their sustainability over
time also strongly depend on household wealth
and consumption. While there are international
standards for the collection of micro-data on
household income (the OECD contributed to the
recent revision of the international standards on
household income statistics, see Canberra Group
Handbook on Household Income Statistics, Second
Edition 2011) and consumption, no such standards
currently exist in the case of household wealth.
Finally, most household surveys do not collect
information on the joint distribution of income,
consumption and wealth and, even when such
information exists, measures describing the joint
distribution of these resources (e.g. how many
people with adequate income or consumption
have insufficient wealth) are poorly developed.
Measuring Well-Being and Progress
Quality of life
Economic resources, while important, are not all
that matters for people’s well-being. Health status,
human contact, education, jobs, environmental
quality, civic engagement, governance, security
and free time are all fundamental to our quality
of life, as are people’s subjective experiences of
life – including, for example, their feelings and
emotions, and their satisfaction with life as a whole.
Measuring quality of life requires looking at all of
these elements at the same time: economic and
non-economic, subjective and objective, as well
as averages and disparities across population
groups. The OECD Statistics Directorate is working
to improve measures of quality of life through the
initiatives listed below.
6
Measuring job quality
aim of going beyond the unemployment rates when
assessing labour market performance and drawing
out policy recommendations.
Job quality is a strong determinant of people’s life
satisfaction, as people spend a majority of their
daily life at work and work for a significant part of
their life. Job quality covers many different aspects,
ranging from work autonomy to interactions with
colleagues and support from managers, as well as
to more traditional dimensions such as earnings
and job security. What these aspects all have in
common is that they all contribute to people’s
well‑being. The 2013 edition of How’s Life? includes
a preliminary analysis of these issues. Figure 2
illustrates the relationship between job quality
and well-being at work, by showing that European
workers facing stressful working conditions report
more frequently that work impairs their health.
Well-being and inclusive growth
The notion of Inclusive Growth is broadly associated
with the idea that economic growth is important
but not sufficient for welfare improvements, unless
the growth dividends are shared fairly among
individuals and groups. At the same time there
is also increasing recognition that economic
growth may spill over (or not) in other non-material
dimensions, such as health and education. The level
and distribution of both income and the different
non-income dimensions that matter for people are
therefore key aspects of Inclusive Growth.
Due to its multiple facets, job quality is difficult to
measure in ways that are amenable to comparison
over time, across countries and socio-demographic
groups. These measurement difficulties have been
a major obstacle to giving more prominence to job
quality in the policy debate so far. To address these
issues, the OECD is launching a new project on
“Defining, Measuring and Assessing Job Quality
and its Links to Labour Market Performance and
Well-Being”. This project will develop an operational
framework for analysing job quality with the main
The OECD project on Inclusive Growth (“Inclusive
Growth: Concepts, Methods and Work Ahead”)
builds on these ideas and develops a monetary
measure of living standards that accounts for
some selected non-income dimensions of wellbeing and for their distributional aspects. In
practice, the risk of unemployment and health
status are the dimensions considered, along with
household income, for tracking the inclusiveness
of growth. Inclusiveness is captured by looking
Figure 2. Share of workers with poor working conditions and shares of those reporting
a negative impact on health
Unweighted average accross 22 European countries, 2010
Poor working conditions
Proportion saying work impairs health
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
High exposure to
physical health
risk factors
High work
pressure
Low level of work
autonomy
Unclear and Poor management Poor relationships Facing workplace
practices
with colleagues
intimidation
imprecise work
goals
Source: European Survey on Working Conditions, Wave 5, 2010, Eurofound.
7
Measuring Well-Being and Progress
at three (i.e. income, jobs, health) dimensions of
well‑being and by taking into account distributions
of outcomes along these dimensions across
population groups (see Figure 3 for evidence on
how the various dimensions of living standards
considered in the project have evolved over time).
