National Accounts of Well-Being
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Background
In January 2009, the new economics foundation (nef) launched the National Accounts of Well-Being: a radical robust proposal to guide the direction of modern societies. They offer countries a chance to re-think the way they define success and work to improve the lives their citizens. In particular they propose:
- A new way of assessing societal progress: how people feel and experience their lives, help to redefine our notions of national progress.
- A cross-cutting and more informative approach to policy-making: provide policy-makers with a better chance of understanding the real impact of their decisions on people’s lives by capturing population well-being across areas of traditional policy-making,and looking beyond narrow, efficiency-driven economic indicators.
- Better engagement between national governments and the public: provide opportunities for national governments to reconnect with their citizens taking in account what people care about.
National Accounts Framework[1]
Figure 1 – Indicator structure within the example national accounts framework
Personal well-being is made up of five main components, some of which are broken down further into sub-components. These are:
- Emotional well-being. The overall balance between the frequency of experiencing positive and negative emotions, with higher scores showing that positive emotions are felt more often than negative ones. This is comprised of the subcomponents:
- Positive feelings– How often positive emotions are felt.
- Absence of negative feelings– The frequency with which negative emotions are felt, with higher scores representing less frequent negative emotions.
- Satisfying life. Having positive evaluation of your life overall, representing the results of four questions about satisfaction and life evaluations.
- Vitality. Having energy, feeling well-rested and healthy, and being physically active.
- Resilience and self-esteem. A measure of individuals’ psychological resources. It comprises the subcomponents:
- Self-esteem– Feeling good about yourself.
- Optimism – Feeling optimistic about your future.
- Resilience – Being able to deal with life’s difficulties.
- Positive functioning. This can be summed up as ‘doing well’. It includes four subcomponents:
- Autonomy – Feeling free to do what you want and having the time to do it.
- Competence – Feeling accomplishment from what you do and being able to make use of your abilities.
- Engagement – Feeling absorbed in what you are doing and that you have opportunities to learn.
- Meaning and purpose– Feeling that what you do in life is valuable, worthwhile and valued by others.
Social well-being is made up of two main components:
- Supportive relationships. The extent and quality of interactions in close relationships with family, friends and others who provide support.
- Trust and belonging. Trusting other people, being treated fairly and respectfully by them, and feeling a sense of belonging with and support from people where you live.
References
"The National Accounts of Well-Being" report, pp 21
See Also
