How to Measure Happiness and Why it Matters

On the International Day of Happiness, 20 March 2013 the OECD released a detailed set of Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-being. This is essentially a handbook for statisticians involved in collecting and publishing information on subjective well-being (measures of life satisfaction, happiness, and similar concepts). All of this, one might think, sounds very worthy, but extremely dull. Why does the release of the Guidelines matter, and why should anyone not professionally obliged to wade through statistical manuals care?

There are two reasons. The first relates to what the Guidelines signal in terms of the wider agenda on measuring progress. One of the main reasons that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) retains such a high profile as an indicator of progress is that it is collected in the same way across countries. The international standards that are embodied in the System of National Accounts, or SNA provides a common framework to ensure that when we compare the GDP of two different countries, such as Iceland and Chile, we are – so to speak – comparing apples with apples.

Most measures of the non-economic aspects of well-being lack such a common measurement framework. In 2009 the Sen/Stiglitz/Fitoussi Commission highlighted that it was important that measures of quality of life “move from research to standard statistical practice”. Similarly, the OECD’s How’s Life report in 2011 argued that the statistical agenda ahead for measuring well-being must involve standardising the measurement of quality of life. The OECD Guidelines represent a crucial first step towards indicators of quality of life that are as robust and comparable as GDP.

The second reason why the Guidelines matter is that, if national statistical agencies respond to them by starting to collect comparable data, it has the potential to revolutionise our understanding of subjective well-being. Currently most of what we know about measures of subjective well-being derives from academic research and public opinion surveys with small samples (often as low as 1000 people). By way of contrast, official statistics tend to involve survey samples in the thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands. For example, the UK Office for National Statistics collected information on subjective well-being from over 165,000 respondents in the annual population survey in 2011/12.

The last ten years has seen the measurement of subjective well-being take a central role (having been a niche academic interest) in work to better measure the progress of societies. With high quality official statistics on subjective well-being coming on stream over the next few years, the next decade promises to be even more interesting.

Conal Smith

Further reading:

Subjective Well-being

How’s Life? Measuring Well-Being

OECD Better Life Initiative

Women and the quest for happiness

The 20th of March is observed as the International Day of Happiness – as established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2012 (see Resolution 66/281). Why an International Day to celebrate happiness? Because there is a rising awareness and a shift in attitudes that progress is not so much about “economic growth” but more and more about human happiness and wellbeing. Caring about our own happiness and creating happiness around us by connecting to others has a spill over effect that boosts our own wellbeing and – we can say it – increases both our self-confidence and productivity in everyday life. This year, International Day of Happiness is led by Action for Happiness and Cheers, in partnership with a network of organisations and people supporting the Day of Happiness all around the world.

Wikigender’s new special focus is on “What makes (working) women happy?” – And exposes different point of views as to what makes women happy nowadays. We often hear how working women struggle to balance their family responsibilities with their work obligations, for example. But isn’t all this subjective? Some women may prefer to be ‘stay at home’ mums and enjoy their time raising their children, while others prefer to focus on advancing their career as the sense of achievement they get out of it is what makes them happy. But is a middle-ground possible? What about women for whom happiness is about managing to combine both – having a fulfilled family life while also achieving success at work? We’ve seen quite different perspectives of women in the press recently: some, like Anne-Marie Slaughter, think that women can't have it all, others like Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer claim that combining motherhood with work is not that difficult (if you have the means for it that is!) and others, like Sheryl Sandberg in her new book insist that women should just speak up and impose themselves more - but the true debate here is about how can (working) women be happy and feel fulfilled - both at work and in their personal life. What are your views on this? 

According to a new Pew Research Center analysis of long-term data on time use, mothers and fathers’ roles are converging, as dads are doing more housework and child care and mums are doing more paid work outside the home. This engagement from dads certainly helps career-oriented women. However, the results also show that dads are much more likely to say they want to work full-time, but when asked what they value most in a job, dads place more importance on a high-paying job while mums put the accent on flexible working schedules. So maybe one way for working mums to be happy would be for them to accept to be the primary breadwinners and let men take the care giving role more? This and also more flexible measures at work – such as flexible hours or telecommuting –  would make a huge difference in women’s lives, especially for the ones that need both a family life and a successful career to be happy. What about you, what do you think would make (working) women happy or happier?

