In April 2026, members of the World Wellbeing Panel took part in the first round of a two-round expert consultation on the future of wellbeing research and on the use of wellbeing evidence in policy. The panel's regular polls ask for agreement or disagreement with a statement. This round instead put eight open-ended questions to the panel and asked for written answers. Thirty-one panel members responded. Each also named the country they were writing about and their primary discipline. Most respondents are economists; sociology, psychology, philosophy, economic geography, public policy, and wellbeing science are each represented by one or two respondents. The countries in focus include Bhutan, Canada, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Southeastern Europe, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, and several respondents wrote about high-income countries in general.

The questions were:

1. What areas of policy are most important for improving wellbeing?
2. What policies are most important to improve wellbeing?
3. What is the most important change needed to better integrate wellbeing evidence into policy-making?
4. What are the three most important unresolved research questions in wellbeing research?
5. What are the most important sets of wellbeing data we need but do not yet have?
6. How would you improve wellbeing measurement, or the generation of wellbeing-related datasets?
7. Personally, in your wellbeing-related papers and books: whom are you mainly writing for?
8. Personally, in your wellbeing-related papers and books: whom are you mainly trying to reach and/or help?

The answers are summarised below, question by question. Where we give counts, they come from our categorical coding of all responses within each question. The full text of every answer is reproduced, unedited, in the appendix.

Analysis

Summary

The policy areas named most often related to income security and social protection, employment and the quality of work, health care, economic growth, education, and social connection. Mental health was named by seven respondents as a policy area and by eight as the target of a specific policy, in every case by someone writing about (or from) a high-income country. Respondents writing about South Africa and Southeastern Europe put basic services, economic growth, and the control of corruption first. On integrating evidence into policy, the largest group wants wellbeing measures written into formal appraisal and cost-benefit rules; a smaller group holds similarly that the evidence is already sufficient and that what is missing is political commitment or trained officials. The research questions raised most often concern what self-reported wellbeing measures capture and whether they are comparable across people, cultures, and time. Longitudinal panel data is the data gap named most often, with emphasis on low- and middle-income countries and on children. On measurement, the panel divides between those who want a fixed set of standard questions carried in official statistics and those who want new instruments that reveal how respondents use response scales. Most panel members write mainly for other academics, and several describe this as a constraint imposed by career incentives rather than a choice.

Most important policy areas for improving wellbeing

In our coding, income security and social protection (13 of 31 respondents), employment and labour markets (12), health care (12), economic growth and macroeconomic policy (10), education (9), social connection and community (9), the quality of government and control of corruption (8), and mental health (7) were the areas named most often.

The answers differ by the country the respondent was writing about. Talita Greyling, writing about South Africa, puts basic service delivery (electricity, water, and roads), education and health care, growth and employment, and the reduction of corruption at the top. Darma Mahadea, also writing about South Africa, argues that "people cannot be happier unless real GDP per capital is increasing continuously" and that the focus "should be on growth first and then redistribution". Antje Jantsch, writing about Southeastern Europe, names rural-urban disparities, economic insecurity, and corruption. Respondents writing about the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Canada, and the United States more often name mental health, housing costs, loneliness, and children. Carol Graham identifies loneliness and despair as "ironically a bigger issue for rich countries than poor ones". Arthur Grimes notes that in New Zealand "Public funding of mental health services is tiny compared with public funding for physical health".

The place of economic growth is contested. Andreas Knabe lists "reviving growth" first, and Mahadea makes growth the precondition for everything else. Mariano Rojas, writing about Mexico, instead asks policy to attend to "the relatively small contribution that GDP makes to well-being" and to treat interpersonal relationships as a key priority. Aaron Jarden wants a "Beyond GDP" approach and Stefano Bartolini lists urban planning, schooling, advertising regulation, and labour market regulation, none of them growth policies. Mark Fabian argues that priority across ministries matters less than the management ideology in each, although he calls for "a general reduction in the power of Treasuries" as compared with education, social services, and some others.

Four respondents decline to rank areas at all: Mohsen Joshanloo finds it "difficult to identify specific policy areas on a firm empirical basis", Eugenio Proto finds it "difficult to make a list", Anna Alexandrova describes wellbeing as "a complex causal nexus", and John Helliwell holds that once wellbeing becomes the focus, every policy at every level of government changes. Digital technology, social media, and artificial intelligence appear as a policy area in four answers (Ori Heffetz, Daniela Andrén, Jan Delhey, and Kelsey O'Connor).

Specific policies to improve wellbeing

The policies named most often were reform of education toward social, emotional, and life skills (13 respondents), investment in community and the reduction of loneliness (12), physical health care and prevention (10), job quality and working hours (9), and, with eight each, mental health services, parental leave and childcare, reduction of inequality between groups and regions, and income floors.

On education, Mark Fabian would teach students "how to think about the good life so that they think about what they want to do and only then about how to get the money/time to do it", together with interpersonal and psychological skills. Mariano Rojas wants to move beyond an educational system "designed primarily to enhance human capital", and Stefano Bartolini asks for participatory teaching methods that promote cooperation and creativity. Anthony Lepinteur gives Luxembourg-specific reforms: delaying early tracking, language support for non-native speakers, and stronger vocational pathways.

On community, Paul Frijters writes "Facilitate long-term cohesive communities (tough to do, but there are levers)". Martijn Burger, Carol Graham, Gigi Foster, and Darma Mahadea propose local community infrastructure, opportunities for isolated older people, family-oriented and anti-loneliness policy, and participation in community organisations. Anna Alexandrova names housing, financial anxiety, and loneliness as the sources of misery for the young and asks for policies that address them "at a systemic, rather than individualised level".

On mental health, the requests are complementary rather than opposed. Chris Barrington-Leigh writes that universal access to evidence-based mental health care "is now technologically feasible"; Daniel Benjamin asks for universal health care including mental health; Arthur Grimes would reprioritise funding from physical to mental health "based on cost effectiveness studies"; Burger and Daniela Andrén ask for early prevention in schools and workplaces; and Stephanié Rossouw cites the psychological distress rate among New Zealanders aged 15 to 24 and asks for more social workers and psychologists.

Housing is named by five respondents, and here the New Zealand and Canadian answers point in different directions on urban form. Grimes would relax planning constraints both on intensification in "leafy suburbs" and on "development of rural land". Barrington-Leigh asks for "land-use and transport reform to end all new auto-oriented sprawl", and Bartolini writes that "Car dependency is enemy to social capital". Some answers are specific to one country: Martijn Hendriks lists nitrogen emissions, the Dutch energy grid, VAT on fruit and vegetables, a sugar tax, and shifting tax from labour to wealth and consumption; Rossouw proposes banning social media, gaming, and recreational browsing for under-16s. Andreas Knabe proposes correcting "widespread misconceptions about social and economic facts" to reduce pessimism. Some policies prominent in the wellbeing literature are rare among the responses: wellbeing-based appraisal appears in two answers, advertising regulation in one (Bartolini), and regulation of digital platforms in two, with Andrén asking for "targeted governance of high-risk uses" rather than "blanket restriction".

