UK to Measure Happiness - Media Review

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This page is dedicated to gathering media coverage of the UK's movement to measure happiness in the. See the Community Portal for a wider selection of media coverage on a variety of topics this month. See the Media Review page for a list of media reviews by topic.


Contents

In the news - Office for National Statistics release report on well-being

In the wake of a recent report by Lloyds TSB International Wealth, it came to light that a significant number of wealthy Britons are planning to migrate for a better quality of life sooner or later.


The European Commission has proposed a new package of measures aimed at facilitating integration through language learning, easier access to employment, education and training, plus efforts to fight discrimination.


Are people really happy in Britain today? Or are they moving abroad to seek personal and financial prosperity?


Health, friends and family have come top in a debate asking the nation how they measure happiness.


Happiness is a doll in a pushchair, a Big Mac and large fries and a loving circle of friends and family.


People to be asked how content they feel in attempt to measure impact of policies on nation's wellbeing


Children must be taught that “there is more to life” than buying the latest iPod or mobile phone in order to create a happy society, Britain’s most senior civil servant has said.


People in the UK believe their well-being should be measured in terms of health, friends and family and job satisfaction, according to a report.


A welfare state that led to permanent austerity would betray the principles that have made American culture exceptional.


In April this year, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) began research to ask people to rate their own well-being as part of a groundbreaking scheme to measure the nation’s “happiness”.


Whitehall departments have been ordered to draw up plans to make Britain happier as part of David Cameron’s drive to improve the nation’s wellbeing, The Daily Telegraph has learned.


In the news - Office of National Statistics Happiness Survey revealed


The Brits don’t go in much for happiness. Stiff upper lip is more the thing, and a good laugh if warranted. Trying to be happy just seems like piffle to a practical people. Undeterred, Prime Minister David Cameron has decided to create a national happiness index providing quarterly measures of how folks feel.


"Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday?" We learned this week that that is one of four new questions being inserted into the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Household Survey as the UK's official number crunchers try to assess the well-being of the nation.


Life ratings, emotional wellbeing of the unemployed drops after 10 weeks of job searching


Households up and down the country will soon be invited to judge whether they have 'worthwhile' lives in the nation's first 'wellbeing index'.

Researchers will soon be able to pinpoint the UK’s saddest borough after the Office for National Statist ics explained how it aims to measure national wellbeing.


UK households are to be asked how satisfied they are with their lives in survey measuring happiness.


The Office of National Statistics (ONS) will soon begin asking new questions in its regular household survey to establish how satisfied people are with their lives - the latest step in an international move towards assessing national well-being using data outside traditional economic measures.


U.K. households are to be asked to rate their “life satisfaction” as the country’s statistics office seeks to add a measure of well-being to its traditional economic indicators.


Hundreds of thousands of people will be asked whether they think the lives they lead are “worthwhile” as part of David Cameron’s plan to measure the nation’s wellbeing.



In the news - David Cameron annouces decision to measure happiness



Prime Minister David Cameron has asked for the nation’s wellbeing to be measured for the Government from next April.


What's your general well-being like these days? What is the true measure of our people's mood -- does it match the grimness of our national finances?


David Cameron, in an attempt to distract the public from his demolition of the public sector, has announced his intention to track our wellbeing. Our collective happiness will measured using a set of indicators - a matrix of proxies for the general wellbeing of the nation. Well done the great British Utilitarians Jeremy Bentham and JS Mill: your day has finally come.


On planet Earth, the best known measure of the progress and development of nations is gross domestic product, or GDP. It estimates a nation's economic output and is used to make year-over-year or international comparisons. If a nation's GDP declines from one year to the next, that nation is said to be in recession. If a nation's GDP grows, that nation is deemed to be prospering.


In 2006, Richard Layard, an economist at the London School of Economics, argued that unhappiness was a bigger social problem in Britain than unemployment. In the Depression Report, which he co-wrote, Layard pointed out that more people were claiming incapacity benefits because of depression and other mental disorders than were on the dole.


After doing such a stellar job boosting GDP and incomes in recent years, many rich-country governments are now trying to tell us that since economic growth doesn't really make us happy, their having delivered so little of it recently shouldn't really be held against them.


Don't dismiss the link between wealth and well-being. They are driven by the same things. By David Willetts, Minister for Universities and Science.


