OECD Better Life Index

The OECD Better Life Index is an indicator launched by the OECD in 2011 to measure well-being in different countries. Numerous metrics are used to measure aspects of well-being using eleven themes. The index thus enables the well-being of several countries to be compared directly. In addition, the interactive web tool “Your Better Life Index” of the OECD Better Life Index offers the possibility of individually weighting the categories and observing their impact on the arrangement of the countries in a ranking list.

The OECD Better Life Index is part of the Better Life Initiative and is accompanied by the “How's Life?” Report, also published by the OECD.

Main features and development of the OECD Better Life Index

Member States of the OECD (2016)

The Better Life Index is an interactive index launched by the OECD in 2011 that provides information on social well-being in the OECD member countries. Brazil and Russia are also represented in the index. This consists of 11 topics, which are divided into the areas of material living conditions and people's quality of life. The special features of the index include, on the one hand, that the four dimensions of sustainability are taken up and that adjusted GDP is included in the index. This should result in a result that is as meaningful as possible and adapted to the present day. The main purpose of the index is to compare different groups of people. At the moment it is possible to differentiate between regions or countries, gender and age groups. The website is an important part of the index as visitors can create their own index and take part in the interactive project by uploading the index. The uploaded data are included in the index and make it possible to identify which categories are considered to be most important for personal well-being and where in the world. The index is accompanied and supported by the “How's Life?” Report, which is published by the OECD every two years and which summarizes and evaluates the results of the index in detail.

To mark the 50th anniversary of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the OECD Better Life Index was published on May 24, 2011. With the help of the information obtained about the member states of the OECD, the index is intended to support the work of the OECD. Furthermore, problems with existing indices are to be taken up and improved. The index tries to combine objective with subjective information in order to generate the most meaningful result possible about the individual groups of people and to create an index that goes beyond GDP as an indicator of prosperity.

intention

The OECD Better Life Index intends to link the information about intangible assets with the material possessions of people in order to create the most meaningful index possible. Since this is an interactive index, great attention is paid to the participation of the website users in the index. The aim is to provide users with information, but at the same time to be able to collect data on the participants in the index. On the one hand, the visitor should be provided with information about the state of the social well-being of the people in the countries shown. On the other hand, this also means that the users of the website grapple with and deal with the question of what quality of life is and what defines it. By participating in the index, the OECD not only gets data on what is most important to people and where for their well-being, but also tries to work out how the preferences of the participants arise with the help of the index. The focus is also placed on possible connections between the preferred categories, gender or the living conditions prevailing in the respective regions. The OECD can then use the information obtained in its work with the Member States to advise political decision-makers so that living conditions in the region can improve.

The interactive web tool “Your Better Life Index”

The website of the OECD Better Life Index plays an overriding role, as it not only visualizes the results of the index, but also offers visitors the opportunity to participate in the index. Since it is an interactive index, the start page also shows the index itself. Here the website visitor has the possibility to compare the countries on the basis of eleven topics of wellbeing. The countries in the index are each visualized by a graphic flower with eleven petals and can be arranged alphabetically or by placement. In addition, the website visitor can create and upload an individual index and thus participate in the "Better Life Initiative". The individual index can be created by weighting the eleven topics. Other areas of the website are used to provide information to users. On the one hand, the individual topics are listed and their relevance and quantification explained. On the other hand, detailed information about the results of individual countries in the index and possible causes is provided. The OECD also provides many other sources of information on the Better Life Index website, such as "How's Life?" Report ready to offer wide-ranging evaluations of societal well-being.

subjects

The OECD Better Life Index measures people's wellbeing on the basis of eleven so-called topics. These issues are considered relevant to individual wellbeing by the OECD. They cover economic, social and ecological aspects of life. A country's performance on a topic is measured by specific indicators. One to four indicators are used to measure a topic. These indicators are continuously developed by the OECD. The availability of data in all countries participating in the index is decisive for the use of an indicator in the index. The topics of the OECD Better Life Index can be divided into material and non-material topics. Material issues are housing conditions, income and employment. Non-material issues are public spirit, education, the environment, civil engagement, health, life satisfaction, security and work-life balance.