Integrating wellbeing evidence into policy-making

Ten respondents want wellbeing measures to become a formal part of policy appraisal. Chris Barrington-Leigh asks to "Institutionalize wellbeing as a decision metric, not a dashboard", with wellbeing impact statements for legislation "comparable in status to fiscal notes". Martijn Burger would make subjective wellbeing "a formal headline outcome in policy appraisal and evaluation". Fengyu Wu describes the shift as one "from an income-centred to a welfare-centred decision rule". Stephanié Rossouw wants the evidence to "constrain and guide political decision-making in the same way that fiscal or monetary policy does". Arthur Grimes argues that politicians come and go, so the change must be a culture among officials of ex ante analysis and of evaluations designed before a programme starts, with staggered rollout to permit difference-in-differences estimates. Talita Greyling notes that in South Africa the first step is simply to measure: "What we do not measure, we cannot manage."

A related group asks for a single agreed measure with international backing. Martijn Hendriks wants "A strong lobby of influential people (top academics and policy makers) and organizations (e.g. OECD, EU, and UN) that all back one simple measure". Daniel Benjamin asks for "a well-accepted measure of wellbeing to be widely used in policy analysis". Arie Kapteyn proposes a short battery of life domains that "translate directly into policy domains".

Others hold that the constraint is not machinery. Kelsey O'Connor writes that "Much of the available evidence is already sufficient to justify change, yet decision-makers do not always listen to the broader public". Andreas Knabe believes policy already aims at wellbeing "at least to the extent that wellbeing translates into votes", and asks for more causal studies that relate effects to cost. John Helliwell asks for a better understanding of what improves lives, "coupled with enough bravery" to act on it. Paul Frijters and Mariano Rojas locate the problem in the training of public servants and politicians, most of whom are unfamiliar with the literature. Antje Jantsch adds that knowledge transfer carries little weight in academic careers and that administrative capacity is weak where it is most needed.

Three answers give diagnoses that no other respondent shares. Mark Fabian argues that New Public Management, "the public management framework of neoliberalism", produces bad outcomes wherever outcome metrics are poor, that the emphasis on randomised controlled trials among economists "reinforces these logics", and that the alternatives developed in policy studies are not taken up because economics "graduates its acolytes into the treasury". Aaron Jarden argues that the debate about putting wellbeing into budget processes concerns the "how" while "we still don't have people on board with the 'why' of wellbeing". Anna Alexandrova asks that research be co-developed with its users and that metrics be "co-produced with stakeholders", rather than "correlation-mongering with life satisfaction data".

Most important unresolved research questions

The research question raised most often, by 14 respondents, is what self-reported wellbeing measures capture. Ori Heffetz asks "What do these (self-reported wellbeing) questions really capture?" and Mark Fabian "What goes on when people report subjective evaluations of how their life is going?" Anthony Lepinteur packages three measurement concerns together: how to model the reporting function that maps latent wellbeing into survey responses, covering non-linearity of the scale, scale norming, and heterogeneity in scale use. Talita Greyling notes that the Cantril ladder, life evaluation, and happiness questions produce different results and that the same questions in Gallup and the World Values Survey differ. Philip Morrison points to the mixed temporal framing of standard questions. Mohsen Joshanloo raises measurement artefacts and the data quality of online panels, paid respondents, and automated responses.

Not everyone assigns this question the same weight. Arie Kapteyn calls interpersonal comparability "Not really unresolved", since item response theory and anchoring vignettes exist, but says more evidence would increase acceptance. Carol Graham regards the criticism of response scales as "exaggerated" but notes that it "serves to discourage key policy actors". Mariano Rojas observes that doubts about interpersonal comparability "apply not only to wellbeing metrics but also to any other metric, such as income". Ten respondents ask what wellbeing is. Rojas argues that wellbeing is "an empirical reality rather than an academic construct" and that the field needs one theory of human wellbeing rather than "a collection of fragmented theories". Aaron Jarden asks to what degree wellbeing is personalised and who is responsible for it.

Questions about causal effects and interventions come from Chris Barrington-Leigh, who writes that without credible trial designs "WELLBY frameworks rest on shaky empirical ground"; from Martijn Burger and Martijn Hendriks, who ask which interventions produce the largest and most durable gains and how to compare returns across policy domains; from Kelsey O'Connor, on how to scale interventions and how long their effects last; from Sonam Choiden, on why adaptation is faster for some people and domains than others; and from Arthur Grimes, on which comparison groups matter for relative income, whether the determinants of wellbeing differ between western and non-western cultures, and which mental health treatments work.

Stefano Bartolini draws attention to trends by group: in most industrial countries the trends in subjective wellbeing and healthy life years have been worse for women than for men for decades, and the decline in youth mental health "began decades before the social media affirmation", so social media cannot be the whole explanation. Morrison asks about the unit of analysis: "what makes families 'happy', what 'happy' cities mean, what makes a supportive 'society'". John Helliwell asks what shifts attention "from that is wrong to to finding co-operative ways to make lives better" and what is driving rising risk aversion.

Some questions have no counterpart elsewhere in the responses. Paul Frijters asks about the natural rate of social connection formation, the long-term wellbeing value of "freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, citizen-led media, a meritocratic public service", and whether any technology could extend life beyond what the longest-lived countries already achieve. Gigi Foster asks "What is the optimal amount of suffering/pain that will enable maximum lifecycle wellbeing?" Jan Delhey asks whether the planet and humanity can be made happy at the same time. Daniela Andrén asks how subjective wellbeing relates to biological stress processes and when passive sensing and AI-derived language measures are valid.

Most important data gaps

Longitudinal panel data is named by 13 respondents. Carol Graham observes that "very few countries have nationally representative longitudinal data". Anthony Lepinteur reports that "entire regions are quasi-missing from the longitudinal evidence base", above all Latin America and Africa. Martijn Hendriks, Arthur Grimes, Fengyu Wu, and Chris Barrington-Leigh likewise ask for panels from developing and non-western countries. Talita Greyling writes that in Africa even the core indicators (life satisfaction, positive and negative affect, and life worthwhileness) are largely missing, and Mohsen Joshanloo names data from the global majority as his one priority.

Children are a second gap. Grimes writes that "children's wellbeing is far more important than adult wellbeing" but that some cohort surveys avoid subjective wellbeing questions and the international children's surveys have small samples per country. Barrington-Leigh and Wu ask for panels following the same people from childhood to old age, linked to administrative records, with instruments designed for children. Gigi Foster adds "incompetent elderly" to children as groups whose wellbeing is unmeasured. A minority does not see a shortage: Eugenio Proto writes "there are a lot of data around", Arie Kapteyn wants a limited set of measures collected regularly across countries as the Gallup World Poll does, and Aaron Jarden suggests that AI could make better use of the data that already exist.

