How's Life? 2015: Measuring Well-Being

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How's Life? 2015: Measuring Well-Being How’s Life? 2015 MEASURING WELL-BEING How’s Life? describes the essential ingredients that shape people’s well-being in OECD and partner countries. It includes a wide variety of statistics, capturing both material well-being (such as income, jobs and housing) and the broader quality of people’s lives (such as their health, education, work-life balance, environment, social connections, civic engagement, subjective well-being and safety). The report documents the latest evidence How’s Life? 2015 on well-being, as well as changes over time, and the distribution of well-being outcomes among different groups of the population. MEASURING WELL-BEING This third edition of How’s Life? develops our understanding of well-being in new ways. There is a special focus on child well-being, which fi nds that not all children are getting a good start in life, and those living in less affl uent families face more risks to their well-being. The report introduces new measures to capture some of the natural, human, social and economic resources that play a role in supporting well-being over time. A chapter on volunteering suggests that volunteer work can create a virtuous circle: doing good makes people feel good, and brings a variety of other well-being benefi ts to both volunteers and to society at large. Finally, the report looks at inequalities in well-being across different regions within countries, demonstrating that where people live can shape their opportunities for living well. How’s Life? is part of the OECD Better Life Initiative, which features a series of publications on measuring well-being, as well as the Better Life Index (www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org), an interactive website that aims to involve citizens in the debate about what a better life means to them. Contents Chapter 1. Well-being today and tomorrow: An overview Chapter 2. How’s life? in fi gures Chapter 3. Resources for future well-being Chapter 4. How’s life for children? Chapter 5. The value of giving: Volunteering and well-being Chapter 6. Going local: Measuring well-being in regions How’s Life?How’s 2015 MEASURING WELL-BEING Consult this publication on line at http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/how_life-2015-en. This work is published on the OECD iLibrary, which gathers all OECD books, periodicals and statistical databases. Visit www.oecd-ilibrary.org for more information. 2015 ISBN 978-92-64-21101-8 30 2014 02 1 P 9HSTCQE*cbbabi+ How’s Life? 2015 MEASURING WELL-BEING This work is published under the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD. The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein do not necessarily reflect the official views of OECD member countries. This document and any map included herein are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area. Please cite this publication as: OECD (2015), How’s Life? 2015: Measuring Well-being, OECD Publishing, Paris. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/how_life-2015-en ISBN 978-92-64-21101-8 (print) ISBN 978-92-64-23817-6 (PDF) Annual: ISSN 2308-9660 (print) ISSN 2308-9679 (online) The statistical data for Israel are supplied by and under the responsibility of the relevant Israeli authorities. The use of such data by the OECD is without prejudice to the status of the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and Israeli settlements in the West Bank under the terms of international law. Corrigenda to OECD publications may be found on line at: www.oecd.org/publishing/corrigenda. © OECD 2015 You can copy, download or print OECD content for your own use, and you can include excerpts from OECD publications, databases and multimedia products in your own documents, presentations, blogs, websites and teaching materials, provided that suitable acknowledgment of the source and copyright owner is given. All requests for public or commercial use and translation rights should be submitted to [email protected]. Requests for permission to photocopy portions of this material for public or commercial use shall be addressed directly to the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) at [email protected] or the Centre français d’exploitation du droit de copie (CFC) at [email protected]. FOREwoRD Foreword How’s Life? is part of the OECD Better Life Initiative, which aims to promote “better policies for better lives”, in line with the OECD’s overarching mission. It is a statistical report released every two years that documents a wide range of well-being outcomes, and how they vary over time, between population groups, and across countries. This assessment is based on a multi-dimensional framework covering 11 dimensions of well-being, and four different types of resources that help to support well-being over time. Each issue also includes special chapters that provide an in-depth look