The living conditions are determined on the basis of the rooms per person and whether basic sanitary facilities are available . In addition, housing expenditure is taken into account by looking at how large the share of housing expenditure is in gross income. The living conditions are relevant for the determination of social well-being because it is not just about having a roof over your head, but the place of residence is also a place of retreat and the place where the family lives together and people should feel good.

The index measures income as it is considered to be fundamental to other factors of well-being. The adjusted household net disposable income and the net financial assets of private households serve as indicators for income. Thus, both regular net income and financial assets such as savings or shares are taken into account, but not real assets.

The employment category is measured by four factors. The employment rate and long-term unemployment measure how many people are in paid work, and in the case of unemployment, the situation is checked for maturity. In addition, wages are considered as well as job security, which provide information about income or the impending loss of income. The background to this indicator is that work is the cornerstone of the life of many people, to which the rest of life is oriented and adapted. Furthermore, the work has an impact on social contacts as well as self-esteem, social prestige, self-realization and finally the idea of ​​giving life a meaning and a task associated with it. This is why unemployment, especially long-term unemployment, has a negative impact on people's satisfaction.

In the OECD Better Life Index, the topic of public spirit includes the amount and nature of social contacts. These are crucial for well-being, as humans are social beings. Public spirit is measured by the question of whether you know someone you can rely on in an emergency.

The formation is to be determined both quantitatively and qualitatively, by counting the average years of education, and they, combined with the educational level, measured in degrees per secondary and tertiary. The results of the PISA test are also integrated into this category in order to be able to determine the quality of education. The idea behind this category is that we live in an "educational society" so it is important to include this factor in the index. Education often decides the further course of life. This becomes clear from the fact that later work, integration into the social environment or, for example, political participation can be traced back to it. Education often decides what kind of life a person can lead and what opportunities the person has.

The environment category is the only topic that covers the ecological dimension of the index. An intact environment increases health and well-being, as it offers the opportunity for relaxation but also for physical activity. In addition, natural resources are essential for every country. The measurement of air pollution and water quality serve as indicators.

When it comes to the issue of civil engagement , voter turnout in the respective countries is taken into account on the one hand, and the participation of interest groups in the legislative process on the other. This category is relevant because the population must have as much trust as possible in the political authorities in order to have a positive impact on well-being. In addition, the more people participate in politics, the better the opinion of the population is represented. The participation of the population in politics also has positive effects on political transparency.

Health is strongly related to life satisfaction and is indicated by many people as being crucial for this. Health also has a positive effect on other well-being factors, both on an individual and on a societal level. Health is measured in the index on the one hand by the objective indicator of life expectancy and on the other hand by the subjective indicator of self-assessment of the state of health.

The participants of the index should indicate life satisfaction with regard to the whole life on a scale from 0 to 10. Very important in an index that is supposed to measure the quality of life is the purely subjective perception of one's own life, which supplements the objective data.

The OECD Better Life Index includes the politically topical issue of security . Avoiding physical pain as well as avoiding the feeling of insecurity are in the foreground of the considerations. With the objective indicator of the murder rate and the subjective question “Do you feel safe when you go home alone at night?” security is made measurable.

The work-life balance is divided into employees with long working hours as well as time for leisure activities and personal well-being. This category is important for the index because it is important for the quality of life to check whether and to what extent it is possible to combine leisure and private life with work and to create a balance in life.