Several respondents want data on things other than life satisfaction. Mariano Rojas notes that household surveys and national accounts give excellent data on income and production but that there are no systematic data on "the quantity and quality of interpersonal relationships" or on free time. Philip Morrison asks for measures of family, community, and societal wellbeing that can be related to individual measures, and for values to be collected alongside wellbeing. Anna Alexandrova asks for data on whether people "feel able to plan for their lives in accordance with their values". Paul Frijters wants data on friendship and community formation and on the quality and resilience of institutions. Mark Fabian asks for "Massive qualitative studies", giving the example of a parent whose adult son has been institutionalised for twenty years to show what neither a health nor a relationships category captures, and notes that "We have nothing on the positive end".

On frequency and mode, Stephanié Rossouw asks for "High frequency data!!" and notes that real-time data are held by technology companies. Sonam Choiden specifies datasets that are "simultaneously longitudinal, high-frequency, cross-cultural, multimodal, and causally informative". Time-use data linked to affect is named by Foster, Grimes, Andreas Knabe, and Barrington-Leigh. Martijn Burger asks for "datasets explicitly designed to evaluate policy" with consistent regional, city, and neighbourhood coverage. Stefano Bartolini notes that existing samples become too small to study women or young people once missing data are removed.

Improving measurement of wellbeing

Two positions on standardisation appear. Arthur Grimes writes "I caution against developing new measures of existing concepts", because "It is far better to have comparable measures across time and place even if they are not perfectly fit for purpose". Arie Kapteyn writes "I don't think we need a lot of new measures, but rather more systematic incorporation in existing national surveys". Stephanié Rossouw asks for a mandatory standard set of questions in all major national surveys, John Helliwell for the long-form census, Martijn Burger for a headline indicator, and Martijn Hendriks for large consortia and fewer small collection efforts. Anna Alexandrova takes the opposite view: "I would not invest efforts into chasing the single optimal measure but empower researchers to find contextually valid measures for their projects", even at the cost of comparability between datasets.

A second group wants instruments that reveal how respondents use the scale. Anthony Lepinteur proposes experimental modules within surveys, such as slider tasks and anchoring exercises, to recover the perceived distances between scale points, and repeated measures and vignettes to identify heterogeneity in scale use; the shift is "from treating measurement error as noise to recognizing that the reporting function is a central object of interest". Ori Heffetz asks researchers to collect a variety of measures across domains, orderings, response scales, time periods, and social circles. Daniel Benjamin asks for calibration questions. Fengyu Wu calls for "a fundamental redesign of core survey instruments, moving beyond the static, one-size-fits-all questionnaires inherited from the 1970s".

Ten respondents want measurement of multiple dimensions and life domains. Jan Delhey would revive domain satisfactions and add evaluations of societal characteristics. Mariano Rojas proposes a four-layer wellbeing accounting system: overall assessments, domain and experiential assessments, drivers, and the factors behind the drivers. Andreas Knabe asks for panel data on dimensions beyond life satisfaction, such as the day reconstruction method. On collection, Daniela Andrén proposes collecting subjective wellbeing "at the same time when collecting administrative data (such tax declaration, application for any social insurance)". Rossouw points to New Zealand's Integrated Data Infrastructure as a model for all countries. Sonam Choiden sets out a panel of 50,000 to 500,000 people over 10 to 20 years with survey, passive, physiological, contextual, and administrative layers.

Two respondents put skills before instruments. Mohsen Joshanloo writes that "Graduate training often provides limited coverage of measurement principles" and that cross-cultural measurement "cannot be reduced to administering the same items in multiple countries". Paul Frijters writes that "Most of what is taught about wellbeing misses the point, making the things done or measured irrelevant". Philip Morrison raises access: datasets should be free to trained users, as the European Social Survey is, and he criticises user charges by statistical agencies, including New Zealand's.

Audiences

Twenty-four of the 31 respondents write mainly for academics. Thirteen also name the educated general public, eleven name policymakers, and seven name civil servants and policy analysts. Several describe the academic audience as imposed. Talita Greyling writes that "the publish-or-perish environment requires publication in academic journals", while the policymakers and local communities she wants to reach "do not read academic journals" and engage through television, radio, social media, and workshops, which "creates a major gap between research and impact". Antje Jantsch calls the academic focus "a constraint rather than an ideal". Stephanié Rossouw answers "Unfortunately, the academic community", and on whom she wants to help: "The people who are doing it tough and the people suffering in silence. Do I actually accomplish that? No."

Asked whom they are trying to help, seven respondents name vulnerable groups directly. Greyling names women, children, and grandmothers caring for children in African contexts. Ori Heffetz names "the weakest members of society". Arthur Grimes names people who lack opportunities because of family background, mental health, or poor policy design, and children and youth over adults. Jantsch names people in rural and peripheral regions. Others name practitioners: Maurizio Pugno writes for teachers, social workers, parents, and adolescents, and wants to help "People who persist in making counterproductive choices, and people who have great influence on others' choices"; Mohsen Joshanloo names psychotherapists, counsellors, and life coaches.

Not everyone aims at policy. Arie Kapteyn writes "I am not actively trying to affect policy"; Philip Morrison describes his aim as helping to steer "the academic ship"; Andreas Knabe and Jan Delhey name the research community. Mariano Rojas, Stefano Bartolini, Mark Fabian, and Grimes write different outputs for different audiences, with popular books and reports alongside papers. One audience is nearly absent: no respondent names national statistical offices as a main audience, and only three (Heffetz, Anthony Lepinteur, and Delhey) name them as a group they try to reach, even though most of the data recommendations under questions 3 and 4 would fall to them.

The full responses follow in the appendix.

Appendix: full responses, grouped by question

Respondent index

1. Chris Barrington-Leigh — country focus: Canada — discipline: Economics
2. Talita Greyling — country focus: South Africa — discipline: Economics
3. Ori Heffetz — country focus: Any high-income country (roughly, OECD) — discipline: Economics
4. Antje Jantsch — country focus: Southeastern Europe (SEE) — discipline: Economics/Social Sciences
5. Mark Fabian — country focus: Mostly the United Kingdom, but global especially Australia, New Zealand, and Bhutan — discipline: Public Policy is my job title but I publish all over the place. My PhD was in economics.
6. Carol Graham — country focus: many! — discipline: economics
7. Aaron Jarden — country focus: Australia — discipline: wellbeing science / positive psychology / positive education
8. Mohsen Joshanloo — discipline: Psychology
9. Martijn Burger — country focus: The Netherlands — discipline: Economics
10. Martijn Hendriks — country focus: Netherlands — discipline: Interdisciplinary
11. Maurizio Pugno — country focus: Italy — discipline: economics of human and social capital
12. Anthony Lepinteur — country focus: Luxembourg — discipline: Economics
13. Paul Frijters — country focus: the UK — discipline: economics
14. Philip Morrison — country focus: New Zealand — discipline: Economic geography
15. Daniela Andrén — country focus: Sweden — discipline: economics
16. Daniel Benjamin — country focus: Developed countries — discipline: economics
17. Arie Kapteyn — country focus: no particular country — discipline: Economics
18. Eugenio Proto — country focus: In general — discipline: economics
19. Gigi Foster — country focus: Western countries in general — discipline: Economics
20. Stephanié Rossouw — country focus: New Zealand — discipline: Economics
21. Jan Delhey — country focus: Germany — discipline: Sociology
22. Andreas Knabe — country focus: Germany — discipline: economics
23. Anna Alexandrova — country focus: my research does not focus on a particular country but I work in the UK — discipline: philosophy
24. Arthur Grimes — country focus: New Zealand — discipline: Economics
25. Darma Mahadea — country focus: South Africa — discipline: Economics and Entrepreneurship
26. Sonam Choiden — country focus: Bhutan — discipline: Economics of Happiness
27. Mariano Rojas — country focus: Mexico — discipline: Economics
28. John Helliwell — country focus: any and all — discipline: Economics and psychology
29. Fengyu Wu — discipline: Economics
30. Stefano Bartolini — country focus: developed and developing countries — discipline: economics
31. Kelsey J O'Connor — discipline: economics

Q1a. Most important policy areas for wellbeing

What areas of policy are most important for improving wellbeing?

