understanding and measuring quality of life in ireland: sustainability, happiness and well-being...
TRANSCRIPT
Understanding and Measuring Quality of Life in Ireland:
Sustainability, Happiness and Well-Being
Professor J. Peter ClinchDr Susana FerreiraDr Finbarr Brereton
Mirko MoroDr Craig Bullock
• Goal of Public Policy is to improve well-being in society, and to do so in a sustainable way
• Problems of definition and measurement:– How to measure well-being?– How to measure sustainability?
Economic indicators
• Current public debate informed by Economic indicators – At the macro level: Gross National Product
(GNP), Gross Domestic Product (GDP)– At the micro level: Individual Income
• Are they good indicators of economic and social progress?
• Last decade, Irish economy grew at a record rate for a developed country.
• Nevertheless, much concern regarding the implications of the pace of economic growth for localized environmental quality and life satisfaction generally.
• Are people more content?
• Is the economy ‘sustainable’
Problems with Economic indicators
• As indicators of economic progress, they ignore “non-market” goods and activities:– Public goods: e.g. environmental quality, social
cohesion.– Household production– Value of leisure time
• As indicators of social progress, they ignore important social aspects:– Inequality– Social capital
• At the micro level, does income bring happiness?
Questions to be addressed:
• If traditional income measures are inadequate indicators of societal welfare, what new measures of sustainability and individual and macro quality of life should be used?
• What do the current results from those measures tell us?
• What research is required to further develop such measures so that they can be used as an evidence-base for policy?
Improving macroeconomic measures of performance: sustainability measures (1)
• What is sustainability?– Sustainable development as non-declining
well-being
• How to define well-being?– Research into the determinants of quality of
life
• How to ensure it is non declining?– Keeping capital stock constant
Improving macroeconomic measures of performance: sustainability measures (2)
• Current System of National Accounts concentrates in physical capital
• Other capital stocks are ignored but must be included to reflect sustainability (Nobel Laureate, Robert Solow)– Human capital– Social capital– Natural capital
• Notable exception: World Bank “Genuine Savings” estimates
Improving macroeconomic measures of performance: sustainability measures (3)
• “Genuine Savings:” Comprehensive savings indicator.
It includes adjustments for:– Depreciation of physical capital– Depletion of natural resources (timber, fossil fuels,
metals and minerals)
– Environmental degradation (PM10, CO2 emissions)
– Human capital accumulation (Education expenditure)
• Indicator of “weak sustainability”
Savings indicators for Ireland (%GNI)
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19
71
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Sa
vin
gs
as
% o
f G
NP
Gross National Savings Net National Savings Green Savings Ireland Genuine Savings
Gross Savings = GNP – C + net current transfers
‘Green’ Savings = Net Savings - Energy, Mineral & Forest depletion
Net Savings = Gross Savings – CFC
‘Genuine’ Savings = ‘Green’ Savings + Education Expenditure
Improving macroeconomic measures of performance: sustainability measures (4)
• According to Genuine Savings figures, Ireland is in a weakly sustainable development path:
• BUT:– What about strong sustainability?– Figures favour small countries and economies that consume
imported energy rather than resource based economies– Irish-specifics problems not taken into account:
• Emissions of SO2, CO, NOx, NO, NO2, VOC. • Noise/Water pollution• Congestion• Changes in land use
– Adjustments tend to be low common denominator
• Still a long way to go!
Improving quality of life and happiness measures: the subjective well-being approach (1)
• Economic growth obtains highest priority in national and international agendas
• What is alternative?• Psychologists: happiness/subjective well-being
scores• Economic psychology (e.g. Nobel Laureate:
Daniel Kahneman): how do various factors (financial, social, environmental) influence well-being?
Improving quality of life and happiness measures: Irish empirical results (1)
• What is explaining this variation?
• Regression analysis. To what extent does a particular factor (e.g. age) ‘explain’ the level of happiness of an individual independent of all other factors (e.g. income)?
• Economic/financial• Social• Environmental
• Income is significantly related to life satisfaction - but only to a point.
• Threshold level of income (a gross household income of €57,900), after which returns to well-being from higher income rapidly diminish
• Employment status: independent of income etc, unemployment significantly reduces well-being
• Part-time employment for men and lack of housing tenure also negative
• Living in social housing very negative
Economic/financial determinants of well-being
• Young and old are less satisfied with their lives, with a turning point at 55 years.
• Males are less satisfied with life than females. • Separated/divorced is negatively associated with life satisfaction
compared to being single. • No difference between married and single respondents, (possible
explanation is low divorce rate). • Having 3 or more children is associated with less contentment • Health: inverse relationship between number of doctor visits and life
satisfaction; self-reported health and life satisfaction are highly (positively) correlated.
• Married males less satisfied with life than are their married female counterparts and, indeed, less happy than single males!
• Being a single parent is negatively associated with life satisfaction. Everything else being equal, reduces life satisfaction by over one third of a category on the seven point scale.
• But: only in households in which there are no other adults.
Social determinants of well-being
Utilised GIS to ‘link’ people to their surrounding environment:
Proximity to a landfill site is negatively related to well-being
Living 2km or less from a coast increases life satisfaction by over ¾ of a category
Access to transport routes is an amenity and disamenity depending on distance
Environmental determinants of well-being
Why are Dubliners less happy?
• Analysis shows that it is lower environmental quality that explains Dublin’s lower happiness levels
• After income, employment status, and marital status environmental factors are the next most significant determinants of well-being
Towards an evidence-base for policymaking
• Ireland’s GDP and GNP have risen dramatically, but this research shows that money is only one factor that influences the well-being of society.
• Moreover, monetary measures at the macro level give no indication of the sustainability of an economy.
• There are alternative measures of progress and success• Government must invest in research that provides an
evidence-base that allows more sophisticated policymaking in comparison to the reliance on such traditional monetary measures including tracking well-being and its determinants over time
• Principal goal of public policy - to improve the well-being. Impossible if you do not know the most important factors that influence the well-being of Irish people?
• Research is required to set priorities for policy - economic, social and environmental
It‘s not just the economy Stupid!