Well-Being, Quality of Governance, and Employment Policies: International Perspectives

Abstract

Looking beyond the traditional national accounts and household-income-labour dynamics, this paper examines well-being from a conceptual and practical perspective. It builds upon the literature review and indicators including the Better Life Index, the Human Development Index, the Healthiest Countries Index, and the Happiness Index. Education, knowledge, skills, health, safety, and good employment are central drivers of well-being and life satisfaction. Job satisfaction is strongly correlated with health, family fulfilment, social relationships, good citizenship, job quality, and productivity at work. Quality of governance and appropriate employment policies positively influence job satisfaction and therefore other key determinants of well-being. Vice-versa, well-being measures represent valuable inputs for various policies and, besides, well-being positively influences health, longevity, and productivity. Given all these, the present paper has the following key objectives: (1) to synthesize the main dimensions of well-being, both from the subjective and objective standpoints; (2) to underline specific relationships between well-being, quality of governance, and employment policies; (3) to describe the performance of various countries in terms of well-being indexes; (4) to underscore current risks that jeopardize well-being.

KEYWORDS: :

• Well-being
• quality of governance
• human development
• standard of living

JEL Codes::

• I31
• I39
• J60
• J68
• O15

Notes

1 The Fragile State Index is assessing a state's vulnerability to collapse or conflict (The Fund for Peace, 2022).

2 The four main categories of countries according to their income can be consulted here: https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/906519-world-bank-country-and-lending-groups.

3 In Holland's model, people belong to six vocational types: R – Realistic: tangible or physical activities; I – Investigative: activities that involve thinking, analyzing, and organizing; A − Artistic: creative, original, nonconforming work; S − Social: enjoy working with others and helping them; E − Entrepreneurs: work that involves influencing others and attaining leadership positions; C – Conventional: + repetitive, routine activities.