The project represents one way to move beyond
the multi-dimensional well-being framework
described above (where outcomes in different
dimensions are measured in physical units) to
highlight the size of the possible trade-offs between
dimensions, based on estimates of the “shadow
prices” of these elements. While, at this stage,
the inequality term considered only captures the
effect of income disparities, work is planned to
extend the evidence to other types of inequalities
(e.g. health). As a follow-up to this project, time
series of living standards for the OECD countries
will be produced.
measures of subjective well-being: life satisfaction
and the experience of stress. The decline in life
satisfaction in Europe, in the years following 2008
is particularly clear.
Over the last two years, much progress has
been made in developing better measures of
subjective well-being. In March 2013, the OECD
released the OECD Guidelines on Measuring
Subjective Well‑being: the first set of international
guidelines aimed at national statistical offices
and other producers, and users of survey-based
data on subjective well-being. The launch of the
Guidelines has been supported by a workshop
for data producers and users held in New York in
September 2013, with two similar workshops to
follow in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region in 2014.
Further methodological work is underway within
the OECD focusing on the policy uses of data on
people’s affective states (moods and emotions),
and on the impact of culture on how people
respond to subjective well-being questions.
Reports summarising this work will be released
in 2014. Beyond the OECD, there has been rapid
progress in collecting measures of subjective
well‑being in national statistics. Currently 29 out of
34 OECD countries either collect, or are committed
to collecting within the next few years, the primary
Developing guidelines on the measurement
of subjective well-being
Indicators of subjective well-being have the potential
to provide critical information about people’s lives,
shedding light on the relationship between the
objective circumstances in which people live,
and how they experience and evaluate those
circumstances. For example, Figure 4 illustrates the
effect of the financial crisis in Europe based on two
Figure 3. Relative contributions of household income, longevity, unemployment and
income inequality to growth in living standards, 1995-2007
Inequality
Income growth
Longevity
Unemployment
Interaction term
Economic growth
Living standards
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
-0.5
-1
-1.5
-2
DEU
AUT
USA
SWE
PRT
BEL
DNK
CAN
NLD
ITA
FRA
CZE
NZL
GBR
NOR
AUS
HUN
FIN
Source: Boarini, R., J. Cordoba, F. Murtin and M. Ripoll (forthcoming); “Beyond GDP – Is There A Law of One Shadow Price?”;
OECD Statistics Working Papers.
Measuring Well-Being and Progress
8
Figure 4. Subjective well-being and the crisis
OECD (selected countries)
Life satisfaction
OECD Euro area (selected countries)
Life satisfaction
Experienced stress yesterday
50
7.6
7.4
7.0
45
7.2
7.0
40
6.8
40
6.8
35
6.6
35
6.6
6.4
6.4
30
6.2
6.0
30
6.2
6.0
25
5.8
5.6
50
7.4
45
7.2
Experienced stress yesterday
7.6
25
5.8
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
20
5.6
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
20
Note: Life satisfaction is measured on the Cantril ladder (y-axis on the left), stress as the percentage of people who experienced stress yesterday
(on the right). OECD average includes only countries for which a complete time series is available: Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Israel,
Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. Selected countries of the OECD Euro
area are those for which complete time series are available: France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
Source: OECD calculations based on GallupWorld Poll, www.gallup.com/strategicconsulting/en-us/worldpoll.aspx.
to develop metrics that better capture the broad
notions of economic, natural, human and social
capital, and how these evolve over time, through
some of the initiatives listed below.
measure of subjective well-being identified in the
OECD Guidelines.
Sustainability
Measuring natural capital
Assessing the sustainability of well-being over time
is challenging: many of the elements that will affect
future well-being (ranging from changes in tastes,
through to changes in technology) cannot be known
and measured in the present. We can, however,
assess the stocks of resources that help to shape
well-being outcomes, and monitor whether these
resources are being sustained for use by future
generations. The OECD measurement approach
therefore concentrates on four different types of
resources (or “capitals”) that can be measured
today, and that matter for future well‑being,
i.e. economic, natural, human and social capital.
