Monday 18 March 2013

Subjective wellbeing: a primer for poverty analysts

an article by Sridhar Venkatapuram (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK) published in Journal of Poverty and Social Justice Volume 21 Number 1 (February 2013)

Abstract

The article reviews the current theory and measurement of subjective well-being (SWB).

The first two sections discuss growing efforts in many countries to measure and monitor national well-being, particularly in the United Kingdom. The third and fourth sections discuss the novelty and controversies about SWB research.

It concludes that a critical approach is essential in evaluating SWB research but dismissing it offhand or framing it as antithetical to objective well-being is misconceived. The pressing issue for poverty research and public policy is to determine which insights about SWB are worth using, and how much space within conceptions of well-being used in public policy should be given to SWB.

Full text (PDF 13pp)


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