Measuring happiness is superficial. We need to address why we are twice as likely to be mentally ill as our European neighbours


Commentators discuss David Cameron's countrywide consultation to assess the nation's happiness. The Minister for Universities and Science David Willetts tries to clarify in the Times [subscription required] the difference between measuring happiness and what the government intends to do, measuring wellbeing...


Last week’s news that the government is to start measuring subjective well-being sounded, as Jules Peck argued here last week, like very good news for progressives. Yesterday we heard more of the details of what is being proposed – with a vision that just might start to transform the business of policy-making. If the implementation lives up to the promise of what has been set out, it could be very good news indeed – certainly for those of us who want a society that genuinely works to improve ordinary people’s lives.


Economic Life: One point often made is that US income per head has risen over the past couple of generations but people are not getting any happier as a result


British Prime Minister David Cameron set out plans on Thursday to measure the national mood and help to build a more family-friendly Britain, a potentially fraught endeavour at a time of sharp spending cuts.



Statisticians to ask people how satisfied they are, Cameron says GDP indicators miss important aspects of life




PM's criticisms come in speech about new ways of measuring wellbeing in addition to tracking economic growth


Prime Minister David Cameron will on Thursday ask the official statistics agency to create a new measure of national well-being, in a bid to measure the country's "quality of life."


Prime Minister David Cameron has insisted his £2m plan to measure the nation's happiness is not "woolly". He said economic growth remained the most "urgent priority" but he wanted a better measure of how the country was doing than GDP.


Measuring happiness is not a distraction from the serious business of government but a key part of it, the Prime Minister has said as the UK prepares to test national well-being for the first time.


It’s hardly the time for the Government to throw away £2m on a survey by the Office for National Statistics into the country’s well-being, not least because we already know the answer – Britain is the world leader in gloominess.


British statisticians will come up with a formula to measure the happiness of British citizens. Prime Minister David Cameron thinks it'll be a better measure of national success than GDP.


Cameron is right to talk about our quality of life. But as commuters know, carriages don't feel comfy when money worries bite


David Cameron will today unveil plans to measure the nation’s happiness despite admitting that many will regard them as ‘airy-fairy and impractical’.


National Statistician Jil Matheson has today announced her plans to work out how to measure the nation’s well-being.


British Premier David Cameron has announced a happiness index to measure the country’s state of wellbeing. The promotion of happiness as the goal of policy-making is by no means new; Bhutan created a Gross National Happiness Index and banned wrestling shows and MTV.


Reading about British Prime Minister David Cameron’s plans to start measuring happiness reminded me of that old Star Trek phrase: Live long and prosper. It was Dr. Spock, the very logical Vulcan, who used it. Most of us remember the accompanying hand sign but I loved the phrase, it encompasses so much in four words. In fact prosper is a really good word, but what exactly does it mean?


The "happiness index" has increasingly shifted from a psychological topic to the center theme of the governments' administrative guidelines. The phrase now frequently appears in government reports from the UK to China's local governments.


“HAPPINESS INDEX to gauge Britain’s national mood,” was the headline of Britain’s Guardian newspaper (www.guardian.co.uk) last Monday.


Pass the port; the British government will now be measuring national happiness--or rather general "wellbeing." Though leaders aren't insensible to the awkwardness of attaching an official mood-ring to a country still reeling from economic hardship and spending cuts, they're going to do it anyway. Here's some of the reaction.


Well, you can't fault the British government for lack of initiative. In addition to a sweeping reorganization of its National Health Service and a massive overhaul of its welfare system, Prime Minister David Cameron has put one more thing on Whitehall's "to do" list: measuring the happiness of its citizens.

Western leaders are looking beyond traditional indexes of economic and social well-being and turning to ways of measuring national happiness. Philip Johnston wonders how such a scheme might work.


It’s been a rough few weeks for social researchers in the aftermath of the Spending Review and as the reality of austerity sinks in. But here’s something to smile about: Prime Minister David Cameron wants to commission a new ongoing survey of how happy people are.


So it's official. Stiff-upper-lip-Brits have gone all touchy-feely. Today the Guardian Newspaper reported that "The UK government is poised to start measuring people's psychological and environmental wellbeing, bidding to be among the first countries to officially monitor happiness."


It Sounds crazy - especially coming from a Tory Government whose economic policies spell misery for millions of people. But David Cameron wants to measure how happy we are.


Governments are mulling the adoption of a happiness index to measure psychological and environmental well-being as one method of assessing a nation's economic progress and guiding national policies, but analysts are split over the viability of the indicator.


