Conceptualizing Subjective Well-Being and its Many  Dimensions – Implications for Data Collection in Official Statistics and for  Policy Relevance

Christopher Mackie; Conal  Smith

doi:https://doi.org/10.59170/stattrans-2015-019

Conceptualizing Subjective Well-Being and its Many Dimensions – Implications for Data Collection in Official Statistics and for Policy Relevance

Christopher Mackie Committee on National Statistics, National Academies – Washington, DC. , Conal Smith Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development – Paris. Statistics in Transition new series, vol. 16, 2015, 3, pages: 335-372 Published online: 1 September 2015 https://doi.org/10.59170/stattrans-2015-019

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ABSTRACT

Subjective well-being encompasses several distinct but interacting aspects of people’s feelings, attitudes, and experiences. This paper assesses the state of the art for measuring these dimensions of people's lives, which typically involves analyzing self-reports of subjective well-being collected in survey instruments; however, other potentially complementary, technology-driven tools are emerging as well. We first answer the question, “what is subjective well-being?” and unpack its multidimensionality. The role of national statistics offices in measuring subjective well-being and deriving official statistics is considered next. We conclude by discussing how different characteristics of well-being constructs shape their applicability to policy. The overarching conclusion is that–while methodological limitations are present and a number of fundamental research challenges remain–understanding of how to collect and interpret data on subjective well-being has made enormous strides in the last two decades, and policies for a wide range of domains are beginning to be usefully informed.

KEYWORDS

subjective well-being, national statistics, policy

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