Abstract
The issue presented in this chapter produced and produces wide debates, starting from the definition of the main concept involved, seen often in different dualisms, subjective vs. objective, subjective wellbeing vs. objective wellbeing, and subjective indicators vs. objective indicators.
By lingering on the last dualism, objective indicators refer to data not stemmed from individual perceptions, evaluations and preferences, while subjective indicators measure characteristics which are related to people’s perceptions, preferences, evaluations, opinions, and values. Data to be considered according to the two perspectives should be objectively produced in both cases, which means through a methodology yielding reliable and reproducible data.
The validity of those data is directly connected to the concepts to measure. In this respect, the conceptual definitions are complicated and difficult to manage and agree upon, due to cultural, historical, and linguistic differences.
The complexity includes also the notion of “wellbeing of nation”. In this respect, many questions arise. Does the sum of individuals’ subjective wellbeing represent nation’s wellbeing? Or nation’s wellbeing is something different? This implies also a, only apparently, technical question: does averaging individual subjective wellbeing represents the synthetic country’s wellbeing?
Subjective wellbeing of nations should play an important role in the policy making process, even though limited since it provides only one type of information, only one perspective of the reality, which remains complex and multifaceted.
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Notes
- 1.
Internal equity is differentiated from external equity, described by comparing groups’ distributions (identified by gender, age, or other grouping variables).
- 2.
Concerning this, we can mention that Abraham H. Maslow in 1954 in his work Motivation and Personality defined hierarchy of needs; Maslow postulated that needs are arranged in a hierarchy in terms of their potency. Although all needs are instinctive, some are more powerful than others. The lower the need is in the pyramid, the more powerful it is. The higher the need is in the pyramid, the weaker and more distinctly human it is. The lower, or basic, needs on the pyramid are similar to those possessed by non-human animals, but only humans possess the higher needs.
- 3.
Any approach highlights how defining a group of characteristics concerning individuals’ life is important. They should be “intrinsically as objective expressions of a good life, or instrumentally, to achieve valuable subjective states or other objective goals” (Stiglitz et al. 2009) and should allow people to have resources. The possibility to adequately exploit opportunities contributes to the betterment of quality of life.
- 4.
This definition has been adopted by OECD’s Factbook:
http://lysander.sourceoecd.org/vl=8034723/cl=21/nw=1/rpsv/factbook2009/11/02/02/index.htm
- 5.
A particular attention should be devoted to the term “happiness”, which assumes different meanings according to different authors. Many scholars refer “happiness” to the affective component of subjective wellbeing (Nuvolati 2002; Diener et al. 2008). Others consider happiness as a synonymous of life satisfaction Veenhoven (1994).
Besides the different conceptual views, the statistical evidences can tell different stories. The highest rank correlation value between “how satisfied with life as a whole” and “how happy are you” by country in round 4 of European Social Survey data is 0.6 (registered for the United Kingdom sample), revealing not only that the two components are not coinciding but also that a linguistic problem underlies the definition of happiness. Just an example concerning that. The “happiness” (one of the dimensions of subjective wellbeing) is translated if Italian “felicità”. Actually, if we look at the linguistic roots of them we could realize that they are dealing with two different world, since the former comes from “to happen” and latter from “chance”.
- 6.
According to some authors, like Veenhoven, affects’ determinants are universal and consequently not produced by individual response-styles or cultural differences.
- 7.
One of the first attempts aimed at identifying the more relevant life domains is Andrews and Withey’s study (1976). By admitting that individual concerns can be infinite, they focus on those domains which seem to be relevant and meaningful for individuals and their quality of life. Different studies identify different lists of domains, even very different from each other (e.g., Extended Satisfaction with life scale, Allison et al. 1991).
- 8.
Actually, this measure could be interpreted also in terms of sustainability of investments at individual level.
- 9.
An example: any attempt aimed at improving connections between cities (in terms of travelling time) faces limits. Time spent to go from one city to another can be reduced thanks to new technologies and improvements of territorial structures. However, the commuting time that can be reduced should be balanced with the capitals (such as the territory) that needed to be consumed and sacrificed for that reduction. In other words, the question to be put is: what is the price to be paid in order to reduce the commuting time also few minutes? Maybe, the technological efforts could be oriented towards how to reduce the amount of people that need to commute each day …
- 10.
According to the World Bank’s four capital approach, for example, sustainable development should enhance and preserve social, human, produced and natural capital of present generations and provide future generations with them.
- 11.
In particular, the basic indicators defined in multi-indicator approach are considered multiple measures, since they are assumed to cover the conceptual dimension’s variability.
- 12.
The use of benchmarks plays an important role in the ambit of a program development. Used in combination with the program objectives they provide the basis for program accountability.
- 13.
The first reports on the empirical evidences concerning the concept of happiness date back to Beiser in 1974 (Stones et al. 1995).
- 14.
This issue was debated between Veenhoven and Stones on Social Indicators Research in the 1990s.
- 15.
The study conducted by Mallard et al. (1997) is particularly interested regarding the application of the MDT approach, extended with analysis of causal relationships of subjective wellbeing.
- 16.
In many cases, the observation can be accomplished in a direct way (e.g., items) or in an “indirect” (by observing the individual response model considered estimates of subjective dispositions).
- 17.
The debate is illustrate by Noll in the recent (2013) Special Issue of Social Indicators Research.
- 18.
A recent event, which can be considered a further evidence of the increasing interest and the need to deepen the study of subjective wellbeing in order to study quality of life, is the workshop “Measuring subjective wellbeing: an opportunity for National Statistical Offices?”. The workshop was held on July 23 and 24 2009 in Florence (Italy). It was jointly organized by the International Society for Quality of Life Studies (ISQOLS), OECD (in the ambit of the Global Project “Measuring the Progress of Societies”) and the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) as Satellite Meeting of the IX ISQOLS Conference “Measures and goals for the progress of societies” (Florence, July 19–23, 2009).
The workshop gathered producers and users of subjective wellbeing data and national statistical institutes’ representatives and aimed at increasing the awareness of the importance of measuring subjective wellbeing in the statistical community, as the experiences of many organizations, first national statistical offices (like ISTAT), have demonstrated.
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Maggino, F. (2015). Assessing the Subjective Wellbeing of Nations. In: Glatzer, W., Camfield, L., Møller, V., Rojas, M. (eds) Global Handbook of Quality of Life. International Handbooks of Quality-of-Life. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9178-6_37
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