Conal Smith27 June 2012

Subjective Well-being: what we know and what we need to know

Subjective well-being and the OECD

Better policies for better lives

Better measures Subjective well-beingSocial contactGovernance…

What we thought we knew

• Subjective well-being is just “happiology”

• People have a “set point” to which their level of subjective well-being always returns (people fully adapt to changes in their circumstances)

• There is no meaningful change in national levels of subjective well-being over time

• Everyone is “mostly satisfied” with their life (people’s responses depend entirely on their frame of reference)

• People object to answering such general questions

1. SWB is not just about happiness

Positive and Negative affect

(experience of joy, happiness,

anxiety, sadness…)

Life evaluation (reflective

assessment)

Drivers of well-being

(income, health status, social connections, education…)

Eudaimonic well-being

(self-perceptions of autonomy, competence, purpose…)

Recall

2. There is no set point for SWB

Lucas, R., Clark, A., Georgellis, Y. and Diener, E. (2003), "Reexamining adaptation and the set point model of happiness: Reactions to changes in marital status", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

2. There is no set point for SWB

Lucas, R., Clark, A, Georgellis, Y. and Diener, E. (2004), "Unemployment alters the set point of life satisfaction", Psychological Science.

3. National SWB levels can change

4. Not “mostly satisfied”

4. Not “mostly satisfied”

4. Not “mostly satisfied”

5. SWB has low item-specific non-response rates

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Gallup World Poll, waves 1-5, life satisfaction, education, and marital status, refusal to answer by country

Life Satisfaction

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European Values Survey, 2008, income and life satisfaction, refusal to answer, by country

Income

Life Satisfaction

12

5. SWB has low item-specific non-response rates

What we need to know

• Is eudaimonic well-being uni-dimensional or multi-dimensional?

• What is the minimal set of measures needed to adequately capture affect?

• What is best practice in domain-specific well-being questions?

• How important is cultural bias?

Affect and Eudaimonia

ONS core questions on subjective well-being – life satisfaction, life worthwhile, happy yesterday, anxious yesterday

Eudaimonia

Source: Huppert, F. and So, T. (2011) “Flourishing across Europe: Application of a new conceptual framework for defining well-being.”, Social Indicators Research

Affect measures

Draft OECD Affect questions

The following questions ask about how you felt yesterday. I will now read out a list of ways you might have felt yesterday. Did you experience the following feelings a lot yesterday?

C1. How about enjoyment? [YES/NO]

C2. How about calm and peaceful? [YES/NO]

C3. How about worry? [YES/NO]

C4. How about sadness? [YES/NO]

C5. How about happy? [YES/NO]

C6. How about depressed? [YES/NO]

C7. How about anger? [YES/NO]

C8. How about stress? [YES/NO]

C9. How about physical pain? [YES/NO]

C10. Did you smile or laugh a lot yesterday?

[YES/NO]

Affect measuresDraft OECD domain evaluation questions

The following questions ask how satisfied you feel about specific aspects of your life, on a scale from 0 to 10. Zero means you feel”completely dissatisfed” and 10 means “completely satisfied”.

E1. How satisfied are you with your standard of living? [0-10]

E2. How satisfied are your with your health? [0-10]

E3. How satisfied are you with what you are achieving in life? [0-10]

E4. How satisfied are you with your personal relationships? [0-10]

E5. How satisfied are you with how safe you feel? [0-10]

E6. How satisfied are you with feeling part of your community? [0-10]

E7. How satisfied are you with your future security? [0-10]

E8. How satisfied are you with the amount of time you have to do the things that you like

doing?

[0-10]

For respondents who are employed only

E9. How satisfied are you with your job? [0-10]

Cultural bias

4

4.5

5

5.5

6

6.5

7

7.5

8

8.5

12 12.5 13 13.5 14 14.5 15 15.5 16 16.5 17

Mean life satisfaction vs log of GDP per capita, OECD and selected countries, 2010

Brazil, Chile, Mexico

Japan, Korea

Cultural bias

• Country-specific effects may have at least four sources:– 1) Unmeasured life circumstances.

– 2) Differences in how people feel about their life circumstances.

– 3) Language differences that influence scale use.

– 4) Cultural response biases.