Measuring Well-being

Measuring Well-being
Author: Matthew T. Lee
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 625
Release: 2021
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0197512534

"This edited volume explores conceptual and practical challenges in measuring well-being. Given the bewildering array of measures available, and ambiguity regarding when and how to measure particular aspects of well-being, knowledge in the field can be difficult to reconcile. Representing numerous disciplines including psychology, economics, sociology, statistics, public health, theology, and philosophy, contributors consider the philosophical and theological traditions on happiness, well-being and the good life, as well as recent empirical research on well-being and its measurement. Leveraging insights across diverse disciplines, they explore how research can help make sense of the proliferation of different measures and concepts, while also proposing new ideas to advance the field. Some chapters engage with philosophical and theological traditions on happiness, well-being and the good life, some evaluate recent empirical research on well-being and consider how measurement requirements may vary by context and purpose, and others more explicitly integrate methods and synthesize knowledge across disciplines. The final section offers a lively dialogue about a set of recommendations for measuring well-being derived from a consensus of the contributors. Collectively, the chapters provide insight into how scholars might engage beyond disciplinary boundaries and contribute to advances in conceptualizing and measuring well-being. Bringing together work from across often siloed disciplines will provide important insight regarding how people can transcend unhealthy patterns of both individual behavior and social organization in order to pursue the good life and build better societies"--

Subjective Well-Being

Subjective Well-Being
Author: Panel on Measuring Subjective Well-Being in a Policy-Relevant Framework
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 148
Release: 2014-01-01
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0309294479

Subjective well-being refers to how people experience and evaluate their lives and specific domains and activities in their lives. This information has already proven valuable to researchers, who have produced insights about the emotional states and experiences of people belonging to different groups, engaged in different activities, at different points in the life course, and involved in different family and community structures. Research has also revealed relationships between people's self-reported, subjectively assessed states and their behavior and decisions. Research on subjective well-being has been ongoing for decades, providing new information about the human condition. During the past decade, interest in the topic among policy makers, national statistical offices, academic researchers, the media, and the public has increased markedly because of its potential for shedding light on the economic, social, and health conditions of populations and for informing policy decisions across these domains. Subjective Well-Being: Measuring Happiness, Suffering, and Other Dimensions of Experience explores the use of this measure in population surveys. This report reviews the current state of research and evaluates methods for the measurement. In this report, a range of potential experienced well-being data applications are cited, from cost-benefit studies of health care delivery to commuting and transportation planning, environmental valuation, and outdoor recreation resource monitoring, and even to assessment of end-of-life treatment options. Subjective Well-Being finds that, whether used to assess the consequence of people's situations and policies that might affect them or to explore determinants of outcomes, contextual and covariate data are needed alongside the subjective well-being measures. This report offers guidance about adopting subjective well-being measures in official government surveys to inform social and economic policies and considers whether research has advanced to a point which warrants the federal government collecting data that allow aspects of the population's subjective well-being to be tracked and associated with changing conditions.

Measuring Wellbeing: Towards Sustainability?

Measuring Wellbeing: Towards Sustainability?
Author: Karen Scott
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2012-07-26
Genre: Science
ISBN: 113628754X

Improving wellbeing and sustainability are central goals of government, but are they in conflict? This engaging new book reviews that question and its implications for public policy through a focus on indicators. It highlights tensions on the one hand between various constructs of wellbeing and sustainable development, and on the other between current individual and societal notions of wellbeing. It recommends a clearer conceptual framework for policy makers regarding different wellbeing constructs which would facilitate more transparent discussions. Arguing against a win-win scenario of wellbeing and sustainability, it advocates an approach based on recognising and valuing conflicting views where notions of participation and power are central to discussions. Measuring Wellbeing is divided into two parts. The first part provides a critical review of the field, drawing widely on international research but contextualised within recent UK wellbeing policy discourses. The second part embeds the theory in a case study based on the author’s own experience of trying to develop quality of life indicators within a local authority, against the backdrop of increasing national policy interest in measuring ‘happiness’. This accessible and informative book, covering uniquely both practice and theory, will be of great appeal to students, academics and policy makers interested in wellbeing, sustainable development, indicators, public policy, community participation, power and discourse.

