Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide, Economics of Wellbeing E-Book
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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
Part of the six-volume Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide, this is a comprehensive look at the economics of wellbeing with coverage of history, research, policy, and practice.
- Examines the challenges inherent in studying and measuring wellbeing from an economic perspective
- Discusses strategies and interventions to improve wellbeing across the lifespan and in different settings
- Addresses the potential economic benefits for governments and policymakers of actively investing in initiatives to improve wellbeing, from the workplace to the home to the natural environment
- Emphasizes the need to strengthen the evidence base for the economics of wellbeing and improve methods for translating research into policy and practice
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Table of Contents
Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide
Title Page
Copyright
About the Editors
Contributors
Full Contents of Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide
Introduction to Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide
The Volumes in the Series
References
1: Introduction
Making the Economic Case for Investing in Wellbeing
References
Part 1: Perspectives on the Economics of Wellbeing
2: A Short History of Wellbeing Research
Introduction
Ancient Greece
The Enlightenment: Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Europe
Looking to Other Societies: The Nineteenth Century
Psychology and Wellbeing
Wellbeing in the Twentieth Century
Conclusion
References
Further Reading
3: Income and Wellbeing
Introduction
Subjective Wellbeing
Income and Happiness
Income, Wellbeing, and the Easterlin Paradox
Cross-Country Analysis of Income and Wellbeing
Implications and Discussion
References
Further Reading
4: Does Money Buy Me Love?
Introduction
Prior Studies and Conceptual Model
Wellbeing and Sustainability Data
Wellbeing, Sustainability, and International Migration
Summary and Conclusions
Acknowledgment
References
Further Readings
5: The Impact of the Great Recession on Economic Wellbeing
Introduction
The Index of Economic Wellbeing: Motivation and Framework
The Differing Impacts of the Great Recession
Trends in the IEWB in Canada, Germany, Spain, and the United States 1995 to 2010
Divergences and Commonalities in Economic Wellbeing within Countries: 2007–2010
The Relationship between Changes in the IEWB, Its Components, and GDP per Capita or Unemployment
Conclusion
Addendum
References
6: Was the Economic Crisis of 2008 Good for Icelanders?
Introduction
Background
Results
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
References
Appendix
7: Mental Health
Wellbeing
Mental Health
The Scale of Mental Illness
Economic Costs
Cost-Effective Treatments
Undertreatment
Social Sciences
Conclusion
References
Further Reading
Part 2: Promoting Wellbeing: The Economic Case for Action
8: Investing in the Wellbeing of Young People
Introduction
Why Is Economics Relevant to Child and Adolescent Wellbeing?
What Do We Know about the Long-Term Impacts of Wellbeing on Young People?
What Do We Know about the Economic Benefits of Promoting and Protecting the Wellbeing of Young People?
Conclusion
References
Further Readings
9: Investing in Wellbeing in the Workplace
Why Should We Be Interested in Mental Health and Wellbeing at Work?
What Do We Know about Actions to Promote Mental Health and Wellbeing in the Workplace?
What Do We Know about Cost-Effective Actions to Help People with Mental Health Problems Remain in Employment?
How Can We Facilitate Greater Investment in Workplace Mental Health and Wellbeing Promotion?
Conclusions
References
Further Readings
10: Promoting the Health and Wellbeing of Older People
Introduction
Why Is Economics Relevant to the Wellbeing of Older People?
What Are the Potential Economic Payoffs of Focusing on Wellbeing?
What Are the Economic Consequences of Poor Wellbeing in Older People?
Are Measures to Protect and Promote Wellbeing in Older People Cost-Effective?
Conclusion
References
Further Readings
11: Promoting and Protecting Mental Wellbeing during Times of Economic Change
What Are the Potential Impacts on Mental Health and Wellbeing Arising from Economic Shocks?
What Can Be Done to Protect Mental Health and Wellbeing?
The Challenge of Implementation
Conclusion: Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining
References
Further Readings
12: Making Use of Evidence from Wellbeing Research in Policy and Practice
Introduction
Getting the Measurement Right
How Can Wellbeing Inform Policy and Practice?
What Needs to Be Done to Facilitate the Use of Wellbeing Information in Policy and Practice?
Conclusion
References
Index
Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide
Volume I: Wellbeing in Children and Families
Edited by Susan H. Landry and Cary L. Cooper
Volume II: Wellbeing and the Environment
Edited by Rachel Cooper, Elizabeth Burton, and Cary L. Cooper
Volume III: Work and Wellbeing
Edited by Peter Y. Chen and Cary L. Cooper
Volume IV: Wellbeing in Later Life
Edited by Thomas B. L. Kirkwood and Cary L. Cooper
Volume V: The Economics of Wellbeing
Edited by David McDaid and Cary L. Cooper
Volume VI: Interventions and Policies to Enhance Wellbeing
Edited by Felicia A. Huppert and Cary L. Cooper
This edition first published 2014
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The economics of wellbeing/volume editor, David McDaid; editor-in-chief, Cary L. Cooper.
pages cm. – (Wellbeing : a complete reference guide; volume V)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-118-60838-8 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Health behavior–Economic aspects. 2. Economics–Sociological aspects. 3. Well-being I. McDaid, David.
RA776.9.E3266 2014
362.1–dc23
2013030509
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover image: © Ekely / Getty
Cover design by cyandesign.co.uk
About the Editors
David McDaid is Senior Research Fellow in Health Policy and Health Economics at LSE Health and Social Care and the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies at the London School of Economics and Political Science, U.K. He is involved in a wide range of work on the economics of mental and physical health and wellbeing in the United Kingdom, Europe, and beyond. He has served as an advisor to organizations including the European Commission, World Health Organization, and national governments. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers and reports, including studies looking at the case for investing in measures to promote and protect health and wellbeing. He is coeditor of Mental health policy and practice across Europe (2007) and coauthor of Because it's worth it: A practical guide to conducting economic evaluations in the social welfare field (2003).
