Transcript Measuring Well-being: What Role for Social Indicators?

Measuring Well-being:
What Role for Social Indicators?
Dr. Jongwook Won
Korea Institute for Health and
Social Affairs
How to measure well-being
• Quantitative macro-economic measures
per capita GNP
GDP
GNI
Final Consumption Expenditure
• Qualitative aspects of the well-being
Green GNP, Welfare GNP, and
Sustainable Economic Welfare
Where do the Indicators(Index)
Stand?
qualitative
quantitative
indicators
& Index
Limitation of quantitative macroeconomic measures
• Size of economy in terms of Production
activities
Pollution, Depletion of
Natural resource, Crime, Congestion,
• Size of consumption
does not reflect
actual distribution of income/consumption, still does
not account negative externalities
Limitation of qualitative aspects of
the well-being
Green GNP, SEW
Cross-country
comparison is impossible
 Use too many assumptions
 Each country use different assumptions
 Assumptions are too subjective
( aesthetic value of wet-land,
discomfort of noise into monetary value)
Cross-country correlations between per
capita GDP and social indicators
1
Social
Health
Self-sufficiency
Cohesion
Equity
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
-0.8
Prisoners
Infant Mortality
Life Exp. Birth
Gini
Pension contributor
Pop. under poverty line
-0.6
School enrollment
-0.4
Employment
rate
-0.2
Unemployment rate
0
Increase in GDP per capita and
Improvement of Basic Social Indicators
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
HDI
GDP/capita &
-0.2
GDP & UNDER-NOURISHMENT
0
GDP & SANITATION
0.2
GDP & WATER
Correlation Coefficient %
(1990-2005)
Level of Life Satisfaction with GDP per
capita Across Asian Countries
CHINA
BANGLADESHI
INDIA
INDONESIA
MONGOLIA
PAKISTAN
PHILLIPINES
THAILAND
Viet Nam
Life satisfaction (average score)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
0
500
1000
1500
GDP/capita
2000
2500
3000
Level of Life Satisfaction with GDP
per capita Across Asian Countries
HONG KONG
JAPAN
KOREA
MALAYSIA
SINGAPORE
9
Life satisfaction(average)
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
0
5000
10000
15000
GDP/capita
20000
25000
30000
Advantages of Social Indicators
• Cross Country Comparison is possible
• It derives policy implications
• It is relatively easy and inexpensive to
produce
Limitation of Social Indicators
• It is too simple to account for the whole
dimension of the society
• It covers only published data
• Need to modify to fit in less developed
countries
More empahsis on poverty reduction
We added a special chapter