Objective Measures Of Well-being Research Articles

Is the fulfilment of objective wellbeing reflected in subjective wellbeing? A case study of vulnerable communities in Volta Delta, Ghana

There is growing interest in the measurement and conceptualisation of wellbeing due to its increasing importance within policy outcomes; however, the understanding of how different wellbeing outcomes associate within sustainability research is limited. This paper uses household survey data from the vulnerable Volta Delta, South Ghana, as a case study to illustrate the different philosophical approaches and measures of wellbeing, and the potential impact upon policy interventions. The frequent use of objective wellbeing measures, such as monetary poverty, within development policy is challenged as to whether it sufficiently reflects overall wellbeing. For example, objective monetary measures may not incorporate the intangible components of wellbeing, which can alternatively be captured within individuals’ self-evaluated, subjective wellbeing. This study first outlines the conceptual and methodological choices required when measuring wellbeing, before drawing on ideas of objective and subjective wellbeing to examine whether these concepts from different disciplines align or oppose one another. Contrasting theories within the literature justify this focus. By testing for associations between objective and subjective wellbeing outcomes, this study highlights how the methodological and conceptual choices made when measuring wellbeing can result in differing conclusions. Despite statistically significant associations being found amongst some wellbeing measures, results which show opposing outcomes highlight how subjective and objective wellbeing are not entirely interchangeable. Our study concludes there is a benefit to incorporating both objective and subjective measures in research and development targets across multiple scales to more-comprehensibly capture, and improve our understanding of, human wellbeing in vulnerable locations.

Geographical match of objective and subjective measures of well-being at an intra-city scale

Despite human well-being serving as a crucial indicator for measuring social development and progress, the measurement of well-being faces great challenges. This study constructs a multi-level statistical model to investigate the geographical relationship between subjective well-being measure derived from a large-scale social survey and objective well-being measure derived by using a non-compensatory indicator aggregation technique and a variety of urban geospatial data. We find that a consistent resemblance between the subjective and objective measures of well-being at both the community (r = 0.61 with a p < 0.01) and sub-district scales (r = 0.62 with a p < 0.01) within a city. This finding is further supported by the estimation results from models that controls for a variety of covariate effects. Drawing on the close resemblance between the subjective and objective measures of human well-being, we develop a statistical model that links these two measurements to create a composite measure of well-being. Our results extend the understanding on the geographical match between subjective and objective measures of well-being at an intra-city spatial scale, and provide a new insight on how to leverage the emerging urban geospatial data and social survey when devising indicators of well-being.

Doing wellbeing policy: A discussion on public policy making for integrative prosperity

AbstractFocusing on holistic wellbeing rather than solely economic prosperity is becoming ever more popular among policy makers, both in Australia and New Zealand, and elsewhere. And yet, turning a complex set of system‐level indicators of wellbeing into actionable policy requires us to rethink how we develop, implement, and evaluate policy. In this article, I review the current trends in wellbeing, including developments in the measurement and tracking of wellbeing, and offer practical steps for integrating actionable wellbeing outcomes into future policymaking processes.Points for practitioners Focusing on wellbeing as part of the policy making process is becoming more popular among governments, including in Australia and New Zealand. The New Zealand Government has been doing wellbeing budgets since 2019 while the Australian Government released a new wellbeing framework in 2023. Wellbeing policy represents an approach to policy making that aims to maximize the general health and happiness of a target population on both subjective and objective measures of wellbeing. This includes both economic and non‐economic measures of prosperity and wellbeing. There are many ways of tracking the wellbeing effect of policy and so choosing the right framework is important for effective wellbeing policy making. This starts with a wellbeing purpose for the policy and a clear and concise definition of wellbeing. Doing wellbeing policy requires a good understanding of what wellbeing represents and how it is measured. You need relevant and measurable indicators of wellbeing, an evaluation strategy, and the ability to reflect and innovate as part of an iterative policy making process.

