Well-Being Measures for Public Policy

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Well-Being Measures for Public Policy

• Ed Diener
• University of Illinois, and
• Senior Scientist, The Gallup Organization
• United Nations Development Program
• October 8, 2008

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Subjective Well-Being (SWB)

• Peoples evaluations of their lives in both
  thoughts and feelings. For example
• Life satisfaction
• Marital, work, health satisfaction
• Pleasant emotions, e.g. Joy,
  affection, trust
• Low negative emotions, e.g., anger
  depression

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Overview

• Subjective well-being helps reveal the progress
  of societies quality of life
• It provides useful new information to policy
  makers
• -- with some policy examples
• Also SWB directly benefits societies health,
  longevity, prosperity, and peace
• Finally, I will answer objections

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10 Best Possible Life
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• Gallup
• World Poll

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1
0 Worst Possible Life
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Culture and Well-Being
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WHY SWB?

• Why not just measure income, education, and
  longevity the HDI?

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Limitations of Existing Indicators, Including
the HDI

• What they do not measure
• e.g., Trust
• Air pollution
• Gender equality
• Job security
• Green urban space
• Crime etc.

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Characteristics of Nations Missed by HDI?
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SWB measures more than the HDICorrelates of
National Life Satisfaction

• Income .82
• Longevity .73
• Political stability .52
• Trust other people .48
• Unemployment -.44
• Time with family/friends .41

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Example Crime

• Assault rate adds to the prediction of Life
  Satisfaction beyond the HDI

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2. HDI Has Low CeilingDifferentiation only for
less developed nations
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• 3. Need ever-expanding lists of measures to
  capture all elements of quality of life
• How to include them all?
• How to weight them?

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How large a list?

• Commuting time
• Factory emissions
• Greenery
• Support for science
• Literary achevements
• Support for the arts
• Litter rates
• Quality of roads
• Building safety
• Rape rates
• Parks
• Tertiary education
• Education gender equality
• Income equality
• Unemployment rate
• Inflation rate
• Political corruption
• Business corruption
• Child abuse

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How to Weight?

• Health, education, equality, crime, pollution
  all weighted the same?
• Example U.S.A. Cities
• 333 cities many can be rated first OR last,
  depending on weighting of indicators!

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4. Whose List to Use?

• Amartye Sen Martha Nussbaum?
• U.S. experts (elites)
• U.S. example The fine arts versus roller-derby
• SWB measures are democratic -- from the people --
  what they value and weight

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SWB Weights and Integrates The Things About Which
People Care, the Optimal Weights, and The
Direction of Influence!
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5. Also measurement problems with economic and
other measures

• Subjectivity in contents GDP
• Missed black grey markets, bartering
• Unreliable in poor nations
• How to integrate different approaches to
  measuring GNP

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6. Other Measures Miss Something Very Important!

• HDI Robots educated, long-living with
  money
• Dont we want more than orderly worker-bees?
• Dont we also want people leading meaningful
  and rewarding lives?

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Why SWB ?

• It is peoples evaluations of their lives
  surely we want these to be positive! Democratic!
• People rate it as very important, even the most
  important. They want it!
• Well-being is a core component of mental health,
  and mental illness likely largest cause of
  illness-related misery in the 21st century
• Behavioral benefits of well-being

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Importance Ratings (1-9)

• Happiness Wealth Health
• OVERALL
• (28 nations) 8.0 6.8 7.9
• Chile 8.6 6.9 8.1
• Singapore 8.4 7.1 8.0
• Egypt 8.1 7.6 8.0
• USA 8.1 6.7 7.6
• Japan 7.4 6.6 7.8

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Disease Burden

• Misery burden from mental illnesses likely to be
  largest by 2020, yet missed by longevity
  statistics
• Autism, Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder
• This burden reflected by SWB indicators

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BUT

• Is happiness good?
• Is it functional?

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The Error of Flaubert

• To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are
  three requirements for happiness, though if
  stupidity is lacking, all is lost.
• Gustave Flaubert

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Our Research Shows that Happiness is
BeneficialFlaubert 180 degrees off
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Social Benefits of Being Happy

• More friends
• Better and longer marriages
• Social capital Trust

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Work Benefits

• Higher supervisor ratings at work
• Better organizational citizens
• Higher incomes
• USA
• Australia
• Russia

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Societal Benefits

• Volunteering
• Pro-peace attitudes
• Cooperative

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Health Benefits of SWB

• 1. Illness
• Immune, cardiovascular, etc.
• 2. Longevity

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Longevity The Nun Study Danner, Snowden,
Friesen, U Kentucky

• 1. Nuns autobiographies at age 22
• Expression of positive emotions
• 2. Happy and less happy nuns living in same life
  circumstances through lifespan
• How long do they live?

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Longevity in The Nun Study
Survival Rate at Age 85 94 Most Cheerful
Quartile 90 54 Least Cheerful
34 11 Longevity boost about 10
years! Danner, Snowdon, Friesen
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Psychologists

• Happy live about 6 years longer

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Predicting National Mean Life Expectancy

• Corr. Beta r B
• GDP/Capita .66 .12
• Health Expenditures .47 .01
• Life Satisfaction .76 .65

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Predicting National Life Expectancy

• When control GDP and Health Expenditures first
• SWB Affect and Life Satisfaction add
• 16 more variance in predicting longevity!

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In sum National Accounts of Well-Being

• People believe well-being is important
• It leads to several desirable outcomes
• It helps with social capital
• We ought to be measuring it!

