Wellbeing

Layard, Richard; Neve, Jan‐Emmanuel De

doi:10.1017/9781009298957

Cited by 16 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 257 publications

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“…It corresponds more with the story humans tell about their lives than some notion of "life as it was experienced at the time". Lastly, although arguments based on logic (Layard and De Neve, 2023), joint language use (Kapteyn, 1977), test-retest reliabilities (Krueger and Schkade, 2008;Prati and Senik, 2022), cross-rater validities (Sandvik et al, 1993;Schneider and Schimmack, 2009), or different modelling approaches (Frey and Stutzer, 2000;Frijters and Ferrer-i-Carbonell, 2004) suggest that respondents treat life-satisfaction responses as cardinal, there exists no (known) method for being certain about cardinality in the absence of a measure one does consider infallible.…”

Section: Definition and Propertiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The WELLBY: a new measure of social value and progress

Frijters,

Krekel,

Sanchis

et al. 2024

Humanit Soc Sci Commun

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We introduce the WELLBY, a new measure of social value and progress, which can contribute to the assessment of progress towards the wellbeing of the economy and steer towards activities with the most wellbeing per financial resources invested. After providing a short rationale for the WELLBY, we give a definition and an overview of its properties. We then show how WELLBYs can help decision-makers with ex-ante policy appraisals and deliver a practical example of a youth traineeship programme. We also discuss how coefficients from ex-post wellbeing policy evaluations are now being collected as part of social value banks around the world, feeding into future appraisals. Finally, we illustrate how WELLBYs can be used to measure social progress overall, going beyond GDP.

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Section: Definition and Propertiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The WELLBY: a new measure of social value and progress

Frijters,

Krekel,

Sanchis

et al. 2024

Humanit Soc Sci Commun

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“…Work is a major part of the lives of people of working age across the world. It has been estimated that people spend between 30 and 50% of their waking hours at work and the strong relationship between job satisfaction and overall wellbeing is well known (Layard & de Neve, 2023a, Rohenkohl & Clarke 2023.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Automation risk and subjective wellbeing in the UK

Zheng,

Rohenkohl,

Barahona

et al. 2024

Preprint

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The personal well-being of workers may be influenced by the risk of job automation brought about by technological innovation. Here we use data from the Understanding Society survey in the UK and a fixed-effects model to examine associations between working in a highly automatable job and life and job satisfaction. We find that employees in highly automatable jobs report significantly lower job satisfaction, a result that holds across demographic groups categorised by gender, age and education, with higher negative association among men, higher degree holders and younger workers. On the other hand, life satisfaction of workers is not generally associated with the risk of job automation, a result that persists among groups disaggregated by gender and education, but with age differences, since the life satisfaction of workers aged 30 to 49 is negatively associated with job automation risk. Our analysis also reveals differences in these associations across UK industries and regions.

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An Outline of Existing Monitoring Systems

Joffe

2024

Wellbeing in Politics and Policy

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Economic performance has long been routinely measured by GDP. Although it is a good measure of activity, it is generally agreed to be a poor measure of economic success. The reasons are that it omits domestic labour and other unpaid work, it includes a great deal of economic activity that does not contribute directly to economic welfare (“defensive expenditures”) and may be harmful to individuals, society or the environment, and it is insensitive to inequality. There are also several other, more technical, problems. More fundamentally, purchases that merely improve one person’s economic standing compared to others make no contribution to aggregate wellbeing yet are counted in GDP. And macro-evidence shows that in rich societies, increasing prosperity is subject to diminishing returns—as GDP per person rises ever higher, the amount of additional benefit greatly decreases, possibly even to zero.There have been various responses to this situation. One is to start from GDP, and attempt to remedy its defects by adding some items (e.g. domestic labour) and subtracting others (e.g. the cost of deterioration of nature). Various methods have been devised to adjust for inequality. And there have been many attempts to broaden the range of included items to form composite indices—the basic motivation being that economic success is only one criterion of societal benefit (this is not the same thing as providing a measure of economic success). Some useful ideas have emerged from this work, but there are no clear criteria for deciding which items should be included. Furthermore, the underlying notion is that monitoring something desirable will in itself lead to improvement—whereas in reality, effective policy needs to be based on the determinants of desirable outcomes that can be altered. And it is difficult to envisage such composite indices displacing GDP in the development of major policies. However, a different approach to “beyond GDP”, the OECD/EU initiative for an “economy of wellbeing”, has much in common with the emphasis on basic needs proposed in this book.A great deal of progress has been made in assessing household disposable income, in valuing public services that are free at the point of delivery and in evaluating “free” goods and new products. The valuation of the various types of assets has also advanced considerably, including the UN System of Environmental Economic Accounting and the Inclusive Wealth Index. Particular attention is needed in relation to critical resources that are non-substitutable, including drinkable water, fertile soil, and pollinators including bees.Subjective wellbeing has been the focus of much development activity. It is now widely monitored, and substantial research is being undertaken on its determinants. However, many methodological and conceptual problems remain, and its causal dependence on economic factors may be too weak to justify its sole use in evaluating the success of an economy. Health status needs to be considered alongside happiness as a primary criterion. Its social determinants are extremely well established, and account for a greater proportion of health outcomes than either healthcare or lifestyle choices. To a large extent, these determinants correspond to the satisfaction of basic needs as emphasised in this book, and health is responsive to interventions across the corresponding range of policy areas. The success of an economy in promoting a good quality of life for everyone can therefore be evaluated by monitoring of the satisfaction of basic needs, as determinants of health and happiness.

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Wellbeing

Cited by 16 publications

References 257 publications

The WELLBY: a new measure of social value and progress

The WELLBY: a new measure of social value and progress

Automation risk and subjective wellbeing in the UK

An Outline of Existing Monitoring Systems

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