Wellbeing Rankings

Combining data on around four million respondents from the Gallup World Poll and the US Daily Tracker Poll we rank 164 countries, the 50 states of the United States and the District of Colombia on eight wellbeing measures. These are four positive wellbeing measures—life satisfaction, enjoyment, smiling and being well-rested—and four negative wellbeing variables—pain, sadness, anger and worry. Pooling the data for 2008–2017 we find country and state rankings differ markedly depending on whether they are ranked using positive or negative affect measures. The United States ranks lower on negative than positive affect, that is, its country wellbeing ranking looks worse using negative affect than it does when using positive affect. Combining rankings on all eight measures into a summary ranking index for 215 geographical locations we find that nine of the top ten and 16 of the top 20 ranked are US states. Only one US state ranks outside the top 100—West Virginia (101). Iraq ranks lowest—just below South Sudan. The Nordic countries that traditionally rank high using life satisfaction do not rank as highly on other measures. Country-level rankings on the summary wellbeing index differ sharply from those reported in the World Happiness Index and are more comparable to those obtained with the Human Development Index. The state level rankings on the summary index look very different from those just based on positive affect measures and look more similar to rankings based on objective wellbeing measures.

Autistic adults’ experiences of managing wellbeing and implications for social prescribing

Autistic people demonstrate poor outcomes on objective measures of wellbeing, yet research centring lived experience provides a more nuanced picture. There is growing support for person-centred, holistic and community approaches to enhancing wellbeing for autistic people. Social prescribing may be one such approach. This qualitative study explored the concept of wellbeing for autistic adults – including barriers and self-management – and the implications of this for modifying social prescribing. It involved semi-structured interviews with 21 autistic adults in the UK. Reflexive thematic analysis of the data supports research suggesting that self-determination may underlie many aspects of wellbeing for autistic people. The COVID-19 pandemic provided new opportunities to develop wellbeing strategies but also had negative impacts. Social prescribing could promote self-determination by signposting autistic people to peer support opportunities building on intrinsic interests.

How difficult is it to interpret subjective well-being questions during crises? Evidence from the onset of conflict in Yemen

Abstract Subjective well-being (SWB) measures, such as satisfaction with income, are increasingly being used to measure changes in well-being in response to policy changes and shocks. However, large policy changes or shocks themselves might cause individuals to change how they answer SWB questions in ways that have little to do with changes in objective well-being measures. For example, respondent-specific scales that individuals use to respond to SWB questions (e.g. threshold of income required to be satisfied) might change at the same time that income is changing following a shock. We illustrate the importance of this concern following the onset of conflict in Yemen, where households reported a large improvement in SWB across a range of different dimensions despite large declines in nearly all traditional and objective measures of well-being.

Impacts of negative shocks on wellbeing and aspirations – Evidence from an earthquake

While the influence of adverse shocks on objective measures of wellbeing has been researched in economics, little evidence exists on the effects of shocks like natural disasters on subjective wellbeing and aspirations. The paper examines the causal links between an adverse shock, the 2006 Yogyakarta earthquake in Indonesia, and a range of subjective wellbeing outcomes and aspirations. We combine a household survey panel dataset along with the ground shaking activity (Modified Mercalli Intensity) recorded by the United States Geological Survey. The panel data comprises of self-reported measures on current wellbeing, aspirations about future wellbeing, quality of life, and happiness before and after the earthquake. The results reveal robust evidence that the disaster led to large and significant reductions in subjective wellbeing (including those related to children) and future aspirations. Using a follow-up round of data, we find that such declines in wellbeing persisted years after the disaster, calling into policy action encompassing both material and emotional wellbeing that is crucial for post-disaster revival.

Healthy lifestyle interventions across diverse workplaces: a summary of the current evidence.

Workplaces provide a unique opportunity to deliver health promotion interventions to their workers. This review summarizes evidence from the most recent studies (September 2019 to April 2021) of workplace healthy lifestyle interventions and identifies gaps in the literature and key aspects for successful future workplace lifestyle interventions. Recent intervention studies have focused on four health domains: (1) multicomponent wellness programs, (2) healthy diet interventions, (3) physical activity interventions, and (4) mental health/sleep interventions. Within each group of studies, there was significant heterogeneity in study length, intervention components, and worker populations. Nonetheless, most studies across all categories showed positive associations between healthy lifestyle interventions and improved worker health. Although recent literature has shown an overall positive trend between healthy lifestyle interventions implemented at the workplace and improvements in markers of health and wellbeing, further research should include longer follow-up periods, more objective measures of wellbeing, evaluation of worker performance, and analogous interventions between studies to identify the most effective interventions to improve worker health and wellness.