Britain is poised to start measuring people's psychological and environmental well-being, making it one of the first countries to officially monitor happiness. Bhutan has had a happiness index since the 1970s.


David Cameron has set out plans to measure the public’s happiness, in a move branded ‘voodoo sociology’ by MPs.


The UK government is poised to start measuring people’s psychological and environmental wellbeing, bidding to be among the first countries to officially monitor happiness.


UK government officials have announced that national performance will in future be judged against measures of personal and environmental well-being, in addition to traditional economic yardsticks such as GDP. It's an idea that could have been lifted straight from last year's "Better World" special, or an earlier opinion piece calling for a broader "dashboard" to assess the health of the economy, both of which appeared in New Scientist.

Did you wake up fretting over the gross domestic product? Thought not. But you might, as you gaze in the bathroom mirror, ponder your happiness or well-being.


The UK government is to start monitoring our happiness, with the stated aim of making wellbeing a starting point for policy. In advance of this, we thought we'd do our own informal survey. So, are you happy?


How happy is the UK? The Government wants to know, and is drawing up a list of questions to ask the public. But what do you think they should be asking? Channel 4 News finds out.


Politicians often think they instinctively know what makes us happy. David Cameron is right to turn to statistics


The British government plans to follow through on Prime Minister David Cameron's campaign pledge to gauge national happiness and use the findings to help shape policy.


Europeans are becoming less "emotionally prosperous" despite the continuing rise in living standards, according to research that questions why the public are so badly misjudging what makes them happy.


Feeling fine? Frustrated? Fantastic? The British government really wants to know. British officials said Monday they will start measuring national happiness in addition to gauging more traditional data like income levels and fear of violent crime.


The Government is preparing to officially measure the happiness of Britons, it has been reported.


Before becoming British prime minister, David Cameron called for well-being to be assessed alongside traditional economic indicators, saying there was "more to life than money," Sky News reported.


In 1991, the author Michael Frayn wrote a book, A Landing on the Sun, about a British prime minister who tasked his advisers with looking into happiness and what the government could do to promote it. The prize proved elusive, the adviser went mad and died.


Despite 'nervousness', David Cameron wants measure of wellbeing to steer government policy


Despite ‘nervousness’, David Cameron wants measure of wellbeing to steer government policy. The UK government is poised to start measuring people’s psychological and environmental wellbeing, bidding to be among the first countries to officially monitor happiness.


Blogs

David Cameron unveiled his plans for ‘the Happiness Index’ last week. A noble attempt at defining progress in non-monetary terms, but is it practical to ask people how they’re feeling?


This has been hitting the news a lot over here. I'll probably write more about this as I read/think more about it. I'm just free-writing my ideas now so don't consider this my definitive position, and of course I welcome any constructive thoughts and criticisms you have.


A website with a collection of links to relevant media coverage on the UK move to measure happiness.


The National Well-being Project will use household surveys to judge 'quality of life'. Are they ready for the answers they'll get?


On the Today programme this morning there was a fascinating discussion about happiness. I have mused before about the PM's audacious and quite brilliant plan to measure how happy we all are. Until this morning, however, I had no idea that the idea originated in the tiny Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan.


It isn't often that I'm driven to shout at the radio in the mornings, but today was an exception. The Prime Minister is to announce today that the government will start collecting statistics on national well-being. There's one way to do this which is necessary and welcome; but the happiness gurus have latched onto the imbecilic way to approach it, and they were the people who grabbed the airwaves.


The "happiness index" has increasingly shifted from a psychological topic to the center theme of the governments' administrative guidelines. The phrase now frequently appears in government reports from the UK to China's local governments.




Britain will soon begin “measuring people’s psychological and environmental well-being” — i.e., their happiness. “British officials say there is still hesitation in some parts of Whitehall over going ahead with the programme during such difficult economic times,” reports The Guardian, “but [David] Cameron is said to want to place the eventual results at the heart of future government policy-making.”


Following in the footsteps of Nicolas Sarkozy, UK Prime Minister David Cameron has directed the Office of National Statistics to develop metrics to measure the UK’s “general well-being.” Happiness indices have received a fair amount of press in recent years (including here at Triple Pundit) since Nobel Laureate economists Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen began advocating a move away from a exclusively economic view of gross domestic product towards a model that takes into account less concrete measures, such as sustainability and, yes, well-being.


See also

The Office for National Statistics

The National Well-being Project

Statistics and Human Well-Being

Happiness in the United Kingdom

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