Measure of well-being

How to measure the well-being of a society? If, for a long time, the evolution of GDP has been used as a proxy, a more detailed analysis of the evolution of well-being was desired by the Federal Council in 2010. The 2018 edition (2nd after 2014) of the Report “Indicators measuring well-being, creation, distribution and preservation of well-being”, was published last week.

This report, if it does not provide a global conclusion, has the merit of bringing together more than 40 indicators, which according to the authors have an influence on the well-being of our society, as well as on its evolution. As interesting as they are varied, these indicators come from areas of society, such as the poverty rate, social protection expenditures or volunteer work; economy, such as research and development expenditures, labour-shortage rates or consumption and savings; as well as in the field of the environment, with indicators such as air quality, biodiversity or habitat and infrastructure surfaces.

All these aspects influence the well-being which, according to the report, is the fact that a person has sufficient means and favourable conditions allowing him or her to lead his or her life as free and autonomous as possible.