Global Variation in Subjective Well-Being Predicts Seven Forms of Altruism

The geographic prevalence of various altruistic behaviors (nonreciprocal acts that improve other people’s welfare) is not uniformly distributed, but whether this reflects variation in a superordinate construct linked to national-level outcomes or cultural values is unknown. We compiled data on seven altruistic behaviors across 48 to 152 nations and found evidence that these behaviors reflect a latent construct positively associated with national-level subjective well-being (SWB) and individualist values, even when we controlled for national-level wealth, health, education, and shared cultural history. Consistent with prior work, our results showed that SWB mediated the relationship between two objective measures of well-being (wealth and health) and altruism (n = 130). Moreover, these indirect effects increased as individualist values increased within the subset of countries (n = 90) with available data. Together, our results indicate that altruism increases when resources and cultural values provide objective and subjective means for pursuing personally meaningful goals and that altruistic behaviors may be enhanced by societal changes that promote well-being.

Subjective Well-Being of Russian Faculty: An Empirical Study

Drawing upon findings of applied research, this article explores the indicators of subjective well-being among faculty of Russia’s leading universities. Methodological design of the study discriminates between subjective and objective measures of well-being, examines the affective and cognitive components of wellbeing, makes allowance for a set of subjective well-being determinants when zeroing in on a group of occupational factors, and uses time-tested scales for better measurement validity. Using empirical data, we demonstrate the priority of interesting work, freedom and fulfillment over income on sample of faculty members. Correlations are found among subjective well-being, teaching faculty’s age and qualifications. A negative impact of modern education reforms on occupational well-being of faculty is observed. Along with faculty retention and motivation strategies, universities should develop and implement worker subjective well-being initiatives.

Human wellbeing outcomes of involvement in industrial crop production: Evidence from sugarcane, oil palm and jatropha sites in Ghana.

An extensive body of theoretical work has advocated the use of multiple human wellbeing indicators to assess the outcomes of agricultural investments in Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA). However, few studies have actually achieved it. This study investigates the human wellbeing outcomes of involvement in industrial crop production in Ghana by comparing the levels of different objective and subjective wellbeing measures for groups involved in industrial crop production as plantation workers and smallholders, and groups not involved (i.e. control groups). We use household income, adult consumption and the multidimensional poverty index (MPI) as indicators of objective wellbeing. We measure subjective wellbeing through self-reported levels of satisfaction with life, worthwhileness, happiness and anxiousness. Propensity Score Matching (PSM) analysis is used to assess whether involvement in industrial crop production increases household income and consumption. Overall, for most indicators of objective wellbeing industrial crop outgrowers, smallholders and independent smallholders are better off compared to other groups in their respective sites (in terms of mean scores), but involvement does not necessarily brings human wellbeing benefits (PSM analysis). On the other hand plantation workers are either worse off or have similar level of objective human wellbeing with control groups in their respective sites (in terms of mean scores), but involvement sometimes brings human wellbeing benefits (PSM analysis). However, workers tend to benefit from access to plantation infrastructure, which has a positive effect to their multi-dimensional poverty. In most cases the objective wellbeing measures do not correlate well with self-reported levels of subjective wellbeing. It is important to combine such indicators when evaluating the human wellbeing outcomes of agricultural investments in order to obtain a more comprehensive outlook of whether industrial crop production can become a valuable rural development strategy in SSA.

Incorporating basic needs to reconcile poverty and ecosystem services.

Conservation managers frequently face the challenge of protecting and sustaining biodiversity without producing detrimental outcomes for (often poor) human populations that depend on ecosystem services for their well‐being. However, mutually beneficial solutions are often elusive and can mask trade‐offs and negative outcomes for people. To deal with such trade‐offs, ecological and social thresholds need to be identified to determine the acceptable solution space for conservation. Although human well‐being as a concept has recently gained prominence, conservationists still lack tools to evaluate how their actions affect it in a given context. We applied the theory of human needs to conservation by building on an extensive historical application of need approaches in international development. In an innovative participatory method that included focus groups and household surveys, we evaluated how human needs are met based on locally relevant thresholds. We then established connections between human needs and ecosystem services through key‐informant focus groups. We applied our method in coastal East Africa to identify households that would not be able to meet their basic needs and to uncover the role of ecosystem services in meeting these. This enabled us to identify how benefits derived from the environment were contributing to meeting basic needs and to consider potential repercussions that could arise through changes to ecosystem service provision. We suggest our approach can help conservationists and planners balance poverty alleviation and biodiversity protection and ensure conservation measures do not, at the very least, cause serious harm to individuals. We further argue it can be used as a basis for monitoring the impacts of conservation on multidimensional poverty.