R1. Chris Barrington-Leigh (Canada) (back to summary)

- Early life and childhood investments: [formative years naturally have high ROI for WB; current measurement and policy attention are inadequate; general rate of change will require high resilience]

- Urban form, built environment, housing, and land use: [urban form, density, sprawl, transport, and housing locate people in the social, environmental, and time-use conditions that drive SWB. These are long-lived, often irreversible, decisions]

- Mental health and the social fabric: [loneliness, isolation, mental impacts of algorithmic environments, and untreated mental illness are first-order factors in low SWB. Building social trust and institutions to support it (through schools, neighbourhoods, and workplaces) is high-leverage.

- Public health focused on diet and substances: [25% of health expenditures, and enormous misery, now related to Type II diabetes. Smoking and alcohol feed disease and violence with little benefit. Safety from other addictive drugs requires collective guidance, limits, and intervention.]

- public education: [Preferences, beliefs, and social behaviours have always been shaped by how we indoctrinate and educate our children. Evidence on non-cognitive skills has implications for wellbeing throughout the life course. Shifting towards a society shaped by evidence on wellbeing begins with sharing what is known about being loving, fair play, individual grit, and independent thinking.]

- Workplace environments and livelihoods: [Improving management and quality of work environments has enormous potential. Far-forward strategy and preparation fort the future of work, time use, and reward is critical given imminent productivity shifts]

R2. Talita Greyling (South Africa) (back to summary)

If we define wellbeing as overall quality of life, including both objective living conditions and subjective wellbeing (how people evaluate their lives), then the most important policy areas in South Africa are those that shape the basic foundations of daily life.

Policymakers must prioritise:
• Basic service delivery
Electricity, water and roads
• Education and health care
Quality and access
• Economic growth and employment
A functioning and expanding economy
• Effective governance
Reducing corruption and improving state efficiency
• Regulation
Reducing red tape and enabling businesses to invest and operate
• Fiscal sustainability
Strengthening the tax base and reducing public debt.
• The environment
Ensuring sustainable living conditions
• Labour market and investment climate
Reducing rigidities that limit firms’ ability to employ the most suitable candidates and invest efficiently. Policies should support merit-based outcomes while promoting broad inclusion, to avoid unintended consequences such as reduced productivity and skills outflows.
• Policy coherence and evidence-based decision-making
Ensuring that policy choices are guided by what works in practice, rather than by approaches that have not delivered improvements in growth or wellbeing outcomes.

These improvements must benefit the entire population. Policy should not allow a small elite or positions of power to capture the gains. Instead, it should ensure that growth and development improve the quality of life for all.

R3. Ori Heffetz (Any high-income country (roughly, OECD)) (back to summary)

Education, technology, productivity, health, institutions

R4. Antje Jantsch (Southeastern Europe (SEE)) (back to summary)

1. Rural development and spatial inequalities: Regional disparities in SEE are primarily driven by urban–rural divides in access to and quality of services (e.g., healthcare and education), infrastructure (e.g., public transport and digital connectivity), economic opportunities (e.g., jobs and investment), and institutional quality (e.g., local administrative capacity, transparency in decision-making, the effectiveness of policy implementation). These disparities are key drivers of differences in wellbeing between rural and urban populations and of outmigration, particularly among young and highly educated individuals from rural areas. This, in turn, may further reduce the wellbeing of those who remain.
2. Labour market policy and economic security: Weak labour markets and economic insecurity in SEE undermine wellbeing by limiting stable employment opportunities, reducing income security, keeping wages low, and constraining future prospects. This not only lowers material living standards but also increases stress. (a challenge not limited to SEE)
3. Anti-corruption and governance reform: Corruption remains a major and persistent challenge across SEE. It undermines wellbeing by creating inequality and unfairness while weakening institutions and the effectiveness of policy implementation. It erodes trust in the state and institutions, reduces social cohesion and political participation, and may directly lower wellbeing through perceived injustice or the feeling of “powerlessness.”

R5. Mark Fabian (Mostly the United Kingdom, but global especially Australia, New Zealand, and Bhutan) (back to summary)

Public management and administration itself, especially getting beyond New Public Management in things like the relational state, mission driven bureaucrats, complex systems thinking, realist policy evaluation, and complex systems thinking. Also using the community more as a policy design tool (see the blogs of James Plunkett).

If you mean specific ministries then I guess we need a general reduction in the power of Treasuries and an increase in the power of education, social services, environment, and art/heritage ministries. But it's really about the prevailing ideology in these ministries. If social services is all protestant work ethic it will fail to fix things. Same if environment is all about extraction, or if education is exclusively about preparing people for work not life, etc.

R6. Carol Graham (many!) (back to summary)

mental health, finding meaning and purpose in the context of declining labor market opportunities for many, especially the young, and addressing loneliness and despair in many populations, ironically a bigger issue for rich countries than poor ones.

R7. Aaron Jarden (Australia) (back to summary)

To improve wellbeing, policy must shift from purely economic growth to a "Beyond GDP" approach that prioritizes mental and physical health, economic security, and social connection. This involves addressing the social determinants of health—such as access to green spaces and community infrastructure—while ensuring job quality and social safety nets reduce chronic stress. By investing in lifelong learning and sustainable environments, and fostering trust through transparent governance, policymakers can create a framework that supports long-term human flourishing rather than just short-term productivity. We also want to move away from the idea that wellbeing should be in policy to improve productivity per se, but rather as a good in it's own right... We should also be designing infrastructure for sustainable wellbeing...

R8. Mohsen Joshanloo (back to summary)

Given the current state of the empirical evidence, it is difficult to identify specific policy areas on a firm empirical basis.

R9. Martijn Burger (The Netherlands) (back to summary)

1) Housing affordability and financial security
2) Mental healthcare and prevention
3) Quality and future of work
4) Spatial accessibility and regional balance
5) Social fabric

R10. Martijn Hendriks (Netherlands) (back to summary)

- Economic transition
- Mental health
- A healthy lifestyle (e.g. healthier food, more movement, screen/social media time reduction)
- Social cohesion and civic spirit
- Good governance
- Ecological environment

R11. Maurizio Pugno (Italy) (back to summary)

Education in the family, at school and in society

R12. Anthony Lepinteur (Luxembourg) (back to summary)

In Luxembourg, education is a central policy area for improving wellbeing, given its strong link to labor market outcomes, social mobility, and integration in a highly diverse society. One key area is educational inequality, particularly the gap between students from different socio-economic and migration backgrounds. The early tracking system tends to reinforce these inequalities, affecting long-term opportunities and wellbeing.