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Policy Examples

• Economics
• Unemployment
• Environment
• Commuting
• Air pollution

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Slow Incomplete Adaptation to Unemployment
(Mostly Re-Employed, and Controlling for Income)
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The Environment Commuting

• Life Satisfaction is consistently lower for those
  who have long commutes
• Rising commute time resulting in higher incomes
  does not raise LS

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The Environment Smokestack Emissions

• Life satisfaction
• Quasi-experimental study
• in Germany

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Objections

• 1. Cant measure happiness validly
• -- must look at behavior
• 2. People adapt to their conditions
• 3. Happy pigs and happy mafia
• 4. Happiness is an individual affair we dont
  want paternalism

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Measurement Objectivity?

• SWB measures have
• proven validity

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The Would you move?Diener Measure of
ValidityLife Evaluation LadderIdeal to Worst
(10 to 0)

• Denmark 8.0
• Finland 7.7
• Switzerland 7.5
• Netherlands 7.5
• Spain 7.2
• Ireland 7.1

• Togo 3.2
• Cambodia 3.6
• Sierra Leone 3.6
• Georgia 3.7
• Zimbabwe 3.8
• West Bank 4.7

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Measurement ValiditySWB Measures Correlate With

• Suicide (individual and national)
• Physiological (brain, hormones, immune)
• Informant reports (family and friends)
• Interview ratings
• Reaction-time to stimuli tasks

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Surveys in Economics

• Survey measures used in GNP
• Subjective decisions about how to sum those
  numbers
• Subjective reports do have issues, yes, but no
  more than counting
• Examples Education, Unemployment, Eastern bloc

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Objection 2 AdaptationLife Satisfaction
Disability

• People adapt to bad and
• good conditions
• The Happy Poor
• Happy Slaves?

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Adaptation?
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3. Happy Mafia Pigs?

• Bad people, dumb people, etc. can be happy
• Yes, and they can be Rich
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  Educated
• 
  Long-lived too
• Happiness is NOT the only value other things
  matter too

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Other Values More Important?

• For example capabilities functionings
• Maybe, but so what?
• This does not mean SWB is
• not also very important!

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4. Paternalism

• CLAIM
• Happiness is an individual affair, not the
  business of governments

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Paternalism?
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Conclusions

• SWB can simultaneously reflect many desirable
  aspects of life
• In addition, it is valuable for nations it helps
  functioning!
• It can be validly measured
• It can add information for policy and individual
  decisions beyond existing measures

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Using SWB Measures

• OECD
• E.U.
• Stats Canada
• C.D.C. in USA

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• The Gallup Organization would give the U.N. data
  for two (more?) years
• Ladder for 140 nations
• Positive emotions of nations
• Negative emotions (e.g., depression) of nations

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References

• Well-being for public policy
• Diener, Lucas, Schimmack, Helliwell (2009),
  Oxford U Press
• Beyond money Toward an economy of well-being
• Psychological Science in the Public Interest
• Diener and Seligman, 2004

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• The most authoritative
• and informative book
• about happiness ever
• written

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Thank You!

• Questions?
• Discussion?

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Societal Policies?Pleasant EmotionsEnjoyment
etc.

• Highest Lowest
• New Zealand 88 Georgia 43
• Ireland 88 Pakistan 48
• Netherlands 87 Armenia 49
• Costa Rica 87 Palestine 50
• UK 86 Sierra L. 51

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OECD Nations Affect Balance (PA NA)

• Women Men
• Ireland .69 .66
• New Zealand .65 .66
• Sweden .65 .61
• Netherlands .62 .63
• Canada .62 .61
• Denmark .61 .61
• Australia .61 .61
• Austria .61 .60
• Mexico .60 .62
• Norway .60 .58
• Switzerland .58 .57
• U.S.A. .56 .61
• U.K. .56 .54
• Finland .53 .52

• Women Men
• Japan .53 .43
• Germany .52 .56
• Belgium .51 .57
• France .50 .51
• Poland .50 .50
• Spain .48 .58
• Czech Rep. .48 .50
• S. Korea .44 .35
• Italy .42 .42
• Hungary .41 .48
• Slovak Rep. .41 .39
• Greece .31 .42
• Portugal .30 .44
• Turkey .17 .20

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More on Diminishing Returns
US probability sample .12 Calcutta slum
dwellers .45 Calcutta sex workers .67
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15 Highest on Ladder

• Denmark 8.0
• Finland 7.7
• Switzerland 7.5
• Netherlands 7.5
• Canada 7.4
• Norway 7.4
• Sweden 7.4
• Australia 7.4
• New Zealand 7.3
• Belgium 7.3
• United States 7.2
• Israel 7.2
• Venezuela 7.2
• Spain 7.2
• Ireland 7.1

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• Lowest Life Ladder
• Benin 3.3
• Cambodia 3.6
• Sierra Leone 3.6
• Tanzania 3.7
• Georgia 3.7
• Uganda 3.7
• Niger 3.7
• Ethiopia 3.8
• Burkina Faso 3.8
• Zimbabwe 3.8
• Cameroon 3.9
• Madagascar 4.0
• Kenya 4.0
• Mali 4.0

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Proposal for National Indicators of Well-Being
and International Indicators

• Long overdue
• Resistance based on outmoded philosophy data
• Ignorance of newest findings

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Health Research Funding

• Disease burden computations
• Life Years and
• Misery
• Use SWB instead of Willingness-to-pay
• Paul Dolan, UK health economist

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4. Optimal Amount?Can there be too much or too
little?

• Examples
• Divorce rate
• Percent in science engineering
• Tertiary education for all

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Example Divorce Rate

• Is 0 percent good?
• No freedom
• Is 55 percent better?
• Unstable relationships childrearing
• Optimum level
• Reflected in well-being