Add your comments below and read more in Wikigender’s Special Focus.

Estelle Loiseau

Gender Programme Assistant and Wikigender Community Manager

Will the bottom billion always be with us?

I know a photographer who worked in the Egyptian oases at the time when the people living there became poor. Their wealth and number of possessions didn’t change, but with the arrival of television and other modern media, they suddenly learned that they were living in a backward, disadvantaged area. Until then, they’d believed that they had everything you needed for a good life – food, water, animals, plants, friends, feuds… But they didn’t have fridges, schools, and most of the other goods and services to be found in the city. At the same period, people who lived in a metropolitan slum would not have considered themselves rich just because they had a TV, electricity and most of the other things the Bedouin lacked.

Poverty then isn’t just a question of income. The newly-published 2013 UN Human Development Report looks at two measures: poverty defined in strictly monetary terms as living on less than $1.25 a day, and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative’s Multidimensional Poverty Index(MPI). The MPI has three dimensions and ten indicators, all equally weighted, which reflect some Millennium Development Goals and international standards of poverty. The three dimensions are health, education and living standards; while the indicators are nutrition, child mortality, years of schooling, school attendance, cooking fuel, sanitation, water, electricity, type of floor of the dwelling, and assets.

The data support the optimism of the UN report’s title “The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World”. More than 40 countries in the developing world have done better than expected in human development terms in recent decades, with their progress accelerating markedly over the past ten years. Of 22 countries having data on MPI poverty over time, 18 reduced MPI significantly, and most of them reduced multidimensional poverty faster than income poverty.

On current trends, half the 22 countries would eradicate MPI within 20 years and 18 within 41 years, but it would take 95 years for all 22 to eradicate multidimensional poverty.

What about the “bottom billion”, the poorest of the poor? In this article in 2010, Brian Keeley discussed Andy Sumner’s argument that if we focus on the poorest countries, we’ll actually miss most of the world’s poor. The new figures suggest that where the bottom billion live depends on whether you look at national averages, the subnational  level or the intensity of poverty experienced by each poor person.

At national level, the bottom billion are concentrated in the 30 poorest countries. But the situation can vary significantly from one region to another within a given country. For instance in Tanzania, 32.4% of the people in the Kilimanjaro region were poor in 2010, but the figure rises to 87.4% in the Dodoma region just 250 miles (400 km) away. Looking at 265 subnational regions, the bottom billion are spread across 44 countries.

The bottom billion by individual poverty profiles more than doubles the number of countries to 100. This is calculated by starting with people who are deprived in all 10 indicators. This gives 17 million in all, with India and Ethiopia having 4 million each. You then add people who are deprived in 95% of the indicators and so on until you reach 1 billion.

Surprisingly, 9.5% of the bottom billion live in upper Middle Income Countries, and 41,000 of the poorest bottom billion live in five High Income Countries. Unsurprisingly, 51.6% reside in South Asia, 32.7% reside in Sub-Saharan Africa, and 12.3% reside in East Asia and Pacific. Nearly 40% of the bottom billion poor reside in India.

But to get back to the optimism. Bangladesh was the original international “basket case” (a term used by the Henry Kissinger-led State Department in 1971). The image persists, but in reality Bangladesh is one of the three top performers in reducing MPI, along with Nepal and Rwanda. The Economist arguesthat it got out of the basket thanks to four factors: it improved the status of women; the Green Revolution and remittances boosted incomes; the government maintained social spending; and non-government organisations managed to scale up their programmes to work nationwide.

You may have noticed that The Economist doesn’t cite economic growth. The Human Development Report says something similar: “Economic growth alone does not automatically translate into human development progress. Pro-poor policies and significant investments in people’s capabilities  – through a focus on education, nutrition and health, and employment skills – can expand access to decent work and provide for sustained progress. The 2013 Report identifies four specific focuses for sustaining development momentum: enhancing equity; enabling participation of citizens, including youth; confronting environmental pressures; and managing demographic change.