Cary L. Cooper, CBE, is Distinguished Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health at Lancaster University Management School, U.K. He is the author/editor of over 150 books, has written over 400 scholarly articles for academic journals, and is a frequent contributor to national newspapers, TV, and radio. He is the Chair of the Academy of Social Sciences (comprised of 46 learned societies in the social sciences, with nearly 90,000 social scientists), President of RELATE, President of the Institute of Welfare, and immediate past President of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy. He was the Founding President of the British Academy of Management, Founding Editor of the Journal of Organizational Behavior, and is currently Editor-in-Chief of the international scholarly journal Stress & Health. He has received honorary doctorates from a number of universities (e.g., University of Sheffield, Aston University, and Heriot-Watt University). He has been awarded honorary fellowships by the Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, British Psychological Society, European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology, and Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. In 2010 Professor Cooper was awarded the Lord Dearing Lifetime Achievement Award at the The Times Higher Education Awards for his distinguished contribution to higher education. He was lead scientist on the U.K. Government's Foresight program on Mental Capital and Wellbeing, which had a major impact in the United Kingdom and Europe. Professor Cooper was Chair of the Global Agenda Council on Chronic Diseases in the World Economic Forum in 2009–2010. In 2012, HR magazine voted him the Fourth Most Influential HR Thinker. In 2001, he was awarded a CBE by the Queen for his contribution to occupational health.
Contributors
Full Contents of Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide
Volume I Wellbeing in Children and Families
Edited by Susan H. Landry and Cary L. Cooper
About the Editors
Contributors
Full Contents of Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide
Introduction to Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide
1 Introduction
Susan H. Landry
Part 1 The Development of Early Social and Cognitive Skills Important for Child Wellbeing
2 Children's Self-Regulation and Executive Control: Critical for Later Years
Caron A. C. Clark, Miriam M. Martinez, Jennifer Mize Nelson, Sandra A. Wiebe, and Kimberly Andrews Espy
3 Children's Emotion Regulation in Classroom Settings
C. Cybele Raver
4 Early Math and Literacy Skills: Key Predictors of Later School Success
Greg J. Duncan, Chantelle Dowsett, and Joshua F. Lawrence
5 Children's Intrinsic Motivation to Learn: Does It Decline over Time and, If So, Why?
Verena Freiberger and Birgit Spinath
Part 2 Parenting and Children's Development
6 Parents' Role in Infants' Language Development and Emergent Literacy
Catherine S. Tamis-LeMonda, Rufan Luo, and Lulu Song
7 Can Parents Be Supported to Use a Responsive Interaction Style with Young Children?
Susan H. Landry
8 Parenting and Executive Function: Positive and Negative Influences
Claire Hughes, Gabriela Roman, and Rosie Ensor
9 The Nature of Effective Parenting: Some Current Perspectives
Joan E. Grusec, Dilek Sarita, and Ella Daniel
10 Parenting and Early Intervention: The Impact on Children's Social and Emotional Skill Development
Catherine C. Ayoub, Jessical Dym Bartlett, and Mallary I. Swartz
Part 3 School and Child Care: Settings that Impact Child and Family Wellbeing
11 High-Risk Home and Child-Care Environments and Children's Social-Emotional Outcomes
Lisa S. Badanes and Sarah Enos Watamura
12 Classroom Peer Relations as a Context for Social and Scholastic Development
Gary W. Ladd, Becky Kochenderfer-Ladd, and Casey M. Sechler
13 The Importance of Quality Prekindergarten Programs for Promoting School Readiness Skills
Andrew J. Mashburn
14 Consistent Environmental Stimulation from Birth to Elementary School: The Combined Contribution of Different Settings on School Achievement
Robert C. Pianta
Part 4 Stress and Family and Child Wellbeing
15 Poverty, Public Policy, and Children's Wellbeing
Aletha C. Huston
16 Early Life Stress and Neurobehavioral Development
Sarah Stellern and Megan R. Gunnar
17 Neighborhood Effects and Young Children's Outcomes
Dafna Kohen and Leanne Findlay
18 The Family Check-Up: A Tailored Approach to Intervention with High-Risk Families
Anne M. Gill, Thomas J. Dishion, and Daniel S. Shaw
Index
Volume II Wellbeing and the Environment
Edited by Rachel Cooper, Elizabeth Burton, and Cary L. Cooper
About the Editors
Contributors
Full Contents of Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide
Introduction to Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide
1 Wellbeing and the Environment: An Overview
Rachel Cooper
Part 1 Wellbeing and the Neighborhood
2 Urban Neighborhoods and Mental Health across the Life Course
Erin Gilbert and Sandro Galea
3 The Impact of the Local Social and Physical Local Environment on Wellbeing
Anne Ellaway
4 Density and Mental Wellbeing
Christopher T. Boyko and Rachel Cooper
5 Neighborhoods and Social Interaction
Scott C. Brown and Joanna Lombard
6 Living in the City: Mixed Use and Quality of Life
Graeme Evans
7 “We Live Here Too”… What Makes a Child-Friendly Neighborhood?
Karen E. Martin and Lisa J. Wood
8 A Step Too Far? Designing Dementia-Friendly Neighborhoods
Lynne Mitchell
9 Walkable Neighborhoods: Principles, Measures, and Health Impacts
Tim G. Townshend
10 Quality of Urban Spaces and Wellbeing
Mags Adams
Part 2 Wellbeing and Buildings
11 Children and the Physical Environment
