25 February 2011
Well-being then and now
Laura Stoll
Assistant Researcher, Centre for Well-being
Since the announcement last November that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) are going to start measuring well-being there has been a shared sense that this is a great leap forward towards redefining progress – at the recent All Party Parliamentary Group on Wellbeing Economics, the Centre for Well-being were congratulated by many for all its work over the last 10 years. But we sometimes forget that this has been something that people have been trying to achieve for a very long time.
As I was indulging in some exploratory research for our project on the history of well-being – looking at how different societies from all over the world have thought about and experienced well-being over the last couple of hundred years – I came across one example closer to home. The LSE have digitalised some of their collection of pamphlets and in amongst them I found an 1885 pamphlet for the Progressive Association.
The Progressive Association, “for the Promotion of Intellectual and Social Well-being” was founded on the premise “that man may by his honest efforts promote the highest good and happiness of the human race on earth” and its ‘Sunday Meetings’ were a mix of talks, readings and music, and presumably the ‘free discussion’ was a chance for people to get to know others who also believed in the same ideals. There seems to be something gloriously civilised about following a talk on disestablishment or revolution with a piano and violin duet.
Yesterday as the excitement continued with the ONS announcing the four subjective well-being questions they will ask 200,000 people in the Integrated Household Survey from April 2011 it is worth remembering that although much has changed: revolutions have been and gone, democracy has spread to much of the globe and ‘Congregational Singing’ may no longer be the draw it once was, it still remains true that “there is quite enough force in the world, if properly applied, to make it far happier and better”.
The ONS debate on measuring national well-being continues. Join in at the ONS website.
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Well-being then and now
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Comments
25 Feb 2011 at 23:11
Kevin Mayes
Well I just followed the Integrated Household Survey link above and I have to say the "four questions" might as well have been written by a fourteen year old for a school project- I do understand from later on in the ONS press release that a smaller number (1000) will be surveyed in more detail but these four questions are trivia. I once heard a psychologist say that happiness is an unbalanced state of mind. Wellbeing is best defined in terms of the more stable senses of security, satisfaction and contentment rather than the more ephemoral feelings such as happiness, sadness, anxiety. these are secondary emotions that are in part derivative from the presence or lack of the previous mentioned stable senses, but are also in part determined by an individuals psychological make-up. I consider well-being best reflected by a persons sense of security, meaningfulness-of-life, social, and civic engagement. Of course these factors would have different weightings for different individuals, that would be an item for further research. To-whit, I have come up with my own "four questions" as follows: On a scale of nought to ten 1. How certain are you that, for the forseeable future, you will be able to secure an income sufficient to fulfil your financial obligations and maintain an acceptable standard of living? (0=completely uncertain, 5=obligations only, 10=completely certain of an acceptable s.o.l.) 2. How trivial or meaningful do you consider the sum of your worklife, recreational activity, hobbies, volountary work, etc. to be? (0=completely trivial, 10= completely meaningful) 3. To what extent do you feel that you have meaningful social engagement with your close and extended family mambers, friends, neighbours and colleagues in work and leisure activities? ( 0= not at all, 10= fully engaged) 4. To what extent do you believe that national and local politicians and public servants in general are willing and able to address issues that you consider to be important to you personally? (0= do not believe at all, 10= believe completely) Of course these could be subdivided further if you actually wanted an indication of what policies to pursue to enhance well-being, rather than just to measure it.27 Feb 2011 at 20:01
Anonymous
Subjective knowledge and subjective wellbeing has been under study for, arguably, nearly 150 years. There is a huge body of theoretical and (qualitative) empirical knowledge out there which could be used to guide policy away from GDP to genuine wellbeing - qualitative sociology. We do not need a new 'economics of happiness', rather, a proper policy level integration of quantitative economics and theoretically informed qualitative sociology. There is no reason, nor in my opinion, time, to reinvent the wheel.