Measuring Health and Wellbeing

Measuring Health and Wellbeing
Author: John Harvey
Publisher: Learning Matters
Total Pages: 154
Release: 2013-02-12
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0857254340

Building on the core competences for public health, this book focuses on key areas of surveillance and assessment of the population′s health and wellbeing. It is concerned with assessing and describing the needs, health and wellbeing of specific populations, communities and groups. The authors also look at how to monitor these aspects of public health and explore qualitative and quantitative methods for measuring, analysing and interpreting health and wellbeing, needs and outcomes. Case studies, activities and research summaries are used throughout the book to help the reader understand how to apply theory to practice.

OECD Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-being

OECD Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-being
Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2013-03-20
Genre:
ISBN: 9264191658

These Guidelines represent the first attempt to provide international recommendations on collecting, publishing, and analysing subjective well-being data.

Measuring Wellbeing

Measuring Wellbeing
Author: Karen Scott
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2012
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1849714630

This book offers new insights into the relationship between wellbeing and sustainable development through a focus on local indicators

Measuring and Promoting Wellbeing

Measuring and Promoting Wellbeing
Author: Dennis Trewin
Publisher: ANU E Press
Total Pages: 797
Release: 2014-04-09
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1925021327

Australia continues to be at the forefront of international work on measuring and promoting wellbeing, Ian Castles being a significant contributor over the last forty years as an official and academic. This book combines a selection of Castles’ important work with contemporary research from a range of contributors. The material is in four parts: 1. The role of economics in defining and promoting wellbeing 2. Measuring real income and wellbeing 3. Measuring inequality 4. Climate change and the limits to growth. The issues canvassed are both long-standing and current. Does economic growth contribute to wellbeing? How different is income to wellbeing? How do we measure societal wellbeing and take its distribution into account? The book will be of value to all those looking to informed debate on global challenges such as reducing poverty, sustaining the environment and advancing the quality of life, including politicians, commentators, officials and academics.

Measuring Wellbeing

Measuring Wellbeing
Author: Giovanni Vecchi
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 673
Release: 2017-01-13
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0190218843

In 150 years Italy transformed itself from a poor and backward country into one where living standards are among the highest in the world. In Measuring Wellbeing, Giovanni Vecchi provides an innovative analysis of this change by drawing on family accounts that provide engaging insights into life and are the "micro" data that create the foundations for the "macro" picture of variations and fluctuations in the development of Italy. Vecchi provides a nuanced account of the changes. He emphasizes that the concept of wellbeing is multidimensional and must include non-monetary aspects of life: nutrition, health and education, as well as less tangible elements such as freedom or the possibility to exercise one's political rights. The book deals with this polyhedral nature of wellbeing. Among the insights are that Italians succeeded in combining growth with equity, but that the gap between the North and South did not narrow; the while longevity has increased, education has not improved as much as it could have; and that for close to three decades, Italy's virtuous path has come to a halt: the wellbeing of the Italian people is at the crossroads between progress and decline. Measuring Wellbeing engagingly combines a unique dataset and an innovative statistical method that can be adapted to other countries.

Measuring the Subjective Well-Being of Nations

Measuring the Subjective Well-Being of Nations
Author: Alan B. Krueger
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2009-11-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0226454576

Surely everyone wants to know the source of happiness, and indeed, economists and social scientists are increasingly interested in the study and effects of subjective well-being. Putting forward a rigorous method and new data for measuring, comparing, and analyzing the relationship between well-being and the way people spend their time—across countries, demographic groups, and history—this book will help set the agenda of research and policy for decades to come. It does so by introducing a system of National Time Accounting (NTA), which relies on individuals’ own evaluations of their emotional experiences during various uses of time, a distinct departure from subjective measures such as life satisfaction and objective measures such as the Gross Domestic Product. A distinguished group of contributors here summarize the NTA method, provide illustrative findings about well-being based on NTA, and subject the approach to a rigorous conceptual and methodological critique that advances the field. As subjective well-being is topical in economics, psychology, and other social sciences, this book should have cross-disciplinary appeal.

Measuring Happiness

Measuring Happiness
Author: Joachim Weimann
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2015-02-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0262028441

Can money buy happiness? Is income a reliable measure for life satisfaction? In this book, three economists explore the happiness-prosperity connection, investigating how economists measure life satisfaction and well-being. --