Lorraine E. Maxwell and Gary W. Evans
12 Wellbeing and the School Environment
Andy Jones and Flo Harrison
13 The Built Housing Environment, Wellbeing, and Older People
Rachael Dutton
14 Workplace and Wellbeing
Jeremy Myerson
15 Linking the Physical Design of Health-Care Environments to Wellbeing Indicators
Sarah Payne, Rachel Potter, and Rebecca Cain
Part 3 Wellbeing and Green Spaces
16 Wellbeing and Green Spaces in Cities
William Sullivan
17 Environmental Interaction and Engagement: Supporting Wellbeing
Richard Coles
Part 4 Wellbeing and the Environment: Other Factors and the Future
18 Crime and the Urban Environment: The Implications for Wellbeing
Caroline L. Davey and Andrew B. Wootton
19 Transport and Wellbeing
Nick Tyler
20 Air Quality and Wellbeing
Ben Croxford
21 Implications of Low-Carbon Design of Housing for Health and Wellbeing: A U.K. Case Study
Michael Davies, Ian Hamilton, Anna Mavrogianni, Rokia Raslan, and Paul Wilkinson
22 Cobenefits of Insulating Houses: Research Evidence and Policy Implications
Philippa Howden-Chapman and Nicholas Preval
23 The Multiple Pathways between Environment and Health
Marketta Kyttä and Anna Broberg
24 Summary: Wellbeing and the Environmental Implications for Design
Rachel Cooper and Elizabeth Burton
Index
Volume III Work and Wellbeing
Edited by Peter Y. Chen and Cary L. Cooper
About the Editors
Contributors
Full Contents of Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide
Introduction to Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide
Part 1 Introduction
1 Introduction: From Stress to Happiness
Peter Y. Chen and Cary L. Cooper
2 Conceptualizing and Measuring Wellbeing at Work
Cynthia D. Fisher
Part 2 Resources, Coping, and Control
3 Job Demands–Resources Theory
Arnold B. Bakker and Evangelia Demerouti
4 Positive Psychology and Coping: Towards a Better Understanding of the Relationship
Philip Dewe
5 The Role of Workplace Control in Positive Health and Wellbeing
Erin M. Eatough and Paul E. Spector
Part 3 Happy Workers and Happy Organizations
6 The Happy Worker: Revisiting the “Happy–Productive Worker” Thesis
Peter Hosie and Nada ElRakhawy
7 Organizational Characteristics of Happy Organizations
Bret L. Simmons
Part 4 Character and Wellbeing
8 Character and Wellbeing
Thomas A. Wright and Tyler Lauer
9 Stress, Health, and Wellbeing in Practice: Workplace Leadership and Leveraging Stress for Positive Outcomes
James Campbell Quick, Joel Bennett, and M. Blake Hargrove
Part 5 Organizational Strategies to Promote Wellbeing
10 Cancer, Work, and the Quality of Working Life: A Narrative Review
Tom Cox, Sara MacLennan, and James N'Dow
11 Lead Well, Be Well: Leadership Behaviors Influence Employee Wellbeing
Jennifer Robertson and Julian Barling
12 Organizational Coping Strategies and Wellbeing
Gordon Tinline and Matthew Smeed
13 Workplace Mistreatment: Recent Developments in Theory, Research, and Interventions
Michael Hanrahan and Michael P. Leiter
14 The Sustainable Workforce: Organizational Strategies for Promoting Work–Life Balance and Wellbeing
Ellen Ernst Kossek, Monique Valcour, and Pamela Lirio
15 Development of a Theoretically Grounded Model of Sexual Harassment Awareness Training Effectiveness
Lisa M. Kath and Vicki J. Magley
16 The Working Wounded: Stigma and Return to Work
Lori Francis, James E. Cameron, E. Kevin Kelloway, Victor M. Catano, Arla L. Day, and C. Gail Hepburn
17 Job Stress in University Academics: Evidence from an Australian National Study
Anthony H. Winefield
Part 6 From Research to National Policy
18 Longitudinal Research in Occupational Stress: A Review of Methodological Issues
Robert C. Brusso, Konstantin P. Cigularov, and Rachel C. Callan
19 Measuring Wellbeing in Modern Societies
Paul Allin
Index
Volume IV Wellbeing in Later Life
Edited by Thomas B. L. Kirkwood and Cary L. Cooper
About the Editors
Contributors
Full Contents of Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide
Introduction to Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide
1 Introduction: Wellbeing in Later Life
Cary L. Cooper and Thomas B. L. Kirkwood
Part 1 Longevity and Wellbeing
2 The Changing Demographic Context of Aging
Roland Rau and James W. Vaupel
3 Biological Determinants and Malleability of Aging
Thomas B. L. Kirkwood
4 Wellbeing as Experienced by the Very Old
Carol Jagger and Katie Brittain
Part 2 Factors Influencing Wellbeing
5 Psychological Wellbeing in Later Life
Kate M. Bennett and Laura K. Soulsby
6 Nutrition and Lifelong Wellbeing
C. Alexandra Munro and John C. Mathers
7 Physical Activity, Exercise, and Aging
Grainne S. Gorman, Josh Wood, and Michael I. Trenell
8 Capability and Independency in Later Life
John Bond
9 Combating Isolation Through Technology in Older People
Peter Gore
10 Wellbeing and Vitality in Later Life: The Role of the Consumer Industry
Michael Catt and Frans J. G. van der Ouderaa
11 Education and its Role in Wellbeing
Jim Soulsby
Part 3 Wellbeing at the End of Life
12 The Threat to Wellbeing from Cognitive Decline
Louise Robinson and Lynne Corner
13 When Vitality Meets Longevity: New Strategies for Health in Later Life
Rudi G. J. Westendorp, Bert Mulder, A. J. Willem van der Does, and Frans J. G. van der Ouderaa
14 Maintaining Wellbeing Through the End of Life
Julian C. Hughes
Part 4 Comparative Perspectives on Wellbeing
15 Cultures, Aging, and Wellbeing
Ngaire Kerse, Mere Kpa, Ruth Teh, and Lorna Dyall
16 Wellbeing in the Oldest Old and Centenarians in Japan
Yasuyuki Gondo, Yasumichi Arai, and Nobuyoshi Hirose
17 Wellbeing in Later Life in Eighteenth-Century England
Helen Yallop
Appendix
Foresight Mental Capital and Wellbeing Project: Mental Capital Through Life: Future Challenges
