Satisfaction with Life Index
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The Satisfaction with Life Index was created in 2007 by Adrian G. White, an analytic social psychologist at the
University of Leicester , mottoeng = So that they may have life , established = , type = public research university , endowment = £20.0 million , budget = £326 million , chancellor = David Willetts , vice_chancellor = Nishan Canagarajah , head_lab ...
, using data from a
metastudy A meta-analysis is a statistical analysis that combines the results of multiple scientific studies. Meta-analyses can be performed when there are multiple scientific studies addressing the same question, with each individual study reporting me ...
. It is an attempt to show
life satisfaction Life satisfaction is a measure of a person's well-being, assessed in terms of mood, relationship satisfaction, achieved goals, self-concepts, and self-perceived ability to cope with life. Life satisfaction involves a favorable attitude towards one ...
in different nations. In this calculation, subjective well-being correlates most strongly with health (.7), wealth (.6), and access to basic education (.6). This is an example of directly measuring
happiness Happiness, in the context of mental or emotional states, is positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. Other forms include life satisfaction, well-being, subjective well-being, flourishing and eudaimonia. ...
—asking people how happy they are—as an alternative to traditional measures of policy success such as
GDP Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is ofte ...
or
GNP The gross national income (GNI), previously known as gross national product (GNP), is the total domestic and foreign output claimed by residents of a country, consisting of gross domestic product (GDP), plus factor incomes earned by foreign ...
. Some studies suggest that happiness can be measured effectively.Brittan, Samuel (22 November 2001)
Happiness is not enough
" Templeton Lecture Inst. of Economic Affairs. Accessed 23 July 2011.
This Index, however, is not solely based on directly asking "how people feel", but also on its social and economic development. The Happy Planet Index was used along with data from UNESCO on access to schooling, from the WHO on life expectancy, and from the CIA on GDP per capita to perform a new analysis with this data to come to a unique and novel set of results. Specifically, the extent of correlation between measures of poverty, health and education, and the variable of happiness.


Satisfaction Index

The subjective well-being index represents the overall satisfaction level as one number. Analysed data to create the index comes from
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
, the
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
, the
New Economics Foundation The New Economics Foundation (NEF) is a British think-tank that promotes "social, economic and environmental justice". NEF was founded in 1986 by the leaders of The Other Economic Summit (TOES) with the aim of working for a "new model of wealth ...
, the
WHO Who or WHO may refer to: * Who (pronoun), an interrogative or relative pronoun * Who?, one of the Five Ws in journalism * World Health Organization Arts and entertainment Fictional characters * Who, a creature in the Dr. Seuss book '' Horton He ...
, the Veenhoven Database, the Latinbarometer, the
Afrobarometer The Afrobarometer is a pan-African, independent, non-partisan research network that measures public attitudes on economic, political, and social matters in Africa. Its secretariat headquarters are in Accra, Ghana, registered as a limited company ...
, and the UNHDR. These sources are analysed to create a global projection of subjective well-being: the first world map of happiness. Whilst collecting data on subjective well-being is not an exact science, the measures used are very reliable in predicting health and welfare outcomes.


International rankings 2007-2017


See also

*
Social Progress Index The Social Progress Index (SPI) measures the extent to which countries provide for the social and environmental needs of their citizens. Fifty-four indicators in the areas of basic human needs, foundations of well-being, and opportunity to progre ...
*
Happy Planet Index The Happy Planet Index (HPI) is an index of human well-being and environmental impact that was introduced by the New Economics Foundation in 2006. Each country's HPI value is a function of its average subjective life satisfaction, life expectan ...
*
Human Development Index The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistic composite index of life expectancy, education (mean years of schooling completed and expected years of schooling upon entering the education system), and per capita income indicators, wh ...
**
List of countries by Human Development Index The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) compiles the Human Development Index (HDI) of 191 nations in the annual Human Development Report. The index considers the health, education and income in a given country to provide a measu ...
*
Quality of life Quality of life (QOL) is defined by the World Health Organization as "an individual's perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards ...
*
Gross National Happiness Gross National Happiness (GNH), sometimes called Gross Domestic Happiness (GDH), is a philosophy that guides the government of Bhutan. It includes an index which is used to measure the collective happiness and well-being of a population. Gross Na ...


References

{{Quality of life country lists Happiness indices