These themes will also be discussed at the OECD Global Forum on Development on 4-5 April. The Forum will be looking at how the global economic landscape has changed, and with it, the understanding of what development and poverty are all about. For example the session on the multidimensional nature of poverty will highlight the links between poverty reduction, natural resource management and growth as issues that are central to social protection and pro-poor growth.

Useful links

The OECD Global Forum would like to hear your opinions on the major themes.

Click here to discuss: Post 2015: Effective partnerships for development in a changing world

Click here to discuss: Beyond Poverty reduction: The challenge of social cohesion in developing countries

Click here to discuss: Measuring poverty, well-being and progress: Innovative approaches and their implications for statistical capacity development

Click here to discuss: The global-national nexus and country-level policy actions

The 2010 edition of the OECD Development Centre’s Perspectives on Global Development: Shifting Wealth pioneered the topic of shifting wealth and the impact of emerging economies on the development of Low Income Countries, taken up in this year’s Human Development Report. The 2012 edition of Perspectives looking at the impact of shifting wealth on social cohesion has an extensive analysis of poverty trends and measures.

Patrick Love

This Blog first appeared on the OECD's Insights blog.

The Wikiprogress Team

Human Development Report: a glass half full

This ProgBlog article written by Susan Nicolai is part of the Wikiprogress Post-2015 series.

Questions over whether the glass is half full or half empty seem to be a common backdrop these days in the world of international development. With the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) deadline of 2015 fast approaching, and prospects of very few targets being met, a kind of angst is leaving many to wonder whether there is greater cause for optimism or despair. At first glance, a quick appraisal presents a depressingly mixed picture, with the biggest emerging story being persistent inequalities both within and between countries. Not terribly encouraging.

Yet the 2013 Human Development Report (HDR) – ‘The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World’ – sits firmly in the glass half full camp, even in the face of unmet targets and an unequal world. What has put it there? First of all, much of the report’s analysis is framed by a view that considers the starting rather than the finish line, that is, life for many on the planet is better than it used to be, even if it doesn’t yet look as it should. Second – and although there’s a clue in the title, this needs a drumroll – the report lays claim to a kind of ‘delta’ of development, presenting the case for how ‘the South as a whole is driving global economic growth and societal change for the first time in centuries’. We’ll come back to this.

But first, the evidence laid out in the report does a pretty good job of justifying its optimistic lens. Most strikingly, it shows that more than 40 developing countries have outpaced expected gains in human development in recent decades – going beyond the better-known growth stories like those of the BRICS(Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) to include a number of smaller countries such as Chile, Ghana and Thailand. Analysis presented includes the following:

• Worldwide, the proportion of people in extreme income poverty fell from 43% to 22% between 1990 and 2008, meaning the first of the MDGs, on poverty eradication, has been achieved ahead of schedule.
• The South’s share of the middle-class population expanded rapidly between 1990 and 2010, rising from 26% to 58%.
• Fourteen countries have recorded rates of progress of more than 2% on the Human Development Index annually since 2000, with Afghanistan, Sierra Leone and Ethiopia perhaps unexpectedly at the top of this list.
• No country for which complete data are available has regressed from where it was at in 2000.

Not a bad run – yet amid this good news the bad is not ignored, with acknowledgement that, for many, the glass may still appear half empty. Severe poverty remains a problem for more than 1.57 billion people, and, while there have been reductions in inequality in areas such as health and education, income inequality is on the rise. Pockets of deprivation remain in every region of the world, and, as the report notes, ‘There is a “south” in the North and a “north” in the South’.

Geographical similes aside, and getting back to the main cause for optimism highlighted in the report, recognition of the rise of the South is significant, if not exactly breaking, news. The fact that there has been a dramatic rebalancing of economic strength increasingly places developing countries in the driver’s seat. This naturally leads on to questions of what works once countries are in this position. While the report’s exploration of some of the key characteristics is helpful – operating as a proactive ‘developmental state’, taking advantage of global markets, social policy investment and innovation – it is just a taster; a closer look at the where, how and who of progress is needed.

Luckily, a number of other efforts are underway to further explore and present what works in development. The Overseas Development Institute’s (ODI’s) Development Progress project, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Better Life Initiative and Princeton’s Innovations for Successful Societies  are but a few of these initiatives, with others highlighted on WikiProgress, a growing global platform for sharing information on progress.