Individual index

In addition to information on the topics of the OECD Better Life Index, the interactive “Your Better Life Index” offers the opportunity to weight these topics individually and to observe the effects of this weighting on the placement of the countries in a ranking. The individually perceived relevance of a topic for personal well-being can be weighted on a five-point scale. The countries that do better than others on the heavily weighted topics achieve a higher rank in the ranking that can be changed in this way. This means that every user of the OECD Better Life Index can see which countries are doing well or badly according to the weighting of the topics in the index that they have determined. In order to look at a neutral index, all topics can be weighted equally.

It is also possible to publish the individual weighting of the topics in the OECD Better Life Index online. After asking for less demographic data and the possibility of defining a “better life” in free text, the weighting of the topics is transmitted to the website. The information obtained in this way is displayed on an interactive world map in the “Answers” ​​area. The visitor to the website is informed here about which topic is most relevant to the wellbeing of people in different countries and how many people from the respective countries have contributed to this result with their answer. If you select a country, statistics appear on the gender and age of the respondents and a ranking of all eleven topics for the respective country. In addition, these statistics of the selected country can be compared directly with those of another country.

Results

In addition to other indices such as the Human Development Index (HDI) or the Social Progress Index, the OECD Better Life Index ranks as an index that is intended to complement the measurement of a country's well-being through GDP. In order to present well-being in a comprehensible and comprehensive manner, the OECD is constantly working to improve indicators and data collection. In 2016, for example, the OECD Better Life Index measured the topic of security with the murder rate and the question of whether you feel safe when you go home alone at night, while the index in 2013 only recorded the murder rate and the crime rate. In addition, the concern of integrating sustainability and future well-being, which was formulated when the index was founded, is addressed through the specific consideration of the well-being of children and the inclusion of natural, human, social and economic resources. The quality of life of children and the use of certain resources should provide information about future well-being. Since 2015, volunteering has also been a special focus of the Better Life Initiative. Volunteering represents an important function in increasing the well-being of a country, as volunteers support society as well as benefit from experience, skills and increased life satisfaction. In this way, volunteering creates goods that are not captured by conventional economic indicators. Another development of the OECD Better Life Index is the ability to uncover inequalities. Based on the data, differences in the results with regard to age, gender, income and place of residence can be shown. In developing the indicators, the influence of political guidelines was the decisive criterion. An indicator should be able to be improved by appropriate guidelines within a country. The indicators meet this criterion to varying degrees, but the OECD is continuously developing it further. The guidelines of the OECD and the recommendations derived from the results of the index are not binding for governments, but are intended to support them in their political work. The impact of the OECD Better Life Index can be seen in research on the subject of well-being as well as in country-specific projects in which the results of the index are applied. Furthermore, the OECD Better Life Index lives up to the claim set by the OECD to stimulate political and public discussion about well-being indicators. The initially formulated demand “beyond GDP”, ie to go beyond GDP, has since been further developed at an EU conference on “GDP and beyond”. Future economic indicators should supplement the GDP with indicators for ecological sustainability and social inclusion within the framework of a wellbeing budget .

Limitations

The OECD Better Life Index , developed in 2011, is continuously being improved because the indicators measuring the eleven subjects of the index do not yet provide a comprehensive picture of people's well-being. Topics such as the environment, which is measured by air pollution and water quality, can be supplemented by further indicators. For this, a sufficient database must be available in all countries included in the index. An extensive database spanning several years will also make it possible in the future to formulate meaningful comparisons over time about the well-being of different nations. In addition, increasing participation in the interactive “Your Better Life Index” is required in order to make representative statements about the priorities of the well-being topics in all countries included in the index. This would meet the main objective of the OECD to use the OECD Better Life Index to determine what is really important to people in terms of their well-being.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ How's Life? | OECD READ edition. Retrieved September 30, 2017 (English). 
2. ↑ OECD Better Life Index. Retrieved September 30, 2017 . 
3. ↑ ^{a b} How's Life? 2015 | OECD READ edition. Retrieved September 30, 2017 (English). 
4. ↑ Materials Economy and Society - wien.arbeiterkammer.at. Retrieved September 30, 2017 .