A second important area is language policy in education. Luxembourg’s trilingual system (Luxembourgish, German, and French) is a unique strength but also a major challenge, especially for students from immigrant backgrounds. Difficulties in mastering multiple languages early on can hinder academic performance and reduce confidence and wellbeing.

Third, school-to-work transitions are crucial. While Luxembourg has a strong labor market, access to high-quality vocational and academic pathways is uneven. Ensuring smoother transitions can reduce uncertainty among youth and improve life satisfaction.

R13. Paul Frijters (the UK) (back to summary)

Community policy, health policy, welfare policy.

R14. Philip Morrison (New Zealand) (back to summary)

Employment, employment, employment.

Access to full employment is the foundation for a society's wellbeing.

But so too is an adequate social welfare support for vulnerable groups.

And of course a sound economic and social growth strategy.

R15. Daniela Andrén (Sweden) (back to summary)

In Sweden, the most important policy areas are mental health, child and adolescent development, job quality and social insurance, elderly care, and digital and AI governance. I would add digital and AI governance explicitly because wellbeing research is no longer limited to conventional survey outcomes: newer work increasingly links subjective wellbeing to population mental health modules, time-use data, and the lived experience of new technologies. OECD’s updated wellbeing guidance also places stronger emphasis on affect, eudaimonia, mental health, and time-use integration, which makes these policy areas especially central.

R16. Daniel Benjamin (Developed countries) (back to summary)

economic, mental health

R17. Arie Kapteyn (no particular country) (back to summary)

Generally, social safety nets, including availability and quality of healthcare. Although there are obviously many personal events that affect wellbeing, economic uncertainty is a major factor in lowering a sense of wellbeing

R18. Eugenio Proto (In general) (back to summary)

difficult to make a list.

R19. Gigi Foster (Western countries in general) (back to summary)

Relationships, meaning and purpose in life, status, health

R20. Stephanié Rossouw (New Zealand) (back to summary)

In my opinion, they are health, child/youth well-being and the economy.

R21. Jan Delhey (Germany) (back to summary)

health
work
technology (social media, AI, robots)
public services
welfare state

R22. Andreas Knabe (Germany) (back to summary)

economic policy (reviving growth)
health services
demography-proof welfare systems (pensions, old-age care)

R23. Anna Alexandrova (my research does not focus on a particular country but I work in the UK) (back to summary)

I am not sure it's possible to say that some are important and some are less so. Wellbeing is a complex causal nexus. But if I had to pick infrastructure, education, healthcare

R24. Arthur Grimes (New Zealand) (back to summary)

- Addressing child poverty and child abuse (which are often inter-linked), noting that New Zealand has one of the highest rates of child abuse in the developed world.
- Mental health issues have long been present but have worsened over the past two decades and are particularly acute amongst youth and young adults. Public funding of mental health services is tiny compared with public funding for physical health, reflecting pressures from the medical community (and the majority of voters) to favour physical over mental health procedures.
- Housing costs in NZ are amongst the highest in the OECD (relative to incomes), in large part due to planning constraints that have inhibited both intensification and expansion of cities as the population expands (mainly via migration). High housing costs are the primary driver of poverty as housing is a necessity, especially affecting families with children whose equivalised household incomes are low.

R25. Darma Mahadea (South Africa) (back to summary)

Labour market policy-securing employment with flexibility of hiring and firing.
Promoting employment growth and low unemployment, as employment is the major source of income for most individuals, enabling them to meet basic needs.

Health and social policy-health care for all, especially for the elderly. People should contribute to this national health provision. Creating empowerment and equal employment opportunities for all based on merit.

Economic growth policy: people cannot be happier unless real GDP per capital is increasing continuously. This entails more than just physical investment. Good governance especially in the public sector is important; bureaucrats and policy makers should be conscious that they are using taxpayers' money (government spending) to make a real difference to the wellbeing of individuals.
Focus should be on growth first and then redistribution, not redistribute without growth.

Redistribution policy-through utilising taxpayers' money in a responsible and sustainable manner, that does not discourage the development of entrepreneurship, fundamental for job creation and economic growth.

Fiscal policy - low taxation for working individuals and business entrepreneurs. They are one the ones who create real value-adding and wealth and drive innovation in the economy. Income inequality is bound to exist in any society. Cannot always raise low wellbeing individuals by simply taxing the rich and transferring wealth through a redistributive welfare program. Efforts have to come from the low wellbeing individuals too, to avoid a culture of state dependency and lack of productivity.

R26. Sonam Choiden (Bhutan) (back to summary)

Overall Growth/progress Models
Beliefs and Spirituality
Health and wellbeing

R27. Mariano Rojas (Mexico) (back to summary)

Of the various policy areas that can improve well-being, two are especially important.

The first includes those areas often described as 'beyond GDP', that is, the non-economic drivers of well-being. Research on well-being consistently shows that interpersonal relationships matter greatly. The quality and quantity of these relationships does not depend on income, and good relationships have a significant positive effect on well-being. For this reason, policymakers should treat this area as a key priority.

The second area is improving the relatively small contribution that GDP makes to well-being. This requires attention both to how income is generated and to how it is used.

R28. John Helliwell (any and all) (back to summary)

Once wellbeing, measured in terms of how people evaluate enthuse own lives, becomes the focus of attention, the available evidence on its sources and consequences implies changes to how every policy is conceived, delivered, and evaluated. This is true for all levels of government and all types of institutions and activities, private and public.

R29. Fengyu Wu (back to summary)

Labor market; Public health; Social capital; Family life and relationships

R30. Stefano Bartolini (developed and developing countries) (back to summary)

Urban planning, schooling, advertisement regulations, labor market regulations

R31. Kelsey J O'Connor (back to summary)

Institutions themselves are perhaps the most important area in need of support and reform, followed by the dissemination and uptake of information, inappropriate and outsized firm influence, access to health care, and education. With high-quality institutions and a well-informed, active population, residents will be better able to respond democratically to a rapidly changing world.

Q1b. Most important specific policies for wellbeing

What policies are most important to improve wellbeing?