Moreover, the changing face of Africa is a particularly hot topic at the moment, with a closer look at progress on the continent through the Africa Progress Panel, the campaign to See Africa Differently, recent research showing the strength of progress by African ‘lions’ and an Economist debate on how real the rise of progress is in Africa, among others. The changing role of the South in development is also beginning to receive its due consideration, and was the focus of a recent conference by ODI’s Centre for Aid and Public Expenditure.

Today’s report is another reminder that the world isn’t changing – it has already changed, and in many places for the better. The optimism of its message is important in maintaining momentum to further improve development outcomes and balance out frustration that poverty and deprivation remain. Clearly, countries across the global South are playing a central role in driving development and in shaping the global future.

This article first appeared on the ODI's Development Progress blog.

Thank you everyone who commented on our online consultation. - “Reducing poverty is achievable: Finding those who are hidden by inequalities”. In the end we got over 50 comments and we look forward to bringing you our report on the discussion in the coming months. If you still want to contribute then never fear, The discussion continues on #OECDgfd website http://bit.ly/13XwOgu.

The Wikiprogress Team 

Measuring the Poor from Above.

This ProgBlog article written by Shailaja Chandra is a contribution to the current Wikiprogress online consultation* - “Reducing poverty is achievable: Finding those who are hidden by inequalities”

In India poverty reduction is a priority for all Governments –central and state. Undoubtedly at places well-intentioned programmes suffer from neglect, fund misappropriation and disproportionate expenditure on overheads. But that is not to say nothing works. Millions are benefiting and are able to lead relatively decent lives- living longer and healthier than their parents did.    Disparities that exist are largely attributable to the faulty identification of beneficiaries and an inability to distinguish between those in relative poverty from those living in moderate poverty and more importantly those in absolute poverty. When resources are limited, the greatest need is to target the neediest the first. Here is one solution that could help. 

            On fundamentals everyone is agreed that safe drinking water, primary health care, schools and toilets are non-negotiable. While Government schemes provide for all these services, those in the greatest need are often unable to avail of them. This is because the opportunity cost of accessing them is too high. When it is simply not feasible for a father or a husband to forsake a daily wage that buys the next meal to accompany his wife and child by walking 10 kilometres to the doctor, he quite simply will not go. Even after reaching a motorable road on foot, few are willing to risk waiting for public transport which may not show up. In other words those who are physically unable to reach long distances will automatically exclude themselves. Solutions have to keep that in mind and for that measurement of people and distances becomes very important.

          Elected representatives and bureaucracies tend to count growing numbers of beneficiaries as a sign of a system working well. Instead were they to start measuring the dimension of exclusion they would be nearer the truth. But this measurement has to be spatial and not numerical. Then alone would it be possible to differentiate between people in extreme or (absolute) poverty, from those in moderate or relative poverty. It is only by amalgamating GIS mapping and census data that it is possible to show the distance of every village from the nearest basic facility or service.

          This exercise was successfully undertaken by the National Population Fund of India for primary health centres and sub-centres throughout the country, (except urban areas) The write-up is available in OECD’s publication Statistics, Knowledge and Policy –Measuring and fostering the progress of societies - Chapter titled Power to the People (sub-chapter on Enhancing Accountability through GIS mapping and Census data: Figure 1 and Figure 2 on page 6 and 7 make the position clear.)  Link: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/12/45/38706000.pdf

           The initiative received the Best E Health award of the year and the PDF maps were made available to every state Government in India to plan where the next set of primary health centres should come up, keeping in view spatial disparity (not economic status or population density). The same strategy can be used to identify deprived areas and their distance from not just primary health centres but even sources of drinking water, fair price shops and schools. If one has to avoid falling into the trap of over-dependency on the success of trickle down, the only way is to do spatial mapping of villages and connectivity. And to identify the people to be reached out to first  they need to be mapped by using technology. The relatively better off even if they are technically below the poverty line should come lower in the pecking order of entitlements compared to those in abject poverty.