While the stocks of these resources will not be the
only determinants of well-being over time, they offer
a practical means to examine the link between the
present and the future: through the accumulation
or depletion of resource stocks, the choices made
by one generation can influence the opportunities
available to the next. The 2013 edition of How’s Life?
describes the nature of the challenge of measuring
the sustainability of well-being, drawing largely
on the recently released report by the UNECE/
OECD/Eurostat Task Force on the measurement
of sustainable development. The OECD is working
One critical element of a society’s asset base is
provided by its natural resources. The OECD is
developing indicators to monitor countries’ stocks
of natural resources, and has started work on
estimating the monetary value of those natural
resources that are recognised in the System of
National Accounts, in particular land and subsoil
assets. This work also feeds into the development
of the OECD’s Green Growth Indicators (GGI)
and is part of the implementation of the UN new
System of Integrated Environmental and Economic
Accounts (SEEA). Beyond natural resources, data
compilation on SEEA also covers key pollutants.
While having good measures of these stocks and
pollutants is important, it is also critical to know how
these resources and other global environmental
commons are affected by consumption patterns in
countries other than those where production takes
place. A case in point is the climate system, which is
affected by emissions of greenhouse gases due to
various economic activities. Carbon dioxide (CO2)
emissions are typically measured on the basis of
what countries produce even though consumption
9
Measuring Well-Being and Progress
of the associated products may occur elsewhere.
The OECD has created national estimates of
CO2 emissions that are based on consumption,
to supplement more conventional measures of
emissions based on production. This project, which
is also part of the OECD work on Green Growth
Indicators, is based on World Input‑Output tables.
large enough to compensate for population ageing
and related depreciation of human capital.
Measuring social capital
The OECD Statistics Directorate has recently
completed a project, funded by the European
Commission, to review the Measurement of Social
Capital. The final report of the project identifies four
main ways in which the concept of “social capital”
can be conceptualised and measured:
Measuring human capital
The sustainability of well-being over time is related
to changes in all of a country’s resources, including
human capital (i.e. the stock of competencies,
knowledge and skills embodied in people). The
OECD has developed experimental monetary
estimates of the stock of human capital, to
complement existing indicators that are based
on years of schooling or levels of competencies.
Monetary estimates of the stock of human capital
are useful as they can be compared with stocks of
physical capital (e.g. infrastructures, machineries,
etc.), see Figure 5. In addition, these estimates
allow one to assess how changes in this stock of
human capital are affected by a variety of factors,
such as education attainment, labour market
and demographic factors. Monetary estimates of
human capital per capita in volume terms made
by Liu (2011) suggest that it has been declining
in some countries (Israel, Korea, Norway and the
United States), as investment in education is not
»» personal relationships, referring to the
structure of people’s networks (i.e. the people
they know) and the social behaviours that
contribute to establishing and maintaining
those networks, such as spending time with
others, or exchanging news by telephone or
email;
»» social network support, which is a direct
outcome of the nature of people’s personal
relationships, and refers to the resources
– emotional, material, practical, financial,
intellectual or professional - that are available
to each individual through their personal
social networks;
»» civic engagement, which comprises the
activities and networks through which
people contribute to civic and community life,
Figure 5. Stock of human capital relative to GDP and to the stock of physical capital, 2006
Human capital/GDP
Human capital/Physical capital
18.0
6.0
16.0
5.0
14.0
12.0
4.0
10.0
3.0
8.0
6.0
2.0
4.0
1.0
2.0
0.0
Source: OECD, National Accounts database
Information on data for Israel: http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888932315602
Measuring Well-Being and Progress
10
New Zealand
Canada
Australia
Spain
United States
Denmark
France
Netherlands
Italy
Korea
Spain
Poland
Australia
New Zealand
Israel
Denmark
United Kingdom
Norway
Canada
Romania
United States
Italy
France
Netherlands
0.0
such as volunteering, political participation,
group membership and different forms of
community action;
face in producing such statistics, and are meant
to improve the comparability of the currently
available country data. These Guidelines, prepared
by an international expert group working under
the auspices of the OECD (OECD Committee of
Statistics), propose a set of standard concepts,
definitions and classifications for micro wealth
statistics, and cover different phases in the
statistical production process, including sources
and methods for measuring particular forms of
wealth, best practice in using household surveys
or other sources to compile wealth statistics,
the development of analytic measures, the
dissemination of data, and data quality assurance.
