How do we measure well-being?

Stella lives with her family in a villa in a medium-sized town in Sweden. She likes her job but her back is hurting. How do we measure her well-being?

Increasing well-being is generally accepted as one of the essential components of social progress, but if different aspects of life all contribute to well-being, can or should we construct an overall measure of it? For example, is “happiness” a good measure?

In the article "How do we measure well-being?" the Philosopher Henry R. Richardson and the Economist Erik Schokkaert describe some of the different ways of measuring well-being that are currently being discussed. Find the article at The Conversation.

Henry R. Richardson and Erik Schokkaert are two out of many researchers participating in the project International Panel on Social Progress which aims to show that social progress is possible, by collecting a large amount of insights from the social sciences. Read more about the project here