As part of our Campaign for Social Science events programme exploring themes of both good growth and devolution, we hosted a webinar at the end of April where a panel of experts shared their insights on what social science research is telling us about the relationship between happiness and wellbeing and economic growth.
Chaired by Professor Tim Leunig FAcSS, Chief Economist at Nesta, with presentations from Professor Sabina Alkire FAcSS, Lara Fleischer, Gary Gillespie and Professor Nigel O’Leary.
Lara, who is Head of the Well-being Data Insights and Policy Practice Team of the OECD WISE Centre, began by outlining the OECD Wellbeing Framework and how this is used to benchmark societal progress in OECD member countries. She outlined some key trends and patterns across member countries in terms of indicators for quality of life since 2010, highlighting that the vast majority have seen improvements in material conditions (e.g. income, job quality, housing conditions etc), but that many countries have seen stagnating or worsening conditions in non-material aspects (e.g. life expectancy, mental health, air pollution etc ). Lara also commented on the shorter-term patterns seen across countries since 2019, finding that life satisfaction (along with metrics of pain, worry, sadness and loneliness) has worsened since before the covid-19 pandemic. In the second half of her presentation she outlined various examples of how countries including New Zealand, Ireland, Canada, Italy and the Netherlands are using wellbeing evidence and principles I budgetary processes, and pointed out that wellbeing investment does pay off in the long term but requires a longer time frame of interest to see the benefits.
She said, “It’s quite difficult at this point to point to any single initiative and say here everything works, the entire government machinery and economic systems have now been changed to focus on wellbeing and that has led to a virtuous cycle and productivity is up too. That would be quite naïve. Even where wellbeing policies have launched, they are often one of many policies. But what we do see emerging are good practices of which types of more operational processes and designs are promising and embodying wellbeing practices.”
Nigel, who is deputy director of WELMERC and co-director at WISERD, began his presentation by referring to a famous Robert Kennedy speech which identified that GDP measures anything but that which leads to happy life and the formation of the Stiglitz Commission in 2009 which identified the limits of GDP in measuring social and economic progress. Taking a Welsh perspective, he outlined the landmark Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 which legislates that public bodies must consider the long term implications of actions across seven key areas, drawing upon the sustainable development principle that actions taken now to meet current needs should not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. He focused in on the importance of culture and its link to wellbeing, and summarised his recent research, with colleagues, using data from the longitudinal study Understanding Society to better understand the impact of culture on mental health/distress. He explained how their research had resulted in identifying two measures of cultural wellbeing: cultural heritage, that captured within the amount of heritage buildings, parks etc within an environment; and living culture, that represents cultural attitudes, such as taking part in photography or a sporting activity etc. As Nigel explained, these two factors combined create what is termed the aesthetic experience, and that as this increases mental distress decreases, and therefore cultural capital is an important factor when thinking about overall population wellbeing.
He said, “What we’ve found and what we would posit is the idea that the aesthetic experience, that exposure to culture, isn’t just a luxury good, but rather it’s a form of local mental health infrastructure. It’s a way of supporting the mental health of the population.”
Next, Gary, who is Chief Economist at the Scottish Government, discussed how wellbeing operates within a government framework, providing examples from Scotland. He began by explaining that growth in Scotland, and the UK more widely, had been muted over the past few years, especially since the shock of the covid-19 pandemic, and that there were ongoing challenges including the cost of living crisis. He highlighted how, since devolution, all economic strategies in Scotland have placed growth as a core component, and yet despite their being a period of growth over the years, inequalities have also been growing. He discussed the National Performance Framework, which was initially introduced in 2007, and provides a legislated framework for how government should operate and that it consists of 11 outcomes which all feed into the main aim of creating a more successful country with opportunities for all of Scotland to flourish through increased wellbeing and sustainability and inclusive economic growth. Gary argued how frameworks such as these provide a way to break down siloes in governments, as well as opportunities to deliver in a joined-up way. He ended with the example of the Fair Work Policy, introduced in 2015, which provided a 10-year strategy of how Scotland could become a fair work nation recognising that how workers are treated in the workplace, quality of jobs and conditions for workers all linked to productivity. Since this was introduced, Scotland has seen a reduction in the disability employment gap and the gender pay gap.
He said, “For me frameworks are almost an operating framework for government that encourages a more joined up, multidimensional, less siloed approach. I think from an economic perspective it forces you to take a broader view of the economy and how the economy interacts and impacts people’s lives.”
Finally, Sabina, who is Director at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative at the University of Oxford, shared her insights from work conducted in Bhutan by the government on measuring wellbeing through their Gross National Happiness (GNH) index. Through the GNH data is collected through a variety of weighted indicators which helps to identify patterns of wellbeing across different domains of wellbeing across the country, which helps to shape policy which can target improvements in certain areas. As Sabina explained, the government considers that a person who is sufficient in 66% of the weighted indicators is considered happy, and there are three wellbeing ‘cut offs’ which create a gradient of happiness to help identify further trends. This is complemented by Bhutan’s multidimensional poverty index which helps to provide a more nuanced picture of how wellbeing is linked to wealth disparities across districts. Sabina pointed out some of the data trends over the past decade which show that the poverty index has reduced significantly between 2012 and 2022, and that improvements in the living standards dimension of the GNH have also taken place. She highlighted that the GNH shows how wellbeing is evolving across different domains of society and that the government uses the tool to help identify where to invest going forward to increase happiness across the board.
She said, “Bhutan has had periods of very high growth, but it may be that the GNH index also shores up intrinsic motivation, which might be important going forward and for productivity. Clearly the growth fell sharply at the pandemic, there was outmigration, the government rebalanced and made growth an explicit priority. But there also may be gains in investing in the wellbeing, community and culture to have a more effective political economy overall.”
The full webinar is available to watch below.