Wellbeing: Measuring what matters to people

There is a growing appreciation that the ‘success’ of a society is about more than money and growth, and that 'well-being', including our health, relationships, feelings, environment, goals, and other items, all have value to us, and that we should make decisions that invest in these areas accordingly.  

There is however a less widespread appreciation of how to measure and weight these 'life qualities'. Different countries and organisations adopt different methods - from the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, to the OECD's Better Life initiative - and how much they are worth.

In this podcast, Deborah Hardoon, Head of Evidence at the What Works Centre for Wellbeing, and  Dr Mark Fabian, social scientist, and Dr Matthew Agarwala, economist at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy, University of Cambridge, discuss their research which aims to build on the range of measures that already exist and the data they have generated, to tell us more about what matters, which indicators are most useful in which contexts, and the policy implications to improve overall well-being. 

- Bennett Institute for Public Policy: The many dimensions of well-being 

- What Works Centre for Well-being


The Many Dimensions of Well-being project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.