The Role of Social Capital and Remote Chinese Villagers’ Well-Being

Evidence on income and different forms of social capital associated with subjective and objective well-being calls for a recalibration in the policy balance between targeting different types of social capital and addressing poverty. For instance, renqing and community integration in the form of social networks are associated with improved objective well-being (OWB) or poverty while social capital in the form of trust is positively associated with a boost in subjective well-being (SWB). Age too has different effects on SWB and OWB. While an older person is more satisfied with life, there is however a struggle in owning material things. The lack of correlation between SWB and OWB measures further complicates the policy debate. A robust approach to understanding and enhancing well-being in rural remote areas should thus be an urgent priority in regional policy analyses.

Beyond Money: Progress on an Economy of Well-Being

In our 2004 “Beyond Money” article, we argued that national accounts of psychological and subjective well-being should complement the economic indicators that frequently guide policy decisions. We claimed that economic indicators fail to reflect important aspects of quality of life that well-being indicators capture. Since the time of our article, progress has been made, and scores of nations have used some forms of well-being measures. The National Academy of Sciences of the United States and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development both issued reports on accounts of well-being. Researchers have pointed to policies that are supported by the findings, such as environmental and economic policies. The emergence of “big data” has opened major new pathways for measuring well-being in inexpensive, unobtrusive, and nonreactive fashion. Psychological researchers now need to create superordinate combinations of subjective and objective measures of well-being to study the impact of the policies they advocate. The accounts can serve as a lever for convincing policymakers to enact policies that increase human flourishing.

Subjective Wellbeing, Objective Wellbeing and Inequality in Australia.

In recent years policy makers and social scientists have devoted considerable attention to wellbeing, a concept that refers to people’s capacity to live healthy, creative and fulfilling lives. Two conceptual approaches dominate wellbeing research. The objective approach examines the objective components of a good life. The subjective approach examines people’s subjective evaluations of their lives. In the objective approach how subjective wellbeing relates to objective wellbeing is not a relevant research question. The subjective approach does investigate how objective wellbeing relates to subjective wellbeing, but has focused primarily on one objective wellbeing indicator, income, rather than the comprehensive indicator set implied by the objective approach. This paper attempts to contribute by examining relationships between a comprehensive set of objective wellbeing measures and subjective wellbeing, and by linking wellbeing research to inequality research by also investigating how subjective and objective wellbeing relate to class, gender, age and ethnicity. We use three waves of a representative state-level household panel study from Queensland, Australia, undertaken from 2008 to 2010, to investigate how objective measures of wellbeing are socially distributed by gender, class, age, and ethnicity. We also examine relationships between objective wellbeing and overall life satisfaction, providing one of the first longitudinal analyses linking objective wellbeing with subjective evaluations. Objective aspects of wellbeing are unequally distributed by gender, age, class and ethnicity and are strongly associated with life satisfaction. Moreover, associations between gender, ethnicity, class and life satisfaction persist after controlling for objective wellbeing, suggesting that mechanisms in addition to objective wellbeing link structural dimensions of inequality to life satisfaction.

A Samuelsonian validation test for happiness data

There is growing interest in the use of subjective well-being data, such as survey questions about happiness and life satisfaction. The existing validation tests determine whether these subjective measures have a positive correlation with objective measures of well-being, such as suicide rates and frequency of smiling. We propose an alternative test consisting of three steps: using regression analysis to infer preferences from subjective well-being data; using those estimated parameters to predict how a rational utility-maximizer individual should have acted; and comparing predicted behavior with actual behavior. This validation test can be compelling for economists, because it compares decision utility (i.e., preferences inferred from behavior) to reported utility (i.e., preferences inferred from self-reported well-being). We provide an application of this test based on a model of food consumption, estimated with one of the most widely used measures of subjective well-being: life satisfaction. We find that, across individuals, a one percentage point increase in the actual expenditure share is associated with a 0.76 (SE 0.196) increase in the share predicted by life satisfaction. Additionally, life satisfaction performs significantly better than other objective and subjective measures of well-being (e.g., income, satisfaction with income). The evidence suggests that life satisfaction offers some useful information about experienced utility.

