My feeling/observation is that "the community" has failed to come up with a working definition of well-being so the vacuume is filled by waffle that it is impossible to address because we don't have the ammunition.
Sure it is not possible to come up with a succinct definition of well-being for everyone but it is possible to come up with a definition for the ONS studies so that we can say for the purposes of study X we are defining well being as xyz.
The opening page of the "Measuring National Well-being: Life in the UK, 2012"
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/wellbeing/measuring-national-well-being/first-annual-report-on-measuring-national-well-being/art-measuring-national-well-being-annual-report.html#tab-Introduction-and-background is a case in point opening with:
"The well-being of the nation is influenced by a broad range of factors including economic performance, quality of life, the state of the environment, sustainability, equality, as well as individual well-being."
Instead of tackling the big question of what well-being is and slaying the beast that is 'happiness' the report starts by fudging it even more. This sentence is just crazy!
As we haven't said what well-being is to say that it is influenced by 'economic performance' is odd. In wikipedia this would be marked as [citation needed] - but this isn't wikipedia. The term economic performance in itself is vague including a large range of measure.
It also says that well being is influenced by 'quality of life'. I think a lot about this stuff but I would struggle to describe the difference between well-being and quality of life. Wikipedia says:
The term
quality of life (
QOL) references the general
well-being of individuals and societies.
Then we have well-being of a nation compared with well-being of individuals!
So the first major report opens with a sentence that is just about as vague and tautological as it is possible to get. If I were reviewing a paper then I would strike this sentence out and if it was in wikipedia it would probably be deleted - but this is neither wikipedia nor a peer reviewed paper it is a report from our office for national statistics.
So quite frankly I don't blame the journalists for getting it wrong when government agencies can't put out clear statements.
My personal preference would be to stick with measures of psychological/social/medical 'happiness' of individuals (
as I have previously outlined in a ranty blog post) and drop all the rest of it.
The whole well-being thing is like watching a train crash in slow motion.
Sorry to be so negitive but better that than silent!
Roger
Show Original Message
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Original Message:
Sent: 30-11-2012 05:42
From: Paul Allin
Subject: What is "David Cameron's happiness index"?
Gathering up the weekend papers for recycling, I spotted this in The Observer:
"When David Cameron's happiness index was published a few months ago, it found that money - the more the better - was key to the nation's emotional wellbeing. This runs hard against the thinking of Richard Layard, the "happiness tsar" of the last Labour government, who argues that we're miserable in the UK because we're overpaid and overmaterialistic." (p14 in The New Review, 25.11.12, The Observer)
The statement appears in a summary of six books that have shaped political thinking since the crash. Layard's book Happiness is one of the six. I'm not sure the Observer's short summary does it justice, but my main concern is yet another reference to this thing called David Cameron's happiness index!
Does anyone know what The Observer is referring to? Presumably the happiness index is their shorthand for the subjective wellbeing results from the ONS's measuring national wellbeing programme. But which ONS results have The Observer quoted, and are they right?
Welcome any comments and 'observations' you may have on this.
thanks
Paul
PAUL ALLIN
Visiting Professor, Department of Mathematics, Imperial College London