» and trust and cooperative norms, referring to
the trust (generalised trust and institutional
trust), social norms and shared values that
underpin societal functioning and enable
mutually beneficial cooperation.
In addition to an extensive review of the literature,
the project has included the compilation of a
‘databank’ of relevant questions from surveys
around the world pertaining to the four aspects
of social capital mentioned above. Surveys were
identified through desktop research and through
enquiries to national statistical offices in OECD
countries. While not exhaustive, the databank
currently consists of around 1300 questions from
over 50 surveys and survey modules. It is intended
as a tool for statisticians and researchers interested
in the measurement of different aspects of social
capital.
Framework for statistics on
the distribution of household
income, consumption, and
wealth
This publication was released
simultaneously with the
companion report, Guidelines for
Micro Statistics on Household
Wealth. The Framework
presents an internationally
agreed framework to support
the joint analysis of micro-level
statistics on household income, consumption
and wealth. In response to the growing demand
for relevant statistics, its aim is to extend the
existing international frameworks for measuring
household income and consumption at the micro
level to include wealth, and describes income,
consumption and wealth as three separate but
interrelated dimensions of people’s economic
well-being. The framework, prepared as well by
an the OECD Committee of Statistics, is intended
to assist national statistical offices and other data
producers to develop data sets at the household
level that are suitable for integrated analysis, and
for facilitating comparisons between countries. The
Framework is widely applicable, with relevance to
countries that are at different stages of statistical
development, that have different statistical
Just published
A serie of publications is released to offer
international guidance on measuring the various
dimensions of people’s well-being both for
economic and non-economic dimensions.
Guidelines for micro statistics
on household wealth
Released on 12 June 2013,
this publication presents an
internationally agreed set
of guidelines for producing
statistics on household wealth
at the micro level, i.e. at the level
of individuals and households.
It fills an important gap in the
existing international guidance on measuring
the various dimensions of people’s economic
well-being. It addresses the common conceptual,
definitional and practical problems that countries
11
Measuring Well-Being and Progress
infrastructures, and that operate in different
economic and social environments.
social, environmental and economic progress.
The core mission of Wikiprogress is to connect
worldwide organisations and individuals wishing
to develop new and smarter measures of progress.
Guidelines on measuring
subjective well-being
Wikigender (www.wikigender.
org) aims to facilitate the
exchange and improve the
knowledge on gender equalityrelated issues around the
world. A particular focus lies
on gathering empirical evidence and identifying
adequate statistics to measure gender equality.
Wikigender aims to highlight the importance
of social institutions such as norms, traditions
and cultural practices that impact on women’s
empowerment.
Conversely to the first two
publications, this report tackles
non-economic dimensions
of well-being to focus on the
measurement of people’s quality
of life. These Guidelines were
released on 20 March 2013
and represent the first attempt
to provide international recommendations on
collecting, publishing, and analysing subjective
well-being data. They provide guidance on
collecting information on people’s evaluations
and experiences of life, as well as on collecting
“eudaimonic” measures of psychological well-being.
The Guidelines also outline why measures of
subjective well-being are relevant for monitoring
and policy making, and why national statistical
agencies have a critical role to play in enhancing
the usefulness of existing measures. They identify
the best approaches for measuring, in a reliable
and consistent way, the various dimensions of
subjective well-being, and provide guidance for
reporting on such measures. The Guidelines also
include a number of prototype survey modules on
subjective well-being that national and international
agencies can use in their surveys.
Wikichild (www.wikichild.org) is
a global network which focuses
on sharing knowledge, news and
developments for the global child
well-being community. The portal
draws on expertise from the
OECD, government and international organisations,
NGOs, and other organisations around the world
concerned with child well-being.
Related networks
A number of thematic and regional networks
have been created in recent months as part of
Wikiprogress, the global platform that serves as
reference point for the ‘progress community’.
