For almost 10 years, the OECD has been looking beyond the ­functioning of the economic system to the diverse experiences and living ­conditions of people and households. Measuring well-being and progress is a key priority that the OECD is pursuing through research, dissemination of existing data via the OECD Better Life Initiative and key events such as the OECD World Forum on “Statistics, Knowledge and Policies”. This website provides background information on these three streams of work being led by the OECD Statistics Directorate.

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Material conditions
Measuring people's material conditions (i.e. their command over commodities) requires looking not only at their income but also at their assets and consumption expenditures, and at how these economic resources are distributed among different people and population groups. It also requires focusing on the economic resources of households rather than on measures pertaining to the economic system as a whole (e.g. GDP per capita). The OECD is working in different directions such as: measuring disparities in national accounts; measuring services produced by households for their own use; exploring the differences between growth in real GDP per capita and real household income per capita; and developing an integrated framework for the analysis of microdata on household income, expenditures and wealth.

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Quality of life
Economic resources, while important, are not all that matters for people's well-being. Health, human contact, education, environmental quality, civic engagement, governance, security and free time are all fundamental to our quality of life, as are people's subjective experiences of life, i.e. their feelings and evaluations. Measuring quality of life requires looking at all of these elements as a whole: economic and non-economic, subjective and objective as well as at disparities across population groups. The OECD's work on quality of life mainly focuses on developing guidelines on the measurement of subjective well-being, released on 20 March 2013.

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Sustainability
Sustainability of well-being over time can be assessed by looking at the set of key economic, environmental, social and human assets transmitted from current to future generations, and how these assets are affected by today's actions, policies and behaviours. The OECD is working to develop metrics that better capture whether the broad notion of economic, environmental, social and human capital are sustainable.

The OECD is also developing a framework to identify the main drivers of well-being and to assess the overall impact of alternative policy options on people's life. The framework is meant to evaluate the various benefits and costs of policies enacted simultaneously or of a single policy affecting many dimensions at the same time. It also includes a mapping exercise, identifying the best approaches that translate well-being measures into policy-making decisions. The ultimate purpose is to bring considerations of well-being more firmly into government decision-making and to provide governments with advice on the well-being effects of policy options.

For further information on on-going research on measuring ­well-being and progress dowload our full brochure by clicking here (PDF)