Thomas B. L. Kirkwood, John Bond, Carl May, Ian McKeith, and Min-Min Teh
Index
Volume V The Economics of Wellbeing
Edited by David McDaid and Cary L. Cooper
About the Editors
Contributors
Full Contents of Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide
Introduction to Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide
1 Introduction
David McDaid and Cary L. Cooper
Part 1 Perspectives on the Economics of Wellbeing
2 A Short History of Wellbeing Research
Laura Stoll
3 Income and Wellbeing: A Selective Review
Brendan Kennelly
4 Does Money Buy Me Love? Testing Alternative Measures of National Wellbeing
Arthur Grimes, Les Oxley, and Nicholas Tarrant
5 The Impact of the Great Recession on Economic Wellbeing: How Different Are OECD Nations and Why?
Lars Osberg and Andrew Sharpe
6 Was the Economic Crisis of 2008 Good for Icelanders? Impact on Health Behaviours
Tinna Laufey Ásgeirsdóttir, Hope Corman, Kelly Noonan, órhildur Ólafsdóttir, and Nancy E. Reichman
7 Mental Health: A New Frontier for Labor Economics
Richard Layard
Part 2 Promoting Wellbeing: The Economic Case for Action
8 Investing in the Wellbeing of Young People: Making the Economic Case
David McDaid, A-La Park, Candice Currie, and Cara Zanotti
9 Investing in Wellbeing in the Workplace: More Than Just a Business Case
David McDaid and A-La Park
10 Promoting the Health and Wellbeing of Older People: Making an Economic Case
A-La Park, David McDaid, Anna K. Forsman, and Kristian Wahlbeck
11 Promoting and Protecting Mental Wellbeing during Times of Economic Change
David McDaid and Kristian Wahlbeck
12 Making Use of Evidence from Wellbeing Research in Policy and Practice
David McDaid
Index
Volume VI Interventions and Policies to Enhance Wellbeing
Edited by Felicia A. Huppert and Cary L. Cooper
About the Editors
Contributors
Full Contents of Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide
Introduction to Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide
Introduction to this Volume
1 The State of Wellbeing Science: Concepts, Measures, Interventions, and Policies
Felicia A. Huppert
Part 1 Individual and Group Interventions across the Life Course
2 Parenting Interventions to Promote Wellbeing and Prevent Mental Disorder
Sarah Stewart-Brown
3 Promoting Mental Health and Wellbeing in Schools
Katherine Weare and Melanie Nind
4 An Exploration of the Effects of Mindfulness Training and Practice in Association with Enhanced Wellbeing for Children and Adolescents: Theory, Research, and Practice
Christine Burke
5 MindMatters: Implementing Mental Health Promotion in Secondary Schools in Australia
Louise Rowling and Trevor Hazell
6 A Systematic Review of Mental Health Promotion in the Workplace
Czesław Czabała and Katarzyna Charzyska
7 Wellbeing Begins with “We”: The Physical and Mental Health Benefits of Interventions that Increase Social Closeness
Bethany E. Kok and Barbara L. Fredrickson
8 The Experience Corps®: Intergenerational Interventions to Enhance Wellbeing Among Retired People
George W. Rebok, Michelle C. Carlson, Kevin D. Frick, Katherine D. Giuriceo, Tara L. Gruenewald, Sylvia McGill, Jeanine M. Parisi, William A. Romani, Teresa E. Seeman, Elizabeth K. Tanner, and Linda P. Fried
9 Enhancing Mental Health and Mental Wellbeing in Older People: Important Concepts and Effective Psychosocial Interventions
Anna K. Forsman, Eija Stengård, and Kristian Wahlbeck
Part 2 Interventions to Create Positive Organizations and Communities
10 Wellbeing as a Business Priority: Experience from the Corporate World
Catherine Kilfedder and Paul Litchfield
11 The Power of Philanthropy and Volunteering
Sara Konrath
12 Community Change: The Complex Nature of Interventions to Promote Positive Connections
Sue Roffey and Jacqueline Barnes
13 The Health and Wellbeing Effects of Active Labor Market Programs
Adam P. Coutts, David Stuckler, and David J. Cann
Part 3 The Policy Perspective
14 Creating Good Lives Through Computer Games
Daniel Johnson, Peta Wyeth, and Penny Sweetser
15 Retooling for Wellbeing: Media and the Public's Mental Health
Marten W. deVries
16 Policy and Wellbeing: The U.K. Government Perspective
David Halpern
17 Measuring what Matters
Juliet Michaelson, Charles Seaford, Saamah Abdallah, and Nic Marks
18 Mental Health and Wellbeing at the Top of the Global Agenda
Eva Jané-Llopis, Peter Anderson, and Helen Herrman
19 How can Subjective Wellbeing be Improved?
John F. Helliwell
Index
Introduction to Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide
Cary L. Cooper
Lancaster University, U.K.
This series of six volumes explores one of the most important social issues of our times, that of how to enhance the mental wellbeing of people, whether in the developed, developing, or underdeveloped world, and across the life course from birth to old age. We know that 1 in 4–6 people in most countries in the world suffer from a common mental disorder of anxiety, depression, or stress. We also know that mental ill health costs countries billions of dollars per annum. In the United Kingdom, for example, mental health-care costs have amounted to over £77 billion per annum, the bill for sickness absence and presenteeism (people turning up to work ill or not delivering due to job stress) in the workplace is another £26 billion, and the costs of dementia will rise from £20 billion to an estimated £50 billion in 25 years' time (Cooper, Field, Goswami, Jenkins, & Sahakian, 2009). In Germany, the leading cause of early retirement from work in 1989 was musculoskeletal disease but by 2004 it was stress and mental ill health, now representing 40% of all early retirements (German Federal Health Monitoring, 2007). In many European countries (e.g., Finland, Holland, Norway, and Switzerland) the cost of lost productive value due to lack of mental wellbeing is a significant proportion of gross domestic product (McDaid, Knapp, Medeiros, & MHEEN Group, 2008). Indeed, the costs of depression alone in the European Union were shown to be €41 billion, with €77 billion in terms of lost productivity to all the economies (Sobocki, Jonsson, Angst, & Rehnberg, 2006).
The issue of wellbeing has been around for sometime but has been brought to the fore more recently because of the global recession and economic downturn, which have made the situation worse (Antoniou & Cooper, 2013). But it was as early as 1968 that politicians began to talk about the inadequacy of gross national product as a measure of a society's success. In a powerful speech by Bobby Kennedy at the University of Kansas, when he was on the campaign trail for the Democratic Party nomination for U.S. President, he reflected:
But even if we act to erase material poverty, there is another greater task, it is to confront the poverty of satisfaction—purpose and dignity—that afflicts us all. Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product, now, is over $800 billion a year, but that gross national product—if we judge the United States of America by that—that gross national product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in the chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armoured cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. …Yet the GNP does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.
University of Kansas, March 18, 1968,http://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/portraits/robert-f-kennedy
Since that time there have been numerous studies to show that the wealth of a country is not related to its happiness (Cooper & Robertson, 2013); indeed, as you earn far beyond your means you may become less happy or content. More recently, we have had politicians like former President Sarkozy of France, Prime Minister Cameron of the United Kingdom, and the King of Bhutan extoll the virtue of gross national wellbeing; that is, that the goal of a nation's politicians should be to enhance wellbeing among its citizens, with gross national product being only one indicator of a country's success. Indeed, Prime Minister Cameron has instituted an annual assessment of this through the U.K. Office of National Statistics which measures wellbeing among a large sample of the U.K. population, publishing the results, highlighting concerns, and ultimately considering policies to deal with them. The World Economic Forum of leading global companies, nongovernmental organizations, international bodies, and global charities now has one of its Global Agenda Councils on “mental health and wellbeing.” Happiness and wellbeing indices abound (e.g., The Happy Planet), and many countries are being compared and assessed on a range of quality-of-life metrics. Indeed, in April 2012, 79 countries in the General Assembly of the United Nations signed the Bhutan Agreement, supporting the view that an overarching goal of a country should be to enhance the wellbeing and happiness of its people.
The biggest study of its kind undertaken by any government was the 2 year U.K. Government's Foresight project on mental capital and wellbeing, the aim of which was “to produce a challenging and long-term vision for optimising mental capital and wellbeing in the United Kingdom in the 21st century—both for the benefit of society and for the individual” (Cooper et al., 2009). Mental capital was defined as the metaphorical “bank account of the mind,” which gets enhanced or depleted throughout the life course (see figure). Mental wellbeing was defined as “a dynamic state that refers to individuals' ability to develop their potential, work productively and creatively, build strong and positive relationships with others and contribute to their community” (Beddington et al., 2008).