Related initiatives and
networks
The Global Progress Research Network
(GPRNet) (www.wikiprogress.org/index.php/
GPRNet) is a multidisciplinary network of individuals
committed to promoting research and debate,
and building knowledge, understanding and
collaboration on societal progress, its meaning,
measurement and development.
Related initiatives
The Wikiprogress Latin America Network
(WPAL) (http://wikiprogressal.blogspot.fr/) is a
research community based on a multidisciplinary
exchange of knowledge and information among
academics, analysts, opinion leaders, and citizens,
Wikiprogress (www.wikiprogress.org) is a global
platform for sharing information in order to evaluate
Measuring Well-Being and Progress
12
on well-being measurement in Latin American
countries and on how measurement can contribute
to public policy.
the HelpAge Network on 1 October 2013 – the UN
International Day of Older Persons. It is the first
global index to rank countries according to the
social and economic well-being of older people.
The Wikiprogress Africa Network (http://
wikiprogressafrica.blogspot.fr/) aims to foster
knowledge sharing on measuring progress in an
African context.
Políticas Públicas para El Buen Vivir y el Bienestar
(www.wikiprogress.org/index.php/Online_
Discussion:_Pol%C3%ADticas_P%C3%BAblicas_
para_El_Buen_Vivir_y_el_Bienestar). This was the
first in a series of ten discussions to be lead by
Wikiprogress Latin America that will culminate
in a publication that will be presented at the
5th OECD World Forum on “Statistics, Knowledge
and Policy” in 2015.
The Wikiprogress European Network on
Measuring Progress (www.wikiprogress.org/
index.php/European_Network_on_Measuring_
Progress) aims to foster the on-going debate on
the measurement of well-being and the progress
of societies among all relevant stakeholders
and strives to facilitate knowledge sharing and
discussion within the European context.
How Should Child Well-being be Measured in
View of Future Development Frameworks? (http://
wikiprogress.org/index.php/Online_Discussion:_
How_should_child_well-being_be_measured_in_
view_of_future_development_frameworks%3F)
This was an opportunity to bring together a diversity
of voices to a discussion highlighting factors which
affect child well-being, as well as the challenges in
measurement and the best practices in the field.
Network products
The Wikiprogress eBrief (http://wikiprogress.
org/index.php/Wikiprogress_eBrief) is a monthly
electronic bulletin goes to over 31,500 subscribers
and provides a snapshot of current news features
and initiatives related to progress and well-being.
The Impact of Discriminatory Social Norms
on Adolescent Girls (www.wikigender.org/
index.php/Online_Discussion:_The_impact_of_
discriminatory_social_norms_on_adolescent_
girls). The outcomes from this discussion
were disseminated to a workshop in London
co-organised by the OECD Development
Centre, the Overseas Development Institute, the
Department for International Development (DFID
UK) and The Girl Hub.
The Online Discussion Series (http://
wikiprogress.org/index.php/Online_Discussions)
provides the community with an opportunity to
exchange ideas, share information, expand their
knowledge base and identify pertinent connections
in the global networks. Discussions are on varied
topics and are usually related to an event, an index
or a publication. Following are a few examples of
the discussions conducted on the platforms in
recent months.
The Wikiprogress ProgBlog (http://
theblogprogress.blogspot.fr/) regularly features
posts on the latest in research, data, initiatives and
developments in progress and well-being globally.
There are currently over 400 blogs on the site.
How Should Older People’s Well-being
be Measured? (www.wikiprogress.org/
index.php/Online_Discussion:How_should_
older_people%E2%80%99s_well-being_be_
measured%3F) This was a timely discussion on
the Global AgeWatch Index that was launched by
13
Measuring Well-Being and Progress
Further reading
»» Fesseau M. and M. Mattonetti (forthcoming),
“Distributional Measures Across Household
Groups in a National Accounts Framework:
Results from an experimental cross-country
exercise on household income, consumption
and saving”, OECD Statistics Working Papers,
OECD Publishing.