R1. Chris Barrington-Leigh (Canada) (back to summary)

- phasing out smoking, reducing alcohol use/abuse, improving diet to decimate metabolic/chronic diseases

- life-long education: non-cognitive/social/emotional/wellbeing skills : available (ie time allocated/accepted for such learning) throughout the life course. Include target of improving workplace environments through management skills, pro-social skills, time management

- community-building: resources for local groups and local organization

- put life satisfaction on the census, as one way to continue the shift from old social objectives and metrics toward wellbeing-informed ones

- scalable mental health interventions: universal access to evidence-based mental health care is now technologically feasible. More generally, a shift in priorities/perspective should render the rest of health care (physical) as subsidiary to mental flourishing

- plans for reduction in standard working time, stronger protections against schedule precarity, and collective scenario-building/deliberation about the future of work

- land-use and transport reform to end all new auto-oriented sprawl: price road use and parking honestly; invest in walking, cycling, and transit so that car-independent, community-integrated and lower time-stress living is highly available and highly attractive

- wellbeing-weighted public investment: require WELLBY (or equivalent) impact assessment for major spending and regulation. Build quantitative knowledge bases about ROI of social investments through the life course

- income and housing security floors: nano/micro options for public housing should be guaranteed as a minimum, possibly with larger social housing options available at scale. Continued investigation into income floors, especially for parents, are in order

- child-centred policy: paid parental leave, high-quality early childhood education, school environments that prioritise belonging and mental health alongside attainment.

R2. Talita Greyling (South Africa) (back to summary)

The most important policies are those that address the basic foundations of daily life and enable a functioning economy.
Policymakers should prioritise:
• Provision of basic services
Ensure reliable access to water, electricity and roads. These form the foundation for housing, economic activity and overall quality of life.
• Strengthening institutions and governance
Improve the functioning of municipalities and government departments. Public funds already flow to these institutions, but weak implementation, nepotism and corruption prevent effective delivery. Contracts must go to capable providers who can complete the work.
• Reducing corruption and improving accountability
Address corruption in public spending and in the allocation of contracts. Strengthen oversight and ensure that resources reach their intended outcomes.
• Enabling economic growth and job creation
Focus on policies that attract investment, support industry development and expand employment opportunities. Sustainable wellbeing depends on a growing economy.
• Improving labour market efficiency
Review policies that may unintentionally limit hiring and investment. The focus should be on enabling firms to employ suitable candidates and operate productively.

R3. Ori Heffetz (Any high-income country (roughly, OECD)) (back to summary)

Of course, this goes way outside my expertise:
Skill-based education (with math, science, technology, critical thinking, creativity, social skills) and education for democratic values
Fix the health systems (here I really have no new ideas)

R4. Antje Jantsch (Southeastern Europe (SEE)) (back to summary)

1. expanding access to high-quality services in rural areas
2. support for local SMEs, incentives for investment in peripheral regions
3. transparency in public procurement, independent oversight

R5. Mark Fabian (Mostly the United Kingdom, but global especially Australia, New Zealand, and Bhutan) (back to summary)

In education:
* Teaching students how to think about the good life so that they think about what they want to do and only then about how to get the money/time to do it.
* Teaching students interpersonal skills so they can effectively form and maintain relationships and communities despite the inevitable friction of human connection.
* Teaching students psychological skills like metacognition, mood management, mindfulness and introspection so that they can effectively self-actualise.

In social services
* Adopting a strengths-based, trauma-informed, social-work oriented, housing first approach that tries to get people onto a sustainable life path, not just off the welfare rolls and into a dead end job.

In economic policy
* Thinking a bit less about growth and a bit more about the security and sustainability of standard of living - things like housing, income security, pleasant and affordable transport, occasional holidays, entertainment, basic household goods, etc. Growth is of course correlated with these things but they can be ensured by way of other paradigms.
* Taking ecosystem services seriously.
* Investing massively in social and cultural infrastructure to undergird social capital formation, improve social determinants of health, etc.
* Resisting the efforts of private equity pillaging critical assets like childcare services, special educational needs facilities, social and aged care, and pubs to leave behind debt-ridden, radioactive assets.

NB: I know some of these things seem far removed from happiness but they are upstream of it and I think we have good evidence to that effect in the happiness literature.

R6. Carol Graham (many!) (back to summary)

Expanding treatment to mental health care via involving communities and peers to complement the efforts of clinicians; introducing new pathways (including new forms of mentorship and skills training) for youth to complete the journey from high school to university or other vocational training, to stable and decent paying jobs; and providing opportunities for isolated people, particularly the elderly, to socialize, participate in their communities and more.

R7. Aaron Jarden (Australia) (back to summary)

The most effective wellbeing policies are preventative and holistic, and take a wider systems perspective (e.g., wholebeing). Instead of reacting to illness or poverty, they focus on the built environment, the humans in it (e.g., health, capabilities, knowledges), and the social aspects such as relationships, which are all necessary for people to flourish and sustain wellbeing...

R8. Mohsen Joshanloo (back to summary)

Any policy that effectively addresses a real-world problem affecting a large segment of the population is likely to yield indirect improvements in subjective well-being, although the magnitude of these effects may vary.

R9. Martijn Burger (The Netherlands) (back to summary)

Housing: Expand supply in the mid-rent and affordable owner-occupied segments
Mental health: Shift from treatment to early prevention in schools and workplaces
Work: Incentivize stable contracts and promote good work-life balance
Spatial inequalities: Equalizing access to opportunities and life chances across places through investing in infrastructure and local labor markets by supporting regional economic diversification
Social fabric: Invest in local community infrastructure and support programs that reduce loneliness

R10. Martijn Hendriks (Netherlands) (back to summary)

1. Reduce nitrogen emissions: Economic activities such as housing construction and business expansion are effectively stalled in large parts of the Netherlands due to nitrogen limits. Breaking this deadlock requires structural economic transition, particularly a reduction in livestock farming.
2. Invest in the energy grid: Significant upgrades are needed, as grid congestion currently prevents new businesses from connecting. This constrains both economic competitiveness and the energy transition.
3. Promote healthier consumption through pricing and regulation: For example, eliminate VAT on fruits and vegetables, introduce a sugar tax, and subsidize grassroots (non-professional) sports organizations.
4. Address labor shortages in critical sectors: Shortages in areas such as law enforcement, education, healthcare, childcare, engineering, and construction can be mitigated, for instance, by reducing taxes on labor income while increasing taxes on wealth and consumption.

R11. Maurizio Pugno (Italy) (back to summary)

Policies to support parenting, to adopt best-practice education, urban policies tailored to children and adolescents, policies to give people opportunities through, e.g., greater equity and social mobility.

R12. Anthony Lepinteur (Luxembourg) (back to summary)

To address these challenges, several policies could significantly improve wellbeing in Luxembourg.

First, reforming early tracking—by delaying selection into different educational tracks or making transitions between tracks more flexible—would help reduce inequality and allow late bloomers to reach their potential.

Second, strengthening language support programs, particularly for non-native speakers, is essential. This could include more intensive early-language interventions and alternative teaching approaches that reduce the cognitive burden of multilingual instruction.

Third, expanding and improving vocational education and training (VET) pathways would enhance school-to-work transitions. Stronger links between schools and employers, as well as better guidance for students, can ensure that vocational tracks are seen as high-quality options rather than second-best choices.

Fourth, investing in targeted support for disadvantaged students, such as tutoring, mentoring, and parental engagement programs, would help close achievement gaps and improve long-term wellbeing.

R13. Paul Frijters (the UK) (back to summary)

Facilitate long-term cohesive communities (tough to do, but there are levers), provide cheap preventative health (and axe the expensive victim-creating forms of health services), improve air quality, keep providing a basic safety net.

