Measuring well-being across Europe: Description of the ESS Well-being Module and preliminary findings

Felicia A. Hupper (1) , Nic Marks (2) , Andrew E. Clark (3, 4, 5) , Johannes Siegrist (6) , Alois Stutzer (7) , Joar Vittersø (8) , Morten Wahrendorf (6)

1 The Well-being Institute - Department of Psychiatry - University of Cambridge
2 The Centre for Well-being
3 PSE - Paris School of Economics
4 IZA - Institute for the Study of Labor
5 PJSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques
6 Department of Medical Sociology
7 Unibas - Université de Bâle = University of Basel = Basel Universität
8 Institutt for Psykologi

It has become customary to judge the success of a society through the use of objective indicators, predominantly economic and social ones. Yet in most developed nations, increases in income, education and health have arguably not produced comparable increases in happiness or life satisfaction. While much has been learned from the introduction of subjective measures of global happiness or life satisfaction into surveys, significant recent progress in the development of high-quality subjective measures of personal and social well-being has not been fully exploited. This paper describes the development of a set of well- being indicators which were included in Round 3 of the European Social Survey. This well-being Module seeks to evaluate the success of European countries in promoting the personal and social well-being of their citizens. In addition to providing a better understanding of domain-specific measures, such as those relating to family, work and income, the design of the Well-being Module recognises that advancement in the field requires us to look beyond measures which focus on how people feel (happiness, pleasure, satisfaction) to measures which are more concerned with how well they function. This also shifts the emphasis from relatively transient states of well-being to measures of more sustainable well-being. The ESS Well-being Module represents one of the first systematic attempts to create a set of policy-relevant national well-being accounts.

Il est courant de juger le succès d' une société par le biais d'indicateurs objectifs, le plus souvent économiques ou sociaux. Cependant, le progrès en termes d'éducation, de santé ou de revenu n'a peut-être pas produit l'augmentation de bien-être que l'on aurait espéré. Bien que l'analyse de la satisfaction dans la vie ou du bonheur soit très instructive, il serait sans doute utile d'introduire d'autres mesures de bien-être dans le débat. Cet article décrit le développement d'un volet d'indicateurs de bien-être inclus dans la vague 3 du European Social Survey (ESS). Ces questions tentent de mesurer le bien-être personnel et social des individus dans les pays européens. L'intérêt de ce volet est double. Dans un premier temps, il fournit des mesures de bien-être dans les domaines précis, tels que la famille, le travail et la santé. Ensuite, il dépasse la simple mesure hédonique (bonheur, plaisir, satisfaction) en proposant des mesures de la manière dont les individus vivent leur vie (functioning). En tant que tel, les indices qui en résultent concernent plutôt le bien-être soutenable que des états transitoires. Le volet de questions de l'ESS est l'une des premières tentatives de créer un ensemble de mesures de bien-être au niveau individuel et national.

Mots clés: cycle des affaires; recherche et développement; contraintes de crédit; volatilité; well-being; European social survey; questionnaire design

Domaines: Economies et finances

Felicia A. Hupper, Nic Marks, Andrew E. Clark, Johannes Siegrist, Alois Stutzer, et al.. Measuring well-being across Europe: Description of the ESS Well-being Module and preliminary findings. 2008. ⟨halshs-00586267⟩