Measuring Human Well-being: Key Findings and Policy Lessons

N governments, civil society organizations, and international agencies require reliable concepts and measures of well-being to monitor human progress and design effective development strategies. In consequence, considerable effort has gone into measuring poverty, inequality, and well-being at the individual (or household), national, and international level in recent decades. Among other things, economic and social indicators have been used to monitor progress over time, compare relative performance (most notably by compiling league tables that rank countries according to their success or failure), and assess the merits of different policy interventions. They have also been used to justify economic aid and measure progress towards internationally agreed targets such as the Millennium Development Goals. In recent years work on well-being across the social sciences has accelerated in response to changes in global conditions, new research priorities, more sophisticated concepts and methods, and improved data resources. Yet many conceptual and methodological issues remain and some of the most widely used measures need to be treated with care. In particular, there is no single concept or measure of poverty, inequality, or well-being that is generally accepted above all others. These and other crucial issues are picked up in five new volumes edited for UNU-WIDER by Mark McGillivray and associates. These studies bring together a diverse collection of research—written by an international panel of experts with various backgrounds— that provide a range of different insights into how poverty, inequality, and well-being might be better understood. This is done by: (1) reviewing and assessing existing concepts and measures; (2) identifying and exploring promising new directions for research; and (3) showing how various approaches can be applied and used to illuminate policy issues through a series of case studies and practical examples.