Figure. Synthetic View of the Mental Capital Trajectory.
Over 85 international science reviews were commissioned to assess the factors that influence an individual's mental capital and wellbeing throughout life, from early childhood to school years to working life to old age. There were numerous findings in this report, which were costed and developed as potential government policy and/or interventions. An example of some of the findings were: (a) if society does not catch learning difficulties in children early enough, there will be increased personal and economic costs downstream, leading to depleted mental wellbeing in terms of increased antisocial behavior as well as significant health costs; (b) if society does not identify the common mental disorders (CMDs) of anxiety, depression, and stress early enough, and provide appropriate treatment and support, society won't be able to tackle the 1 in 4–6 people suffering from depression and other CMDs; (c) with the workplace being more insecure, people working longer hours, and being more overloaded, occupational stress in many countries is now the leading cause of sickness absence and presenteeism, which has implications for the viability of businesses and their productivity; and, finally, (d) with the doubling of over-65-year-olds and the tripling of over-80-year-olds over the next 30 years, society needs to deal with the consequences of dementia now with preventative strategies, better early diagnosis, and more successful and evidence-based treatment regimes. The Foresight project developed many recommendations to enhance mental capital and wellbeing not only in the United Kingdom but also for other countries (Cooper et al., 2009), and its legacy has provided a roadmap for how other countries should think about this in the future, in terms of both policies and interventions for wellbeing.
The Volumes in the Series
Each volume in the series has a senior editor who is a leading international scholar in a particular field, following the life-course model described by the Foresight program. We start with Wellbeing in children and families and progress to Wellbeing and the environment, Work and wellbeing, Wellbeing in later life, The economics of wellbeing, and, finally, Interventions and policies to enhance wellbeing. The contributors to each of these volumes are distinguished international academics who work in the domain covered, reviewing the evidence that can help to develop policies and interventions to enhance wellbeing in that particular context.
In the first volume on children and families we explore four different themes, with a number of chapters under each of these: the development of the early social and cognitive skills that are important in child wellbeing, parenting and children's development, school and child care-settings that impact child and family wellbeing, and stress and family and child wellbeing.
The second volume is on wellbeing and the environment. This comprises sections, with chapters in each, on wellbeing and the neighborhood, wellbeing and buildings, wellbeing and green spaces, crime and the urban environment (and the implications for wellbeing), and wellbeing and the environmental implications for design.
The third volume highlights the issues of work and wellbeing. A range of topics is covered here: the impact of job demands, the role of workplace control, the organizational characteristics of “happy organizations,” leadership behaviors that influence employee wellbeing, the sustainable workforce, the “working wounded” (including stigma and return to work), organizational coping strategies and wellbeing, and many more.
The fourth volume highlights wellbeing in later life. Topics covered include the changing demographic context of aging, biological determinants and malleability of aging, psychological aspects of wellbeing in later life, nutrition and lifelong wellbeing, physical exercise and aging, combating isolation through technology in older people, the threat to wellbeing from cognitive decline, and maintaining wellbeing through the end of life, among others.
The fifth volume explores the economics of wellbeing, with chapters on income and wellbeing, alternative measures of national wellbeing, the impact of the great recession on economic wellbeing, whether recessions are good for one's health, investing in the wellbeing of children, investing in wellbeing in the workplace, promoting health and wellbeing of older people and protecting population mental health, wellbeing during an economic crisis, and many others.
Finally, the sixth volume highlights interventions and policies that can enhance wellbeing throughout the life course. There are three sections, with chapters on the state of wellbeing science, individual/group interventions on childhood and adolescence, promoting mental health and wellbeing in schools, mindfulness training for children and adolescents, interventions in working years and post retirement, mental health promotion in the workplace, intergenerational interventions to enhance wellbeing among retired people, interventions to create positive organizations and communities with wellbeing as a business priority, the power of philanthropy and volunteering, and creating community connections. Finally, policies are discussed, such as mental health and wellbeing at the top of the global agenda, how subjective wellbeing can influence policy, media and the public's mental health, and promoting wellbeing through new technology.
These volumes contain the leading-edge research, practice, and policies to help government, businesses, local authorities, and global institutions consider how we can action some of what Bobby Kennedy suggested were an important set of outcomes for a successful society. Our institutions need to change, and we as individuals need to do so as well, if we are to achieve personal wellbeing, or as Abraham Lincoln wrote during the American Civil War, “it is not the years in your life which are important, but the life in your years.” Winston Churchill reflected on this as well, when he wrote in an essay on how he dealt with the excessive pressures of life and found solace: “many remedies are suggested for the avoidance of worry and mental overstrain by persons who, over prolonged periods, have to bear exceptional responsibilities and discharge duties upon a very large scale. Some advise exercise, and others, repose. Some counsel travel, and others, retreat…no doubt all of these may play their part according to individual temperament. But the element which is constant and common in all of them is Change…a man can wear out a particular part of his mind by continually using it and tiring it, just in the same way as he can wear out the elbows of his coats…but the tired parts of the mind can be rested and strengthened, not merely by rest, but by using other parts…it is only when new cells are called into activity, when new stars become the lords of the ascendant, that relief, repose, refreshment are afforded.”
I hope that these volumes will provide you with the science, practice, and tools to enhance the mental wellbeing of people in your own work.
References
Antoniou, A., & Cooper, C. L. (Eds.) (2013). The psychology of the recession on the workplace. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Beddington, J., Cooper, C. L., Field, J., Goswami, U., Huppert, F., Jenkins, R., …Thomas, S. (2008). The mental wealth of nations. Nature, 455(23), 1057–1060.
Cooper, C. L., Field, J., Goswami, U., Jenkins, R., & Sahakian, B. (Eds.) (2009). Mental capital and wellbeing. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.
Cooper, C. L., & Robertson, I. (Eds.) (2013). Management and happiness. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
German Federal Health Monitoring (2007). Trends in causes of early retirement. http://www.gber.bund.de.
McDaid, D., Knapp, M., Medeiros, H., & MHEEN Group (2008). Employment and mental health. Brussels: European Commission.
Sobocki, P., Jonsson, B., Angst, J., & Rehnberg, C. (2006). Cost of depression in Europe. Journal of Mental Health Policy and Economics, 9(2), 87–98.
1
Introduction
David McDaid
London School of Economics and Political Science, U.K.
Cary L. Cooper
Lancaster University, U.K.
This volume reflects on different perspectives on the economic aspects of wellbeing. Debates and discussions on how we both measure the progress of society and understand what we as human beings value the most in our lives are nothing new. We have pondered these questions since the very dawn of time, but with comparatively little discussion of the interaction between economics and wellbeing until the latter half of the twentieth century.
