Measures of Human Well-Being | Urban Institute
As a measure of human values, GDP is dangerously flawed. The Urban Institute has published a fascinating report that synthesizes measures of well-being from a wide variety of sources.
From "The State of Society: Measuring Economic Success and Human Well-Being" by Erwin de Leon and Elizabeth Boris:
Based on a review of the literature and an analysis of major arguments and rationales for moving beyond GDP as a measure of national well-being, this report identifies 14 categories of national well-being. It synthesizes hundreds of indicators found in 28 reports that present alternative indices and systems of well-being into 79 indicators organized under these categories.
• Poverty
• Health
• Education
• Employment
• Income and wealth
• Shelter
• Natural environment
• Political participation
• Civil society
• Economic participation
• Human rights
• National stability and sustainability
• Family well-being
• Personal well-being
Worth noting in this context is the careful distinction between well-being and sustainability made by last year's international commission, led by Joe Stiglitz and Amartya Sen. From their report ("Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress"):
The assessment of sustainability is complementary to the question of current well-being or economic performance, and must be examined separately. This may sound trivial and yet it deserves emphasis, because some existing approaches fail to adopt this principle, leading to potentially confusing messages. ...
Current well-being has to do with both economic resources, such as income, and with non-economic aspects of peoples’ life (what they do and what they can do, how they feel, and the natural environment they live in). Whether these levels of well-being can be sustained over time depends on whether stocks of capital that matter for our lives (natural, physical, human, social) are passed on to future generations.
Here are the 28 measures examined by the Urban Institute authors:
• America’s Children (Forum on Child and Family Statistics)
• America’s Civic Health Index (National Conference on Citizenship)
• American Human Development Report (The Social Science Research Council)
• The Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators
• The Child and Youth Wealth-Being Index Report (The Foundation for Child Development) (pdf)
• The Child Development Index (Save the Children) (pdf)
• Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (pdf)
• Counting on Care Work (University of Massachusetts) (pdf)
• Doing Better for Children (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)
• The Failed States Index (The Fund for Peace)
• The Gender Equity and Quality of Life Index (The Center for Partnership Studies)
• Gender Equity Index (Social Watch)
• Genuine Progress Indicator (Redefining Progress)
• Global Civil Society Index (London School of Economics)
• The Global Gender Gap Report (World Economic Forum)
• The Human Development Index (United Nations Development Programme, includes the Human Poverty Indices, Gender-Related Development Index, and Gender Empowerment Measure)
• Index of Social Health (Fordham Institute for Innovation in Social Policy)
• The Kids Count Data Book (The Annie E. Casey Foundation)
• Missing Dimensions of Poverty Data (Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative)
• National Accounts of Well-Being (The New Economics Foundation)
• Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Family Database Society at a Glance (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)
• The State of Working America (The Economic Policy Institute)
• State of World Population Report (United Nation’s Population Fund)
• State of the World’s Mothers (Save the Children)
• System of National Accounts (United Nations)
• The (Un)Happy Planet Index 2.0 (New Economics Foundation)
• The World Factbook (Central Intelligence Agency)
