Professor Steve Pudney has been appointed to the Technical Advisory Group on Measuring National Well-being.
The group is advising the Office for National Statistics on its work in responding to David Cameron’s call for the development of official measures of well-being.
Steve, who is Director of the ESRC Centre on Micro-Social Change at ISER, has already conducted considerable research into the measuring of well-being and writing in ISER’s annual report, _Taking the Long View, this month said:
“There is a sharp division of opinion among academic researchers about the value of this kind of survey information, particularly in economics, where there remain many sceptics, despite the recent explosion of research in ‘happiness economics’. Concepts of well-being (and the related notion of mental health) are central to the MISOC research programme, but we approach the debate on subjective well-being measurement with an open mind. There is reason for concern, since (unlike income or financial wealth) there are no natural units of measurement and no accepted ‘arithmetic’ of well-being to help people carry out these self-assessments.”
He added:
“It is certainly not crazy to ask people about their well-being – we do it all the time in everyday life – but the artificial context of survey interviews and rigid format of the permitted responses suggest the need for care in designing surveys and interpreting evidence. I am very pleased to have been invited to join the ONS advisory group where I hope ISER’s research and expertise in this area can make an impact on the debate and the policy outcomes of that debate.”
David Cameron announced plans last September for the ONS to develop official measures of well-being, observing that ‘prosperity alone can’t deliver a better life’. In France, the Stiglitz Commission has been working since 2008 on measures of economic performance with broader scope than traditional indicators like GDP, and similar initiatives are being pursued by other governments and international organisations like the OECD.
- Listen to Steve Pudney talking about the challenges of measuring well-being in the ISER Research Podcast Series