Economic assessments of poverty often belie the truth. A combination of GIS mapping and Census data is what can tell the truth.

The Wikiprogress online consultation closes this Friday 15 March. You can post a comment in a few clicks by going to the “Contribute!” section of the online consultation page. Make sure your voice is heard. 

Shailaja Chandra

(A former civil servant, Shailaja Chandra is the Vice President of Initiatives for Change-Centre for Governance, a think tank that supports social reform.)

How should we measure child poverty?

This ProgBlog article written by Robbie Lawrence, Wikichild Coordinator, is part of the Wikiprogress Post-2015 series.

“Children living in poverty experience deprivation of the material, spiritual, and emotional resources needed to survive, develop and thrive, leaving them unable to enjoy their rights, achieve their full potential or participate as full and equal members of society” (UNICEF, 2005)

As many of you will know, we are currently running an online consultation* entitled “Reducing poverty is achievable: Finding those who are hidden by inequalities” on the Wikiprogress platform. The comments we have had up to this point have been interesting and diverse, ranging from practical suggestions for tackling inequalities in the new Post 2015 framework to personal reflections on how the problem affects the lives of everyday people around the world. This article will first assess the dangers inequalities pose to children and then provide an analysis of current methods of measuring child poverty referencing UNICEF’s ‘Child Poverty and Inequality – New Perspectives’ report, published in 2012.

In late January 2013, at the Third High Level Meeting on advancing a Post 2015 Development Agenda, Prof Gita Sen stipulated that the forum should give special attention to the most vulnerable people, in particular children, youth and adolescents. Save the Children’s report ‘Born Equal: How reducing inequality could give our children a better future’ shows that children bear the brunt of inequality, demonstrating that in some cases children born into the richest households have access to 35 times the resources of the poorest.

Children as a group experience the detriments of poverty differently from adults. While an adult may suffer poverty over a certain period, falling into poverty during childhood can alter a person’s life indefinitely – ‘rarely does a child get a second chance at an education or a healthy start in life.’ (New Perspectives, page 1) EFA’s Global Monitoring Report stresses that early childhood is the 'critical period' in which the foundations for success in education and beyond should be put in place. Even short periods of malnutrition threaten a child’s ability to grow physically and intellectually, impacting their long-term development.

It is important to emphasize that while on a micro level, inequality impedes the right of every child to have an equal chance to survive and thrive, widening disparities in income have been shown to compromise a country's economic growth, damage well-being outcomes and threaten poverty reduction. Child poverty endangers not only the individual, but it is likely to spread to future generations, entrenching and perpetuating inequality in society (New Perspectives, page 1).

Despite the considerable progress of the Millennium Development Goals, there remain major questions over the current framework’s ability to reach those who most need help. In the opening chapter of ‘New Perspectives’, Alberto Minujin discusses why child poverty should be measured separately from adult poverty.  He argues that the standardized monetary approach to identifying and gauging poverty should be replaced by multidisciplinary methods to provide a more accurate picture of the specific detriments that face disadvantaged children.

A strong example of why the monetary approach is limited can be seen in the widespread malnutrition currently affecting Indian children. While India has experienced exponential growth over the last decade, there has been little progress made in improving nutrition. Stunting rates have remained high and almost half of children under five are malnourished, a statistic that the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has decried as a “national shame.” (EFA, 43)

Minujin focuses the bulk of his chapter on identifying new and progressive methods of defining and measuring child destitution, from the Bristol deprivation model which not only aims to quantify the extent of child poverty but also the depth of child poverty to the Young Lives project which seeks to understand its causes and consequences. It is his opinion that by combing different methods, policy makers and organisations will be able to apply a multifocal approach to tackling inequalities. Arguably, only by shifting attention to those who have not benefited from the MDG program will its aims be fully achieved. As one contributor in our online discussion stated,

‘Let us please keep in mind those that are so easily falling through the cracks…the main thing we can do in a next round of goals is to concentrate on the most vulnerable.’

The Wikiprogress online consultation closes this  Friday 15 March. You can post a comment in a few clicks by going to the “Contribute!” section of the online consultation page. Make sure your voice is heard. 

Robbie Lawrence

Wikichild Coordinator 
@Wiki_child