Are the beyond GDP, wellbeing values just too big?

A critique of wellbeing economics might be that we end up stating what seems blindingly obvious alongside eye wateringly big financial values. 

For example, our work at State of Life has reported that:

• volunteering is good for us and might be as valuable to the economy as the entire UK financial sector

• churches are providing more economic value than the entire social care budget in the UK

• parkrun is 25 times more cost effective than the NHS

• £1 invested in providing strength and balance training to vulnerable adults in social care could return £60 of value.

Are these numbers too big to believable?

Not when you look at what makes our lives worth living. The below is from the superb ‘Handbook for Wellbing Policy Making’ from Professors Paul Frijters and Christian Krekel. 

The chart below measures the 20% of our wellbeing that we can attribute accurately.

Only 10% of our observable, measurable  life satisfaction is from income. 15% from having a partner, being in good physical health. But a whopping 46% is in our mental health.  And this is wellbeing - measuring our confidence, anxiety, happiness, sense of purpose, belonging, trust in others and all those things that make us feel less miserable.

So with the new WELLBY measure, we can finally putting an economic value to the economics of everyday life - those decisions we all make because we know they make our lives better and avoid misery e.g. join a club, go out with friends, get married, get divorced, find faith, get fit, keep that job…etc.

So back to the critique - wellbeing does state the obvious, but it this means it is putting economic value on what is often taken for granted or simply not factored into decision making at local and national level. And the numbers are big because they can now reflect the reality of all our life rather than a narrow focus on say income, physical health.

The Where’s WELLBY poster brings all this together into one big picture. Essential viewing!