The approach to economics set out by the Scottish philosopher and economist Adam Smith in The wealth of nations set the tone for much of the discourse on economics over the next two centuries (Smith, 1776/1977). Progress in society would be best achieved through economic growth brought about by ever more efficient production processes, with free and open markets governing the supply and demand for goods and services. The population would maximize their satisfaction and enjoyment of life in such a society. Dissenting views using alternative ways of organizing the means of production and distributing resources, most notably those based on of some of the ideas first set out in Das Kapital (Marx, 1867), were often seen to be failed experiments that caused stagnant levels of economic growth and were mainly used by authoritarian regimes, which entailed the restriction of many individual freedoms.
As Laura Stoll illustrates in her chapter looking at the history of wellbeing research from the time of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle to the present day, although economists such as Francis Edgeworth expressed an interest in trying to develop machines to measure levels of happiness or other forms of subjective wellbeing (Edgeworth, 1881), this line of inquiry was condemned by neoclassical economists and not pursued in mainstream economics for many years. Doubting that income and happiness were close correlates was deemed to constitute an important challenge to traditional economics (Stutzer & Frey, 2012).
The interest of economists in wellbeing research only really reemerged in the 1970s; Stoll highlights comments made by then U.S. presidential candidate Robert Kennedy in 1968 as a catalyst, questioning the value of conventional measurement of economic output through gross national product or gross domestic product (GDP) as satisfactory measures of “everything that makes life worthwhile.” Kennedy questioned the merits of all economic growth, recognizing that growth could be achieved through negative actions such as pollution and other destruction of the natural environment or engagement in unhealthy behaviors such as smoking.
Kennedy himself was probably influenced by the economist J. K. Galbraith, who had acted as an advisor to his brother President John F. Kennedy. Galbraith was well known for his book The affluent society, which a decade earlier had also questioned the value of GDP because of its failure to look at other aspects of personal and societal wellbeing (Galbraith, 1958). Another economist to question the status quo in the early 1970s, Ernst F. Schumacher, developed a set of principles that he termed “Buddhist Economics,” in which he challenged the conventional wisdom of the pursuit of economic growth, again questioning the impact of growth and its importance to our wellbeing in his seminal work Small is beautiful: A study of economics as if people mattered (Schumacher, 1973).
Most famously, Richard Easterlin was able to make use of social indicator research data in the United States to observe that, despite rising GDP per capita, average happiness in the United States rose through the late 1950s and then fell for the following 20 years, returning to near its 1946 level by 1970 (Easterlin, 1974). This so-called ‘Easterlin Paradox’ has been at the root of much subsequent work in the economic literature on what is as often referred to as the economics of happiness or the economics of wellbeing (Layard, 2005).
Today, the focus in economics is still very much on measurement issues: just what exactly constitutes wellbeing and do we need to go beyond conventional economic measures that use GDP as a primary indicator of social progress as well as economic performance? In 2008 the French government under President Sarkozy asked Joseph Stiglitz (President of the Commission), Amartya Sen (Advisor) and Jean Paul Fitoussi (Coordinator) to establish an international Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (Stiglitz, Sen, & Fitoussi, 2010). It recognized wellbeing to be multidimensional, including issues of income and wealth, the level of insecurity in our lives, including in our economic and health status, the strength of social networks, political accountability and democracy, quality of education, employment status and the environment in which we all live.
In the United Kingdom, following a request from Prime Minister David Cameron (Cameron, 2010), the Office of National Statistics embarked on a program to “develop and publish an accepted and trusted set of national statistics that helps people to understand and monitor national wellbeing” (Beaumont, 2012). The first set of data looking at aspects of wellbeing in the UK was published in 2012, with work continuing to further develop indicators (Self, Thomas, & Randall, 2012). This includes traditional economic indicators, supplemented by many of the same broad indicators of wellbeing suggested in the Stiglitz Commission's report.
Much of this volume is thus concerned with the issue of the measurement of wellbeing. Brendan Kennelly in his chapter reviews the fundamental relationship between income and subjective wellbeing, looking at some of the more serious methodological issues in the latter's measurement. He suggests that there have been some significant flaws in the measurement of subjective wellbeing over time that challenge the validity of responses to population surveys. As he notes, 43% of people in a poll in the United States in 1970 described themselves as very happy, the highest possible response available on the survey. But what could they then say the following year, or 5 years later, if they were asked again about their happiness and regarded themselves as even happier?
He also notes that people in higher income countries generally evaluate their lives in a more positive way than people in poorer countries, yet that relationship does not hold for measures of experienced wellbeing. He is in agreement with American economists Deaton and Stone who argue that a measure of hedonic wellbeing that shows that the average European is worse off than the average person from Mozambique, Sudan, or Rwanda is basically meaningless (Deaton & Stone, 2013). He concludes that the balance of recent evidence suggests that, on average, more income is better for individuals and that great caution should be exercised before income measures are replaced or even complemented by measures of subjective wellbeing for policy purposes.
Lars Osberg and Andrew Sharpe describe their Index of Economic Wellbeing and how it can be used to look at cross-country changes in wellbeing following the onset of the global economic crisis in 2008. Their measure of wellbeing focuses on economic dimensions of wellbeing and does not look at more subjective issues, or what they call quality of life issues. They make the point that “there is more to economic wellbeing than GDP per capita, and it is useful to have better measures of the economic wellbeing of society because better measurement may help guide better decisions” (Osberg & Sharpe, 2005).
Their measure considers issues of income, but also issues to do with the distribution of income in society, accumulated stocks of wealth after taking account of the negative impacts of wealth generation to the environment, and economic security, including financial risk due to poor health. They find that the global recession of 2008 had very different impacts in different countries and that economic security for populations plays a key role in protecting them from the greatest negative impacts on their wellbeing. This, potentially, has important policy implications. They identify Finland and Norway as two nations that do well in insulating their citizens against the hazards of the business cycle, for any given size of business cycle shock.
Arthur Grimes and colleagues compile and compare a range of alternative measures of wellbeing including: material measures (e.g., GDP per capita), surveyed measures (e.g., life satisfaction) and composite measures (e.g., on ecological sustainability and development) covering a range of countries. They argue that revealed preference indicators such as migration choices—where the choices are made so as to improve life outcomes now and into the future—are also objective indicators of wellbeing. They then test the predictive power of wellbeing measures against net migration patterns over a 50-year timespan. They conclude that material wellbeing such as GDP, while being an important predictor of migration, is an insufficient index for measuring aggregate wellbeing for potential migrants. A broader measure of life satisfaction must also be included in the definition of aggregate wellbeing for these individuals.
