Measuring Wellbeing Across Countries – Can It be Done?

Measuring wellbeing across countries – can it be done?

There are no widely adopted definitions for the concepts of wellbeing and quality of life.  First, I discuss the correspondences and differences between measures of wellbeing and quality of life, like the Gross National Happiness of Bhutan, the Happy Planet Index of the New Economics Foundation, the Better Life Index of the OECD and the Human Development Index of the UNDP. I also compare these measure with the SCP Life-situation Index which is used in the Netherlands. When describing the quality of life of the Dutch with this index, a conceptual model is used, which is centered around the index. In this conceptual model the view is taken that quality of life has an objective and a subjective part.

The conceptual model of the SCP Life-situation Index can be used to describe how objective and subjective wellbeing are related. In this model a causal relation is proposed between capabilities (or resources, like education, income and paid work) and objective quality of life (as measured by the SCP Life-situation Index, which combines indicators on health, housing, social participation, etc). Next, a causal relation is proposed between this objective wellbeing and subjective wellbeing (happiness). This model is tested for the Netherlands and the results show that the model works.

In the paper I will use the European Social Survey to look at whether the model can also be used for other European countries. Though the model can be used, there are differences between countries, for example in the weights of the idicators.