Physiological and nonphysiological indicators of body condition score in weaner pigs.

The aim of this study was to identify parameters that may be used as objective measures of wellbeing in weaner pigs on farm. Eighty-six weaner pigs were categorized into 3 groups based on their BCS: very compromised (VC, BCS = 1), moderately compromised (MC, BCS = 2), or healthy (HY, BCS ≥ 3). Nonphysiological and physiological measures were then collected from the pigs. Nonphysiological measures included 3 subjective binary scores that assessed the activity, hairiness, and responsiveness of each pig. Physiological measures included rectal temperature, skin temperature, and 11 blood-based parameters. Each physiological measure was assessed in a ternary manner, with pigs being classed as being above, below, or within the normal physiological range. Fisher’s exact tests (FET) were used to identify differences between the numbers of pigs in each BCS category for each variable, and ANOVA of physiological measures was also conducted. Correlations between all variables were also conducted. The FET results identified significant differences for 8 of the measures, with activity, hairiness, responsiveness, rectal temperature, and blood concentrations of glucose, creatinine kinase (CK), albumin, and globulin all differing significantly (all P < 0.05) according to category. Rectal temperature, glucose, and globulin concentrations were significantly different in ANOVA analyses. Of these measures, there were significant correlations between hairiness, rectal temperature, and glucose (all R > 0.30 and P < 0.05). Based on these results, rectal temperature, glucose, and hairiness all warrant further investigation as simple to apply, on-farm measures that can be used in conjunction with body condition and subjective assessment to aid management decisions on pig welfare.

Measuring Subjective and Objective Well-being: Analyses from Five Marine Commercial Fisheries

Well-being is an important indicator of how participants in an industry are doing. Since the 1970s, anthropologists have been developing and utilizing as an indicator, along with identifying the advantages and disadvantages of such a metric. Building on this experience, a index is useful if it (1) is easily developed from available data; (2) enables temporal and spatial comparisons; (3) can be applied at multiple scales; and (4) possesses subjective and objective elements. The subjective element reflects how individuals and members of occupational communities perceive their situation. Using five case studies of North American marine commercial fisheries, an approach to representing subjective and objective measures of well-being is illustrated and evaluated. These studies show that commercial fishing has historically been a highly valued occupation from both subjective and objective perspectives. However, the status of commercial fishing has been in a state of decline over the pa...

A Samuelsonian Validation Test for Happiness Data

There is growing interest in the use of subjective well-being data, such as survey questions about happiness and life satisfaction. The existing validation tests determine whether these subjective measures have a positive correlation with objective measures of well-being, such as suicide rates and frequency of smiling. We propose an alternative test consisting of three steps: using regression analysis to infer preferences from subjective well-being data; using those estimated parameters to predict how a rational utility-maximizer individual should have acted; and comparing predicted behavior with actual behavior. This validation test can be compelling for economists, because it compares decision utility (i.e., preferences inferred from behavior) to reported utility (i.e., preferences inferred from self-reported well-being). We provide an application of this test based on a model of food consumption, estimated with one of the most widely used measures of subjective well-being: life satisfaction. We find that, across individuals, a one percentage point increase in the actual expenditure share is associated with a 0.76 (SE 0.196) increase in the share predicted by life satisfaction. Additionally, life satisfaction performs significantly better than other objective and subjective measures of well-being (e.g., income, satisfaction with income). The evidence suggests that life satisfaction offers some useful information about experienced utility.

Pursuit of pleasure, engagement, and meaning: Relationships to subjective and objective measures of well-being

Pleasure, engagement, and meaning are all unique predictors of individuals’ well-being. We explored the relationship between the pursuit of each of these pathways and well-being. Participants (N = 13,565) visited a website and completed a measure about their orientation toward pleasure, engagement, and meaning as a pathway to happiness as well as measures of subjective and objective well-being (OWB). All three pathways correlated with higher levels of subjective well-being (SWB). Pursuing engagement and meaning, however, were more strongly related to SWB than pursuing pleasure. Objective indicators of well-being, including measures of occupational and educational attainment, displayed a similar pattern, with engagement and meaning positively related, whereas pleasure was negatively related. Although these results are merely correlational, it suggests that engaging and meaningful activities may have stronger influences on well-being than pursuing pleasure.