Raport National Accounts of Well-being (2007), Socjologia, Socjologia Literatura 5
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National Accounts of Well-being:
bringing real wealth onto the balance sheet
nef is an independent think-and-do
tank that inspires and demonstrates
real economic well-being.
We aim to improve quality of life by
promoting innovative solutions that
challenge mainstream thinking on
economic, environmental and social
issues. We work in partnership and
put people and the planet irst.
www.nationalaccountsofwellbeing.org
nef was awarded the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies’ Award
for the Betterment of the Human Condition 2007, in recognition of our work
on the Happy Planet Index.
nef centres for:
global
interdependence
thriving
communities
well-being
future
economy
nef (the new economics foundation) is a registered charity founded in 1986 by the leaders of The Other Economic Summit (TOES),
which forced issues such as international debt onto the agenda of the G8 summit meetings. It has taken a lead in helping establish new
coalitions and organisations such as the Jubilee 2000 debt campaign; the Ethical Trading Initiative; the UK Social Investment Forum;
and new ways to measure social and economic well-being.
‘If policy-makers are to make well-being a central objective they have to
have ways of measuring it. So guidance on this is crucial. This is why this
report is so important. It represents a valuable contribution to the search for
a common system of measurement which could be widely used to change
the basis on which policy is made.’
Professor Lord Richard Layard, November 2008
Contents
Executive summary
2
1. Introduction
8
2. Why we need National Accounts of Well-being
11
3. Gathering momentum
15
4. National Accounts of Well-being: a framework
18
5. Findings 1: A new view of Europe
22
6. Findings 2: The components of national well-being
29
7. Findings 3: Well-being and life conditions
38
8. How governments will use National Accounts of Well-being
44
9. Towards National Accounts of Well-being: the next steps
49
Appendix 1: Measuring well-being – the limits of life satisfaction
55
Appendix 2: How the indicators were calculated
57
Appendix 3: European Social Survey question aggregation
62
Appendix 4: Country scores for all indicators
65
Endnotes
66
Executive summary
‘The Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette
advertising, and … the destruction of the redwood and the loss
of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl… Yet [it] does not allow
for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the
joy of their play… the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our
marriages… it measures everything, in short, except that which
makes life worthwhile.’
Robert Kennedy, 1968
National Accounts of Well-being
presents a radical, robust proposal to guide
the direction of modern societies and the lives of people who live in them. It
demonstrates why national governments should directly measure people’s subjective
well-being: their experiences, feelings and perceptions of how their lives are going.
It calls for these measures to be collected on a regular, systematic basis and
published as National Accounts of Well-being. The measures are needed because
the economic indicators which governments currently rely on tell us little about the
relative success or failure of countries in supporting a good life for their citizens.
Seventy-ive years ago the original architects of systems of national accounts were
clear that welfare could not be inferred from measures of national income alone.
They were careful to document the range of factors national accounts failed to
capture such as the unpaid work of households, the distribution of income and the
depletion of resources. Yet initial hopes for the development of better indicators
of welfare were fast derailed. The demands of wartime prioritised maximising the
productive capacity of the economy over other considerations, at just the time when
the accounting frameworks themselves were being reined and improved. The size
of the economy – as deined by Gross Domestic Product – was quickly seized on
as a convenient measure of national achievement. In the aftermath of the Second
World War, overall productivity became irmly entrenched as the key hallmark of a
country’s overall success and widely interpreted as a proxy for societal progress,
with damaging consequences for people and the planet.
Advances in the measurement of well-being mean that now we can reclaim the
true purpose of national accounts as initially conceived and shift towards more
meaningful measures of progress and policy effectiveness which capture the real
wealth of people’s lived experience.
As we enter a period of increasing economic, social and environmental uncertainty,
this need becomes ever greater and more urgent. A myopic obsession with growing
the economy has meant that we have tended to ignore its negative impacts on our
well-being such as longer working hours and rising levels of indebtedness. It has
created an economic system which has systematically squeezed out opportunities
for individuals, families and communities to make choices and pursue activities
which play a role in promoting positive well-being and human lourishing. All this
is underpinned by a iscal system which, as recent events have exposed, has
run out of control. Add to this the fact that the model we have been following – of
unending economic growth – is taking us beyond our environmental limits and the
case for very different measures of human progress and policy evaluation become
compelling,
National accounting indicators such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) have only
ever revealed a very narrow view of human welfare. Worse, they have obscured
other vital parts of the economy: the core economy of family, neighbourhood,
community and society, and the natural economy of the biosphere, our oceans
National Accounts of Well-being
2
forests and ields. We now need to shift towards more meaningful measures of
progress which capture the richness of people’s lived experience. Do so and we
also create a far more effective tool with which to guide policy.
This report aims to fundamentally re-evaluate orthodox ideas of what we should
collectively value, and hence what we should measure. It lays out a framework for
developing National Accounts of Well-being to provide:
P
A new way of assessing societal progress.
National Accounts of Well-being, by
explicitly capturing how people feel and experience their lives, help to redeine our
notions of national progress, success and what we value as a society.
P
A cross-cutting and more informative approach to policy-making.
The
challenges now facing policy-makers, including the ‘triple crunch’ of inancial crisis,
climate change and oil price shocks, are unprecedented. Silo working has long
been criticised; now – when the need for systemic change is clear and present
– it must be overcome. National Accounts of Well-being – by capturing population
well-being across areas of traditional policy-making, and looking beyond narrow,
eficiency-driven economic indicators – provide policy-makers with a better
chance of understanding the real impact of their decisions on people’s lives.
P
Better engagement between national governments and the public.
By
resonating with what people care about, National Accounts of Well-being provide
opportunities for national governments to reconnect with their citizens and, in
doing so, to address the democratic deicit now facing many European nations.
A framework for National Accounts of Well-being
Well-being is most usefully thought of as the dynamic process that gives people
a sense of how their lives are going through the interaction between their
circumstances, activities and psychological resources or ‘mental capital’. Whilst a
combination of objective and subjective factors are important for assessing well-
being, it is the subjective dimensions which have, to date, been lacking in any
assessment by national governments. National Accounts of Well-being address this
gap.
The challenge is to match the multiplicity and dynamism of what constitutes and
contributes to people’s well-being with what gets measured. Our recommended
framework for National Accounts of Well-being is therefore based on capturing:
P
More than life satisfaction.
Understanding subjective well-being as a
multifaceted, dynamic combination of different factors has important implications
for the way in which it is measured. This requires indicators which look beyond
single item questions and capture more than simply life satisfaction.
P
Personal and social dimensions.
Research shows that a crucial factor
in affecting the quality of people’s experience of life is the strength of their
relationships with others. Our approach, therefore, advocates a national
accounting system which measures the social dimension of well-being (in terms
of individuals’ subjective reports about how they feel they relate to others) as
well as the personal dimension.
P
Feelings, functioning and psychological resources.
The traditional focus
on happiness and life satisfaction measures in well-being research has often
led to an identiication of well-being with experiencing good feelings and
making positive judgements about how life is going. Our framework for National
Accounts of Well-being moves beyond that to also measure how well people
are doing, in terms of their functioning and the realisation of their potential.
Psychological resources, such as resilience, should also be included in any
national accounts framework and relect growing recognition of ‘mental capital’
as a key component of well-being.
1
These elements have been incorporated to produce empirical indings from a
working model of National Accounts of Well-being. The indings are compiled from
data collected in a major 2006/2007 European cross-national survey through a
detailed module of well-being questions, designed by the University of Cambridge,
National Accounts of Well-being
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