at specific aspects of well-being. The 2015 edition features a focus on child well-being, the role of volunteering in well-being, and measuring well-being at the regional level. The report was prepared by the Well-Being and Progress Unit of the OECD Statistics Directorate, with contributions from the Social Policy Division of the Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs (Chapter 4), and the Regional Development Policy Division of the Public Governance and Territorial Development Directorate (Chapter 6). Several other OECD Directorates also contributed to the data in this report; all are kindly acknowledged for their contributions and advice. Lead authors for each of the chapters were: Carlotta Balestra (Chapter 5); Monica Brezzi and Paolo Veneri (Chapter 6); Carrie Exton (Chapters 1, 2 and 3); and Dominic Richardson and Clara Welteke (Chapter 4). Elena Tosetto is gratefully acknowledged for providing extensive statistical support and research assistance, particularly in relation to Chapters 2 and 3. Anne-Charlotte Boughalem and Eric Gonnard are also gratefully acknowledged for research and statistical assistance on Chapters 3 and 6 respectively. Carrie Exton led the project, which was supervised and edited by Romina Boarini, Marco Mira d’Ercole, and Martine Durand. Martine Zaïda is the communications coordinator for How’s Life?, and has provided essential support throughout. Sophia Schneidewind is gratefully acknowledged for her work in preparing the country notes that accompany this publication. Willem Adema, Rolf Alter, Joaquim Oliveira Martins, Monika Quiesser, Paul Schreyer, Peter van de Ven and the OECD Health Division are kindly acknowledged for their comments on drafts of various chapters. Sue Kendall-Bilicki, Vincent Finat-Duclos and Patrick Hamm provided editorial support throughout. All are gratefully acknowledged for their valuable assistance, as well as many others who worked behind the scenes to help deliver the book. Finally, the report has benefited from helpful comments on early drafts provided by national delegates to the OECD Committee on Statistics and Statistical Policy (all chapters), as well as the Working Party on Social Policy (Chapter 4) and the Working Party on Territorial Indicators (Chapter 6). Their contributions and advice are also kindly acknowledged. How’s liFE? 2015: MEASURING WELL-BEING © OECD 2015 3 EDItoRIAL: BETTER LIVES, todAY AND tomoRRow Editorial: Better lives, today and tomorrow Investing in tomorrow’s well-being starts today The final months of 2015 will be marked by two defining moments that will shape the well-being of generations to come: the agreement on the final set of Sustainable Development Goals at the UN General Assembly in New York, and the COP21 meeting in Paris – an opportunity for global leaders to take action to address the risks of climate change. These events bring into focus the importance of finding new ways to secure and improve well-being here and now, without placing at risk our children’s chances to enjoy well-being later. Good decisions about investments for the future rely, among other things, on having good data today. How’s Life?, first launched in 2011, is a pioneering report that summarises an extensive range of well-being indicators, putting the latest information on the progress of OECD and partner countries at policy-makers’ and citizens’ fingertips.B esides documenting well-being today, this third edition of How’s Life? also offers a first glimpse of future well-being prospects by looking at three key areas. First, it considers some of the stocks of natural, human, social and economic resources that can be measured now, and that will shape well-being outcomes in the future. Second, it documents well-being outcomes for children, whose future life chances will be affected by the living conditions they face today. And third, it offers a special focus on volunteering, which is a key form of investment in social capital, and one which pays dividends for volunteers themselves as well as for wider society now and in the future. Every country has room to improve on well-being The analysis of the relative well-being strengths and weaknesses among OECD countries featured in this report shows that while some countries do better than others across a wide range of well-being outcomes, no country has it all. Some aspects of well- being (such as household income, wealth, jobs and life satisfaction) are generally better in OECD countries with the highest levels of GDP per capita, but some high-GDP countries still face challenges in terms of work-life balance, unemployment risk, personal safety and low life expectancy. One striking finding shown in this report is just how different the well-being outcomes can be in countries with very similar levels of GDP per capita. This underlines the importance of giving more attention to the many factors beyond GDP that shape people’s life experiences.
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