Well-being is an ambiguous term with many usages, meanings, and conceptions (Gasper, 2007). Selecting the best ways to assess well-being is a challenge, as what determines ‘well-being’ varies from one individual to the next, from community to community, between cultures, by location, and across countries. In addition, well- being is so extensive in scope that it can be argued that everything we do, and is done to us, impacts on our well-being. As human well-being is multi-dimensional (Alkire, 2002; McGillivray, 2007; Sen, 1999, 2008) it is not able to be captured by any one measure (such as GDP).
While some researchers use the word ‘well-being’ as a distinct term, others (such as Easterlin, 2001, 2003; Easterlin & Angelescu, 2009) use well-being interchangeably with alternative terminology. The different descriptors used include: quality of life,
happiness, living standards, human development, welfare,19 social welfare, well-living,
19
The word welfare has a long history of use in economic theory. For Smith (1776), economics was about how to increase human welfare, and based on this, determine policy to best promote human happiness. Smith calculated economic welfare as the annual output from labour divided by the number of people able to consume it (E. K. Hunt & Lautzenheiser, 2011).
utility and life satisfaction. The following provide examples of the many different ways that well-being is described:
x Walsh (2005) defines well-being as “living and faring well” or “flourishing”.
Well-being consists of both economic and non-economic factors and can be
considered to be a necessary condition for human happiness and what a
good life achieves.
x The UNDP definition is “expanding people’s real freedoms–so that people
can flourish” (UNDP, 2010, p. 22).
x Well-being is defined by McGillivray (2007) as a description of the state of
an individual’s life situation. An individual’s well-being is considered to be aligned with satisfaction with life, pleasure, enjoyment, health, leisure, personal development opportunities to fulfil one’s potential, and having a purpose so that life has personal meaning.
x Neumeyer (2004, 2007) uses the term well-being interchangeably with
welfare and utility, and defines it as the satisfaction of human preferences. The more human preferences are satisfied (health, education, freedom, autonomy, recreation, experience of nature, plus others) the greater is well- being.
x The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment,
2005) sees human well-being as made up of multiple constituents, including health and a healthy physical environment, good social relations, freedom of choice and action, security and the basic material needs for a good life.
‘Welfare’, as in ‘welfare economics’, refers to analysis of incomes, wealth and utilities. Welfare economics reduces human behaviour to maximising utility. People maximise their utility through market transactions and the buying and selling of goods. The extent to which utility and interpersonal comparison can actually be measured is an on-going debate (Spiegel, 1991). Maximising economic human welfare remains the objective of neoclassical economics with a change in welfare defined as the change resulting from different production/consumption bundles. Microeconomics is referred to as ‘welfare economics’ because it focuses on maximising utility at the margins. Pareto efficiency is considered the “first theorem of welfare economics” as it defines in economic terms the meaning of maximum utility. An ecological economics definition of ‘welfare’ is: “A psychic state of want satisfaction or enjoyment of life – an experience not a thing – the basic reason to be of economic activity” (H. Daly & Farley, 2004, p. 441). This definition encompasses more than utility change resulting from consumption.
x Prescott-Allen (2001, p. 5) defines human well-being as “a condition in which all members of society are able to determine and meet their needs and have a large range of choices”.
x Coleman (1998, p. 33) recognises the interdependencies of well-being,
which he describes as a “highly uncertain and complex system where economic-social-environmental indicators interact in ways that are indirect, non-linear, cumulative and synergistic”.
2.2.1 Individual versus societal well-being
Human well-being is made up of both individual and societal factors. Individual well- being, while connected to societal well-being, differs from it. Individual well-being is concerned with how a person’s basic needs are met, and how satisfied they are with the opportunities presented to achieve their person-specific (e.g. health, education) needs. Social well-being relates to attributes shared with others such as belonging to a community, having an affirmative attitude towards others, and contributing to society and its positive development (McGillivray, 2007). It also encompasses factors such as whether a society is peaceful, resilient, open to diversity, and so on.
Individual and societal well-being is interconnected. As Giddens (1984, 1991) explains, the structure of society and the individual are a duality that cannot be considered apart – individuals structure society and society structures individuals.
Beaumont (2011) places well-being in a nested structure, as in Figure 2-2, to show this interdependency. An individual’s well-being is determined by their own assessment of how they feel. How they feel will be determined by attributes that directly affect their well-being such as health, relationships, finance, education, work, and dwelling location. An individual has some degree of immediate control over such things but their provision is also a function of the wider societal institutional structure.
Contextual factors such as governance, the economy, and the natural environment are higher scale influences on well-being that are beyond any one individual. Human well- being is supported by the economy, the governance structure, and the natural environment. Typically, these factors provide the enabling conditions to achieve human well-being (Hall, Giovannini, Morrone, & Ranuzzi, 2010). In Figure 2-2
equity/fairness (which is a distribution issue), and sustainability over time (which is an intergenerational issue) impact across all levels.
Figure 2-2: National well-being framework (Source: Beaumont, 2011). SWB=Subjective well- being.
Government policy creates opportunities for humans to meet their needs. Individuals place weighting/preferences on different things, raising important considerations for analysis and policy when looking beyond individual well-being to societal well-being (Costanza et al., 2007). In addition, the weights given to various factors evolve as social norms change, therefore government responses need to also change.
The research focus of this dissertation is not the personal choices individuals make that influence their well-being but rather the policy decisions that impact on both individual and societal opportunities to achieve well-being.