R14. Philip Morrison (New Zealand) (back to summary)

Wellbeing is largely about relationships built on an adequate financial support base, and, further back, on a loving, supportive childhood (those first 1000 days remain critical).

My worry is the breakdown in family relationships, the rise in single parent families (and the financial strain resulting from this). This suggests a great deal more attention needs to be paid to the cultural basis for male-female relationships (primarily) and this begins with a sound education module at the primary and secondary school level, supported by a more targetted education of new parents especially. And continued public reinforcement of the key messages by the state and community leaders.

R15. Daniela Andrén (Sweden) (back to summary)

In Sweden, the most important policies are early mental health prevention, school-based support for socio-emotional development, but also labor market policies that improve the quality and security of work rather than only employment rates, integrated elderly care, and digital inclusion policies that reduce unequal access to beneficial technologies.

In the AI domain, the priority should not be blanket restriction, but targeted governance of high-risk uses together with broad access to safe and useful systems, because AI uptake is rising but remains uneven across population groups.

R16. Daniel Benjamin (Developed countries) (back to summary)

wise macroeconomic stabilization, universal healthcare including mental health, unemployment insurance, universal childcare

R17. Arie Kapteyn (no particular country) (back to summary)

I pretty much answered this in the previous answer. An expansive view of wellbeing would take into consideration the full life course. This then includes the physical and social environment people grow up in and the quality of education.

R18. Eugenio Proto (In general) (back to summary)

Education and Health

R19. Gigi Foster (Western countries in general) (back to summary)

Family oriented, anti-loneliness; genuine pro-health policy; policies that help everyone, including the poor, contribute to society (e.g., via paid work).

R20. Stephanié Rossouw (New Zealand) (back to summary)

In terms of my policy areas, I think:
1. Health. Here, I specifically refer to mental health. New Zealand has a significant problem with mental health, especially among the next generation. Young adults aged 15–24 are the age group most likely to experience high/very high psychological distress. According to the Ministry of Health, in 2023/24, 22.9% of 15–24‑year‑olds were in this category, compared with 13.0% of all adults. New Zealand desperately needs to direct policy interventions specifically targeting the mental health of the young. They should invest in training more social workers and psychologists. They need to improve facilities at the various hospitals to allow proper care and treatment.
2. Child/youth well-being. Here, I refer to both suicide and poverty. New Zealand ranks 32nd out of 36 OECD countries for overall child well-being and last for child and youth mental health. Among young people aged 15–19, the suicide rate was nearly three times higher than the average for high-income countries (UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti, 2025). Our youth (and children) experience violence both physically and online. To combat the latter, New Zealand should look at banning specific internet activities for under-16-year-olds. I refer to those that have been shown to negatively impact youth well-being, i.e., social media, gaming, and browsing for fun. Platforms used for communication, learning, news and content creation are positively associated with well-being (PISA, 2022).
3. The economy. Here, I link specifically to the cost of living and housing crisis. There is a relationship between households that experience high rental unaffordability and constrained material well-being and mental health. Additionally, the high cost of living means some households have to decide between "heating or eating". Financial distress is associated with higher risks of family and interpersonal violence, especially intimate partner violence and child maltreatment. New Zealand policy should focus on retraining, upskilling and better social support for affected individuals.

R22. Andreas Knabe (Germany) (back to summary)

Foremost, I believe that reducing widespread misconceptions about social and economic facts (e.g. about the improvement of the material standard of living over recent decades, about the current magnitude and the development of income inequality over time, ...) would help reduce pessimism and improve subjective well-being.

In terms of "real" policies, I believe that policies that restore the potential for economic growth, mainly through supporting innovation and allowing market-based structural transformations of economies, can improve well-being by further raising the material standard of living as well as non-material aspects of quality of life. Complementary policies should ensure that this transformation is inclusive, by providing welfare systems that support individuals in this transformation process (without hindering it). A well-designed education policy should ensure equality of opportunity and make sure that young people are equipped with the capabilities to make the most of their lives.

R23. Anna Alexandrova (my research does not focus on a particular country but I work in the UK) (back to summary)

the sources of misery for the younger generations is housing, financial anxiety, loneliness. Anything that adderesses these at a systemic, rather than individualised level, is relevant to wellbeing.

R24. Arthur Grimes (New Zealand) (back to summary)

- In addressing child poverty and child abuse, emphasis needs to be placed: (a) on ensuring sufficient income support for families with children, and (b) on enhancing protection of children in abusive households, which may entail moving children out of the abusive household.
- Existing health funding needs to be reprioritised away from physical health to mental health treatment plus prevention, based on cost effectiveness studies of which treatments lead to the greatest (and most prolonged) improvements in subjective wellbeing.
- High housing costs can be addressed through major reductions in urban planning constraints such as restrictions on intensification in 'leafy suburbs' and through enabling the expansion of city footprints by reducing restrictions on development of rural land, coupled with new infrastructure provision for new (and intensified) suburbs.

R25. Darma Mahadea (South Africa) (back to summary)

A policy than enhances wealth creation and financial capital development-inclusive economic growth that creates labour employment absorption and income generation.

A policy that enhances human capital in relation to market needs-promote education, training, productivity and AI that generate labour absorption.

A policy on social capital development-encouraging people's involvement in NGOs and community development, feeling a sense of participation in local needs, networking with others to create connectivity and engagement rather than alienation.

A policy on green development-protection of the environment and reducing the effects of climate change and a wealthy eco-society.

A policy of good governance and zero tolerance for corruption and service delivery failures and respect for democracy, individuals' security, law and order, and rule of law.

R26. Sonam Choiden (Bhutan) (back to summary)

Overall National Wellbeing Policy-Gross National Happiness

R27. Mariano Rojas (Mexico) (back to summary)

When considering how to increase well‑being in a sustainable and environmentally responsible manner, policies that strengthen interpersonal relationships should take priority. This involves rethinking the kind of education provided to children and adolescents. There is a need to move beyond an educational system designed primarily to enhance human capital.

Attention should also be given to policies that increase the time available for social interaction and provide adequate public infrastructure to support it. This includes reconsidering working shifts as well as the role of public infrastructure and public activities.

Furthermore, it is important to examine how current pro‑growth policies affect the quantity and quality of interpersonal relationships. Some pro‑growth policies may, in fact, deteriorate interpersonal relationships and thereby reduce well‑being.

R28. John Helliwell (any and all) (back to summary)

Those that open doors for individuals and communities to work together to improve the quality of life.

R29. Fengyu Wu (back to summary)

Job security regulation; Public health investment; Mental health services access; Preventive care systems; Family-friendly policies (parental leave, childcare); Civic participation support; Anti-discrimination and inclusion policies

R30. Stefano Bartolini (developed and developing countries) (back to summary)

Urban planning aimed at developing public transportation, biking, limits to cars, pedestrian areas, green and blues spaces. Car dependency is enemy to social capital
Schooling should be aimed at promoting students’ cooperation and creativity through the a wider adoption of participatory teaching methods
Advertising pressure promotes materialism, which in turn depresses social capital and well-being, especially among young people. Advertising should be limited by regulation
Labor market regulations aimed at limiting work hours

R31. Kelsey J O'Connor (back to summary)

Ensure the conditions for high-quality employment for all who wish to work; such policies should address both supply- and demand-side factors. In particular, policies targeting working conditions, profit sharing, progressive taxation, and flexible job training are essential. Flexibility—on the part of both firms and employees—is more important than ever in the context of generative artificial intelligence (AI).

