Sizing up well-being

There are many ways to measure an economy. However, the one we hear about most often is the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The GDP measures total spending on all goods and services, even items such as crime and pollution that aren’t necessarily good for our communities or lives. The GDP has many critics because it values all spending equally.

As a result, researchers continue to work on developing new measures of economic well-being that will more accurately reflect how well humans, economies, and ecosystems are faring. One of these proposals is that of Robert Prescott-Allen, who authored The Wellbeing of Nations: A Country-by-Country Index of Quality of Life and the Environment. Prescott-Allen ranks 180 countries based on these two indicators
and the way that they interrelate:

Human Wellbeing measures human health, longevity, and the stability of family size; how well basic needs are met; the vitality of the national economy; access to education, knowledge, communications systems, and culture; freedom, peacefulness, and community situations; and equity.
Ecosystem Wellbeing looks at the demands placed on land, water, and air; species diversity; energy consumption; agriculture and mining impacts; and resource extraction, use, and reuse.

Prescott-Allen’s findings? No country is sustainable on both measures. In the countries doing the best, either people or the environment suffer. In the majority of the countries measured, there is a deficit in both human and ecosystem well-being.

Other ways to measure the economy include the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) and the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW). Both take into account many factors, including spending (the current GDP), the positive value of such things as volunteering, parenting, and housework, and the cost of social ills such as crime, car accidents, family breakdown, and loss of natural resources. Like the Wellbeing Index, both the GPI and
ISEW suggest that quality of life is not improving for people or the planet.