{"id":653,"date":"2011-12-02T13:32:15","date_gmt":"2011-12-02T03:32:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/knowledgetoday\/?p=653"},"modified":"2011-12-02T13:32:15","modified_gmt":"2011-12-02T03:32:15","slug":"well-being-measure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/blog\/2011\/12\/well-being-measure\/","title":{"rendered":"Can nations measure well-being?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Peter Shergold | CSI blog<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

It was in May 1968 that Robert Kennedy, with characteristically brilliant oratory, identified the abject failure of governments to measure the quality of life afforded their people.\u00a0 The traditional statistic \u2013 per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) \u2013 \u201cdoes not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play;\u00a0 it does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials \u2026\u00a0 It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.\u201d\u00a0 Listen to the speech<\/a> on YouTube:\u00a0 it will raise the hairs on the back of your neck.<\/p>\n

Two generations on, governments are struggling to address Kennedy\u2019s challenge.\u00a0 As not-for-profits increasingly seek to measure social returns on investment, and companies to give quantitative dimension to societal as well as financial value, give a thought to the world\u2019s statisticians.\u00a0 Frustrated with the shortfalls of GDP as an indicator of wellbeing, they are struggling to find alternative means to measure progress in the quality of people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a moment too soon.\u00a0 Democracy is under challenge.\u00a0 Levels of trust in politicians are worryingly low.\u00a0 Less remarked upon is the lack of public confidence in official statistics.\u00a0 In France and the UK, for instance, only one-third of citizens believe official figures.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly there is a renewed sense of urgency amongst government statisticians.\u00a0 In May this year the OECD, as part of its 50th<\/sup> anniversary celebrations, launched the Better Life Index.\u00a0 It builds on a French initiative, the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, led by renowned American economist Joseph Stiglitz, which reported<\/a> in 2010.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0The Commission concluded that for many purposes there were better economic statistics than a measure of production, GDP:\u00a0 levels of real household income, for example, or the extent of income inequality.\u00a0 It is not that GDP is a wrong measure but that it is often inappropriate as a measure what people care about.\u00a0 In many instances data on social or environmental wellbeing is more relevant.<\/p>\n

The Better Life Index<\/a> seeks to respond to the Commission\u2019s challenge.\u00a0 It measures 11 dimensions, with 1-3 indicators in each:\u00a0 housing, income, jobs, education, the environment, governance, health, life satisfaction, safety and work-life balance.\u00a0 It\u2019s proposed to add more criteria in the future.<\/p>\n

The challenge, of course, is how to address the relative importance of such indices of well-being.\u00a0 The OECD deftly sidesteps the problem by making the index interactive.\u00a0 Each visitor can weight the variables on-line as they want and share their views with others via Twitter or Facebook.\u00a0 This is statistics in the age of social media.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s made difficult to work out which of the OECD\u2019s 34 member states scores best.\u00a0 You have to measure the height of flowers and the size of their petals!\u00a0 I know you don\u2019t believe me but take a look.\u00a0 Weighing all variables equally on the horticultural scale Australia, I think, is placed second, just behind Canada and just ahead of Sweden in the Better Life garden fertility stakes!\u00a0 Some 75% of Australians are satisfied with their lives compared to just 59% for the OECD as a whole.<\/p>\n

As a nation we rate particularly well on the Community dimension.\u00a0 Around 95% of Australian respondents believe that they know someone they could rely on in a time of need.\u00a0 Interestingly 65% report that they have helped a stranger in the last month, compared to an OECD average of only 47%.<\/p>\n

The United Nations is also actively seeking to move beyond traditional measures of national wealth. The UN Development Program argues that \u201can excessive obsession with the creation of material wealth can obscure the ultimate objective of enriching human lives\u201d.\u00a0 Seeking to redress that defect it has recently issued its 2011 Human Development Report<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Frankly it doesn\u2019t pack the enjoyment of the Better Life Index, requiring its users to possess some understanding of income logarithms and geometric means.\u00a0 The data, which graph trends back to 1980, is probably more compelling.\u00a0 It creates a composite index of human development by measuring 3 dimensions (health, education and living standards) against 4 indicators (life expectancy at birth, years of schooling, expected years of schooling and gross national income per capita).<\/p>\n

Now I know that your ethical self will recognise the dangers of putting such data into league tables.\u00a0 But I also know that your inquisitive self wants to know how Australia performs.\u00a0 The answer is that of 269 countries (47 developed nations) we rank 2nd<\/sup> after Norway, performing slightly better than the Netherlands, the US, New Zealand and Canada.\u00a0 In short, the more comprehensive statistical metrics suggest that Australia provides a better quality of life than measures of GDP indicate.<\/p>\n

Peter Shergold<\/a> is the Macquarie Group Foundation Professor at the Centre for Social Impact (CSI) at UNSW. This blog post first appeared on the CSI blog<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Peter Shergold | CSI blog It was in May 1968 that Robert Kennedy, with characteristically brilliant oratory, identified the abject failure of governments to measure the quality of life afforded their people.\u00a0 The traditional statistic \u2013 per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) \u2013 \u201cdoes not allow for the health of our children, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":336,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12673],"tags":[12803,12799,12801,12802,12779,12800],"class_list":["post-653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-impact","tag-charities","tag-government","tag-measurement","tag-not-for-profit","tag-social-impact-2","tag-social-policy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/336"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":655,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653\/revisions\/655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}