Wellbeing research and policy in the U.K.: questionable science likely to entrench inequality

ABSTRACT

There are grave issues with how the U.K. government approaches the issue of wellbeing. Specifically, policy interventions that might improve the material conditions of citizens are being down-played, and at times out-rightly dismissed. Instead, an individualist, instrumental message is being promoted, namely, that the best way to improve wellbeing is by improving individual happiness and mental health. I argue that this instrumental message – which in practice blames the victims for their lack of happiness and removes state responsibility – can be made to sound feasible because of a reliance on positivist-based research, whether obtained objectively (by measuring material conditions) or subjectively (by measuring stated levels of happiness). In this paper, I therefore detail the failings of mainstream wellbeing research and its policy conclusions, and argue that critical realism offers solutions.

KEYWORDS:

• Wellbeing
• happiness
• inequality
• Easterlin Paradox
• What Works Centre for Wellbeing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Leigh Price is a senior research associate of the Environmental Learning and Research Centre, Rhodes University. She is also a general editor of the Journal of Critical Realism. Her most recent book, co-authored with Roy Bhaskar and Berth Danermark, is entitled: “Interdisciplinarity and Wellbeing”.