»» OECD (2013), How’s Life?: Measuring
Well‑Being, OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.
org/10.1787/9789264201392-en
»» OECD (2013), Guidelines for micro statistics
on household wealth, OECD Publishing. http://
dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264194878-en
»» Fesseau M., F. Wolff and M. Mattonetti
(forthcoming), “A Cross-country Comparison
of Household Income, Consumption and
Wealth between Micro Sources and National
Accounts Aggregates”, OECD Statistics
Working Papers, OECD Publishing.
»» OECD (2013), Framework for statistics
on the distribution of household income,
consumption, and wealth, OECD Publishing.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264194830-en
»» Fleche, S., C. Smith and P. Sorsa (2012),
“Exploring Determinants of Subjective
Well‑Being in OECD Countries: Evidence
from the World Value Survey”, OECD Statistics
Working Papers, 2012/01, OECD Publishing.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/5k9ffc6p1rvb-en
»» OECD (2013), Guidelines on measuring
subjective well‑being, OECD Publishing.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264191655-en
»» OECD (2011) How’s life? Measuring
Well‑Being.
h t t p: //d x .d o i .
org/10.1787/9789264121164-en
»» Boarini R., M. Comola, F. De Keulenaer,
R. Manchin and C. Smith (2012), “What
Makes for a Better Life? The Determinants
of Subjective Well‑Being in OECD
Countries: Evidence from the Gallup World
Poll”, OECD Statistics Working Papers,
2012/03, OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.
org/10.1787/5k9b9ltjm937-en
»» OECD (2011), Towards Green Growth:
Monitoring Progress: OECD Indicators, OECD
Green Growth Studies, OECD Publishing.
w w w.o e c d.o r g /d o c u m e n t /5 6 /0, 374 6
,en_2649_37425_48033720_1_1_1_37425,00
.html
»» Ahmad N. and N. Yamano (2012), “Carbon
­Dioxide Emissions Embodied in Goods and
Services: Domestic Consumption Versus
Production”, OECD Statistics Working Papers,
OECD Publishing (forthcoming).
»» Boarini, R., J. Cordoba, F. Murtin and M. Ripoll
(forthcoming); “Beyond GDP – Is There A Law
of One Shadow Price?”; OECD Statistics
Working Papers.
»» Scrivens, K., Smith, C. (forthcoming); “Four
social interpretations of social capital: an
agenda for measurement”; OECD Statistics
Working Papers.
Measuring Well-Being and Progress
»» Ruiz, N. (2011), “Measuring the Joint
Distribution of Household’s Income,
Consumption and Wealth Using Nested
Atkinson Measures”, OECD Statistics Working
Papers, 2011/05, OECD Publishing. http://
dx.doi.org/10.1787/5k9cr2xxh4nq-en
14
OECD Statistics Working Papers, No.
44, OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.
org/10.1787/5k9cw678dlr0-en
» Liu G. (2011), “Measuring the Stock of
Human Capital for Comparative Analysis: An
Application of the Lifetime Income Approach
to Selected Countries”, OECD Statistics
Working Papers, 2011/06, OECD Publishing.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/5kg3h0jnn9r5-en
» OECD Programme for the International
Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC),
www.oecd.org/piaac
» Ahmad, N. and S. Koh (2011), “Incorporating
Estimates of Household Production of
Non-Market Services into International
Comparisons of Material Well-Being”,
OECD Statistics Working Papers,
2011/07, OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.
org/10.1787/5kg3h0jgk87g-en
» “Developing a Framework for Understanding
and Measuring National Well-Being”,
Alison Spence, Matthew Powell and Abbie
Self, United Kingdom, Office for National
Statistics, July 2011. www.ons.gov.uk/ons/
guide-method/user-guidance/well-being/
publications/developing-a-framework-forunderstanding-and-measuring-national-wellbeing.pdf
» Silva, J., F. de Keulenaer and N. Johnstone
(2012), “Environmental Quality and Life
Satisfaction: Evidence Based on Micro-Data”,
15
Measuring Well-Being and Progress
OECD Statistics Directorate
Paris, November 2013
Download this brochure from www.oecd.org/measuringprogress
For further information contact [email protected]