An important policy implication of their empirical analysis is that increases in income may sometimes come at the cost of decreases in other aspects of life satisfaction. This means that economic studies that look at the case for different policy actions need to include a monetary valuation of life satisfaction in their calculations for cost–benefit analyses and not focus solely on material issues. While income does improve wellbeing, their analysis indicates that it should not be the sole basis for assessing the merits of alternative public policies.
Making the Economic Case for Investing in Wellbeing
Thinking further about policy implications, much of the current research on economics and wellbeing has focused on its measurement rather than on how we can use this information to change and improve society. It is not enough to know what factors contribute to wellbeing, we then need to carefully evaluate the cost-effectiveness of actions to promote better wellbeing in society. This economic case for investing in measures to improve wellbeing forms a major component of the volume. Different actions across the life course are considered.
Much of this case for action looks at issues affecting mental wellbeing, which Richard Layard in his chapter contends is the biggest single influence on life satisfaction, with mental health status 8 years earlier a more powerful explanatory factor than current income. Layard demonstrates that our state of mental health also affects earnings and educational success, but, most strikingly, affects employment and physical health. He notes that in high-income countries mental health problems are the main illness of working age—amounting to 40% of all illness under 65.
Cost-effective interventions to treat mental health problems do exist, but it remains the case, even in high-income countries, that only between a quarter and a third of all people who could benefit from mental health services actually receive treatments (Demyttenaere et al., 2004). Layard argues that psychological therapies such as cognitive behavioral therapy would, if more widely available, pay for themselves in savings on benefits and lost taxes.
It has been argued that actions to promote wellbeing in the early years of life will generate the greatest economic returns on investment (Heckman, 2006). In Chapter 8, McDaid and colleagues look in detail at the economic arguments for investing in measures to promote and protect the wellbeing of young people. The strength of the economic case in this area has benefited greatly from the availability of cohort studies that have followed groups of children over many decades. These studies consistently indicate that there can be many adverse health, social, and economic consequences in adulthood of poor wellbeing in childhood. Highly cost-effective actions not only to protect psychological wellbeing, but also to address overweight and obesity and reduce risks from alcohol, smoking, and sexual behavior, were highlighted. In addition, there is compelling evidence, largely from a U.S. context, suggesting that investing in preschool educational interventions can generate positive returns on investment by the time that children reach adulthood (Nores & Barnett, 2010).
Another key area where there is a good economic case for promoting wellbeing is in the workplace. Effective prevention of excess psychosocial stress, as well as promotion of mental wellbeing and investment in return to work activities can all contribute to better outcomes for business. Not only can rates of poor functioning at work, as well as absenteeism and withdrawal from work, be reduced, but a healthy workplace environment can foster creativity and innovation (Robertson & Cooper, 2011; Wang & Samson, 2009). McDaid and Park indicate in Chapter 9 of this volume that not only is there a business case for workplace health promotion, but that there are other additional benefits including reduced use of health-care services and less need to claim long-term disability benefits as a result of work-related mental health problems. Healthy workplaces should not be the preserve of large companies and major public sector organizations; but financial and regulatory incentives may be needed to stimulate investment in workplace health promotion in small enterprises, particularly in contexts where health-care costs are not paid for by employers.
Turning to the wellbeing of older people, many societies do not put enough value on the wisdom and benefits of age, instead having very negative conceptions of aging. A not often reported statistic is that, even beyond official retirement age (in countries where this concept still exists), older people make a positive net economic contribution to the economy, even when their higher rates of disability and health problems are taken into account.
Promoting wellbeing is integral to a healthy aging process and cost-effective measures to tackle risk factors to wellbeing such as social and geographical isolation, bereavement, poor lifestyle behaviors and loss of role are identified in the chapter by Park and colleagues. The importance of prioritizing actions to promote the health of older people will become ever more acute given changing population demographics in many high-income countries and a growing recognition of the importance of protecting the health of older workers, as well as the countless millions of older people who are providing care and support not only for spouses but also for other groups such as their grandchildren. The cost to any policy maker of having to substitute professional carers for informal family carers should also be a powerful incentive for investing in measures to protect wellbeing at older ages.
We have already highlighted how Osberg and Sharpe in this volume have looked at impacts of the current economic downturn on wellbeing in many nations. We can also learn much at individual country level about the impacts on health and wellbeing behaviors in times of austerity and uncertainty. Perhaps no other country was as affected by the 2008 economic crisis as Iceland. Tinna Laufey Ásgeirsdóttir and colleagues were able to use longitudinal survey data that include pre- and post-reports from the same individuals on a range of health-compromising and health-promoting behaviors. They found that the crisis led to significant reductions in some poor behaviors, including smoking and drinking alcohol and sugary drinks, but also a decrease in the consumption of fruit and vegetables. Because of the small size of the population, as well as its concentration around the capital city Reykjavik, it was possible to control for many confounding factors in this analysis, helping to better identify factors that contributed to health behavior change. Reduction in disposable income and dramatic increases in the price of some goods were found to be key variables.
Having a better understanding of how economic shocks, whether boom or bust, impact on health and wellbeing is important to making contingency plans for any future adverse events. McDaid and Wahlbeck explore some of the potential economic consequences of these economic shocks and look at what is known about the effectiveness and cost of actions to alleviate some of the potential risk factors to mental health and wellbeing. A better understanding of local context, as in the Icelandic case, is critical. The magnitude of adverse events and the populations most affected can vary considerably. The chapter stresses that the promotion and protection of mental wellbeing cannot be achieved by the health sector alone. The determinants of mental wellbeing often lie outside of the remits of the health system and all sectors of society have to be involved in its promotion and protection.
We can see from contributions here that research on economics and wellbeing has moved on considerably in the last quarter millennium and there is nothing to suggest that interest is going to wane any time in the near future. Traditional economic measures of growth, while far from being defunct, need to be supplemented with other ways of measuring and putting an economic value on the different dimensions of wellbeing. Care must however be taken in the development of these measures. Policy makers also need to carefully consider how they will best make use of new approaches to wellbeing measurement so as to better evaluate what works best to promote wellbeing, at what cost, and in what context.
References
Beaumont, J. (2012). Measuring national wellbeing: A discussion paper on domains and measures. London: Office for National Statistics.
Cameron, D. (2010). Speech on wellbeing. London: Cabinet Office. https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-on-wellbeing.
Deaton, A., & Stone, A. A. (2013). Two happiness puzzles. American Economic Review, 103(3), 591–597.
