Oecd Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-being

Being able to measure peoples quality of life is fundamental when assessing the progress of societies. There is now widespread acknowledgement that measuring subjective well-being is an essential part of measuring quality of life alongside other social and economic dimensions. As a first step to improving the measures of quality of life, the OECD has produced Guidelines which provide advice on the collection and use of measures of subjective well-being.  These Guidelines have been produced as part of the OECD Better Life Initiative, a pioneering project launched in 2011, with the objective to measure societys progress across eleven domains of well-being, ranging from jobs, health and housing, through to civic engagement and the environment.

These Guidelines represent the first attempt to provide international recommendations on collecting, publishing, and analysing subjective well-being data. They provide guidance on collecting information on people's evaluations and experiences of life, as well as on collecting eudaimonic measures of psychological well-being. The Guidelines also outline why measures of subjective well-being are relevant for monitoring and policy making, and why national statistical agencies have a critical role to play in enhancing the usefulness of existing measures. They identify the best approaches for measuring, in a reliable and consistent way, the various dimensions of subjective well-being, and provide guidance for reporting on such measures. The Guidelines also include a number of prototype survey modules on subjective well-being that national and international agencies can use in their surveys.

Table of Content :

Overview and recommendations
Introduction
Chapter 1. Concept and validity
-1. Conceptual framework
-2. The quality of subjective well-being measures
-3. The relevance of measures of subjective well-being: Why are they important?
-4. The accuracy of subjective well-being measures
-Conclusion
-Bibliography
Chapter 2. Methodological considerations in the measurement of subjective well-being
-Introduction
-1. Question construction
-2. Response formats
-3. Question context, placement and order effects
-4. Mode effects and survey context
-5. Response styles and the cultural context
-Overall conclusions and priorities for future work
-Bibliography
Chapter 3. Measuring subjective well-being
-Introduction
-1. What to measure? Planning the measurement of subjective well-being
-2. Survey and sample design
-3. Questionnaire design
4. Survey implementation
-Bibliography
Chapter 4. Output and analysis of subjective well-being measures
-Introduction
-1. Using subjective well-being to complement other outcome measures
-2. Better understanding the drivers of subjective well-being
-3. Subjective well-being as an input to cost-benefit analysis
-Bibliography
Annex A. Illustrative examples of subjective well-being measures
Annex B. Question modules