Demyttenaere, K., Bruffaerts, R., Posada-Villa, J., Gasquet, I., Kovess, V., Lepine, J. C.,…Chatterji, S. (2004). Prevalence, severity, and unmet need for treatment of mental disorders in the World Health Organization World Mental Health Surveys. Journal of the American Medical Association, 291(21), 2581–2590.
Easterlin, R. (1974). Does economic growth improve the human lot? Some empirical evidence. In P A. David & M. W. Reder (Eds.), Nations and households in economic growth: Essays in honor of Moses Abramovitz (pp. 89–125). New York: Academic Press.
Edgeworth, F. (1881). Mathematical psychics: An essay on the application of mathematics to the moral sciences. New York: Augustus M. Kelly.
Galbraith, J. K. (1958). The affluent society. New York: New American Library.
Heckman, J. (2006). The economics of investing in children. Policy Briefing No 1. Dublin: UCD Geary Institute.
Layard, R. (2005). Happiness: Lessons from a new science. London: Penguin Books.
Marx, K. (1867). Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie. Hamburg: Verlag von Otto Meissner.
Nores, M., & Barnett, W. S. (2010). Benefits of early childhood interventions across the world: (Under)Investing in the very young. Economics of Education Review, 29(2), 271–282.
Osberg, L., & Sharpe, A. (2005). How should we measure the “economic” aspects of well-being. Review of Income and Wealth, 51(2), 311–336.
Robertson, I., & Cooper, C. (2011). Wellbeing: Productivity and happiness at work. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Schumacher, E. F. (1973). Small is beautiful: A study of economics as if people mattered. London: Blond & Briggs.
Self, A., Thomas, J. & Randall, C. (2012). Measuring national well-being: Life in the UK, 2012. London: Office for National Statistics.
Smith, A. (1776/1977). An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Stiglitz, J., Sen, A., & Fitoussi, D.-P. (2010). Mismeasuring our lives: Why GDP doesn't add up. The report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress. New York: The New Press.
Stutzer, A., & Frey. B. (2012). Recent developments in the economics of happiness: A selective overview (IZA Discussion Paper no. 7078). Bonn: IZA.
Wang, H., & Samson, K. (2009). Wellness and productivity management: A new approach to increasing performance. Philadelphia: Right Management.
Part 1
Perspectives on the Economics of Wellbeing
2
A Short History of Wellbeing Research
Laura Stoll
New Economics Foundation, U.K.
Introduction
“Research” into what constitutes “the good life” began with the origins of philosophy itself. Its foundations lie in Ancient Greece: ideas that began there have shaped the way in which scientists and policy makers still think about wellbeing. After a period characterized by the rise of religious thinking about wellbeing, the Enlightenment signaled a change in the way that wellbeing was conceptualized: it was no longer based in faith and tradition, and could be treated as a science, much like physics or chemistry. This was followed by a growth of interest in wellbeing from sociologists, political philosophers, and psychologists. More recently, over the past 40 years or so and alongside the maturation of wellbeing psychology, there has been a rise in wellbeing as a field of study within economics, tightly linked to the development of its measurement in the second half of the twentieth century.
Ancient Greece
Any introduction to the history of wellbeing research must begin in Ancient Greece, where philosophers documented their theories on what constituted “wellbeing” or “the good life” and how it was to be obtained. These philosophies still form the basis of much of the subjective wellbeing research today (Haybron, 2008), and their different conceptualizations of wellbeing as hedonism, eudaimonia, and stoicism still guide much of the thinking about the different kinds of subjective wellbeing measures that scientists and policy makers are currently using.
Greece was rich, with an extensive trade network that had expanded across the Mediterranean and several colonies. The first monetary trading system was in existence and in Athens, a burgeoning metropolis, democracy had arrived. Self-government was an incredibly important and very radical departure from the way societies had been ruled up to this point (and also for quite a lot of them after) (Raaflaub, Ober, & Wallace, 2008). Suddenly, the men of Greece had moderate democratic control over important aspects of their lives. This opened up the debate about how one could control one's life to live well and flourish (McMahon, 2006).1
Socrates (470–399 b.c.e.)2 was the first philosopher to consider in detail the necessary conditions for happiness. Although there are no extant texts written by Socrates himself, his thoughts about wellbeing are captured in the writings of Plato, his most famous student and one of his most loyal proponents. In Plato's Symposium, Socrates describes happiness as what the gods possess (Griffith, 1989). He says that happiness is not found through hedonism—the pursuit of pleasure—it is not found in good fortune, power, riches, fame, or even health or familial love. In place of these things, Socrates preaches philosophy. His recipe for living well is through lifelong learning: beginning in youth, men learn not to desire physical beauty but to put a higher value on beauty of the mind. Through this process they learn gradually to desire wisdom and to become philosophers. Plato believed that through this process of learning self-control, humans could acquire wellbeing (Griffith, 1989).
Plato's most famous student, Aristotle, is also a key figure in the history of wellbeing. Aristotle's complex moral philosophy cannot be summarized easily, but one of the concepts central to the current conceptualization of wellbeing is that of eudaimonia. Aristotle proposed that the aim of life is eudaimonia—sometimes translated as happiness—but, in Aristotle's words, is “pretty well defined as a sort of well-living and well-acting.” Well-living and well-acting involve satisfactory performance of those things that are particularly characteristic of us as human beings. Happiness is therefore excellent performance of the tasks that are typical of a man:
Just as a good lyre-player is someone who performs well at the tasks which lyre-players perform professionally or qua [the characteristics of] lyre-players, so a good man is someone who performs well at the tasks which men perform typically or qua men.
Barnes (2004), p. xxvi
The question thus becomes what are these things that are particularly characteristic or qua of us as humans? Aristotle's answer is that man is a rational animal and, accordingly, the most characteristic human activity is contemplation, by which Aristotle means a quasi-aesthetic appreciation of knowledge and truth. However, only a god-like few can achieve this for much of their life, and therefore the exercise of practical rationality, following reason in day-to-day life, should be the aim of most people. This requires us to foster and exercise areté, normally translated as virtue but perhaps more accurately as good character or excellence, and including such characteristics as justice, courage, temperance, and wittiness (Barnes, 2004). This often involves ensuring that extreme forms of behavior are avoided and being careful to judge the right way of behaving. It is the excellent performance itself that counts for those who cannot achieve a life of contemplation.
This performance lasts a lifetime and the resulting eudaimonia is not a momentary state but something that characterizes an entire life. Indeed, one can only determine whether people are happy after their lives are over. Accordingly, Aristotle prescribes a lifelong training for acquiring virtue.