National and multinational governance bodies should be established to regulate the development and use of AI.

A wide range of policies to address environmental crises is also necessary, again encompassing both supply- and demand-side approaches. Improved technologies are needed to prevent and mitigate environmental harm, alongside policies (e.g., cap-and-trade systems) that internalize environmental externalities across all activities. Such measures would incentivize individuals and firms to reduce harm-generating behavior.

Q1c. Integrating wellbeing evidence into policy-making

What is the most important change needed to better integrate wellbeing evidence into policy-making?

R1. Chris Barrington-Leigh (Canada) (back to summary)

Institutionalize wellbeing as a decision metric, not a dashboard

- A standardised wellbeing cost-effectiveness methodology (WELLBYs per dollar) used across departments, including requirement for ex ante wellbeing impact assessments (distributional, not just average) in central agencies

- Wellbeing impact statements for legislation, comparable in status to fiscal notes;

- Statistical agencies funded to produce timely, granular SWB data that supports such evaluation.

R2. Talita Greyling (South Africa) (back to summary)

The most important change is to recognise and use wellbeing measures in policymaking, which is currently not the case in South Africa. Wellbeing, particularly subjective wellbeing, is still largely unknown and not considered in decision-making.

This is especially important given that the Constitution emphasises improving the wellbeing of people, yet this is not measured. If the goal of policy is to improve wellbeing, then it must be measured, and people’s own evaluation of their quality of life must be tracked. Without this, policy cannot effectively improve people’s wellbeing. What we do not measure, we cannot manage.

R4. Antje Jantsch (Southeastern Europe (SEE)) (back to summary)

I do not know whether this is the MOST important change needed, but I think we need to strengthen knowledge transfer from research to policy, with greater emphasis on researchers' responsibility to communicate their findings clearly and in a policy-relevant way. However, current academic incentive structures often do not reward such efforts, as knowledge transfer activities typically carry little weight in evaluation and career advancement.
At the same time, weak institutional capacity remains a key barrier. Even where relevant evidence exists, limited administrative capacity and weak governance structures constrain its integration into policy processes.

R5. Mark Fabian (Mostly the United Kingdom, but global especially Australia, New Zealand, and Bhutan) (back to summary)

Moving beyond New Public Management. This is hard to explain succinctly. NPM is the public management framework of neoliberalism. It emphasises discrete, observable, measurable, and ideally monetisable outcome metrics and contracting with individual suppliers to secure these metrics. In most areas that wellbeing enthusiasts care about, metrics are very sub-optimal so you get bad outcomes from NPM. The contemporary obsession with randomised-control trials among economists reinforces these logics, unfortunately. Policy studies and practitioner communities have spend the last 30 years developing alternatives in ideas like the relational state (see IPPR), Mission Driven Bureaucrats (Honig), New Public Service (Denhardt & Denhardt), the strategic state (Elliot), realist evaluation (Pawson), and complex systems informed approaches (e.g. Agent-based models), but these are not taken up in part because economics is so insular, graduates its acolytes into the treasury, and politicians only listen to the treasury (at least in the UK). I say this as an economist myself.

R6. Carol Graham (many!) (back to summary)

Wellbeing metrics bring new insights and trade-offs into the cost-benefit strategies that are based on income gains and willingness to pay and shed light on how the same policies can result in very different costs and benefits when evaluations are based on the wellbeing effects rather than just income effects. Also, wellbeing should not be viewed as a siloed issue but rather an umbrella that can frame policy in a wide range of areas, such as economic, health, education, environment, and supporting social cohesion and trust in institutions.

R7. Aaron Jarden (Australia) (back to summary)

Most people would say that the change needed is to put wellbeing into the budgetary and decision-making process, rather than it being reporting metric, but a primary allocation tool instead. But I think this is the ‘how’, where we still don’t have people on board with the ‘why’ of wellbeing. Evidence is useful if you are asking the right question, and im not sure we are all focused on the right question first… More effort into pulling people into a vision of a better future incorporating wellbeing is needed (IMHO) before focusing on the details of the evidence… That aside, a lot of the evidence currently used is not what I would call fit for purpose. A good example of this is yearly wellbeing surveys of students or employees – that does not pick up or account for the variability of peoples changing mental health for example, whereas more frequent snapshots does…

R8. Mohsen Joshanloo (back to summary)

The most important change is to more clearly distinguish among types of empirical evidence and prioritize those that are more informative about change. Policymaking requires evidence that captures how changes in one domain lead to changes in well-being over time. Accordingly, greater emphasis should be placed on within-person longitudinal and experimental studies, which provide stronger insight into temporal dynamics. In contrast, cross-sectional research is limited in its ability to inform policy decisions.

R9. Martijn Burger (The Netherlands) (back to summary)

A good starting point would be to make subjective wellbeing a formal headline outcome in policy appraisal and evaluation. This would mean requiring major policies to report expected and realized impacts on life satisfaction, embedding subjective well-being in cost–benefit analysis and ex-ante/ex-post evaluations, and using it as the reference metric against which trade-offs across domains are assessed.

R10. Martijn Hendriks (Netherlands) (back to summary)

A strong lobby of influential people (top academics and policy makers) and organizations (e.g. OECD, EU, and UN) that all back one simple measure, such as healthy life years / WELLBY's, to be adopted in formal policy procedures (impact assessments, budgets, and other policy decisions).

R11. Maurizio Pugno (Italy) (back to summary)

Integrate evidence on long-term well-being (such as that based on people's capabilities) into policy-making.

R12. Anthony Lepinteur (Luxembourg) (back to summary)

The most important change is to institutionalize the systematic use of wellbeing data in policy design and evaluation, rather than treating it as complementary or descriptive evidence.

In Luxembourg, this means integrating subjective wellbeing measures—such as life satisfaction, stress, and sense of belonging—directly into the education policy cycle. For instance, reforms to tracking, language instruction, or vocational pathways should not be evaluated solely based on test scores or employment outcomes, but also on their impact on students’ wellbeing and perceived opportunities.

Concretely, this requires three steps. First, regular and high-quality data collection, ideally through longitudinal surveys linked to administrative education data, to track students over time. Second, the development of clear wellbeing indicators and targets within ministries, so that wellbeing becomes an explicit policy objective. Third, embedding wellbeing metrics into ex-ante impact assessments and ex-post evaluations, ensuring that policies are systematically tested against their effects on both performance and wellbeing.

More broadly, this shift implies moving from a narrow focus on economic or academic outcomes to a dual objective framework, where improving wellbeing is considered a central criterion of policy success.

R13. Paul Frijters (the UK) (back to summary)

training of public servants and politicians into the basic insights of wellbeing: the knowledge of what really matters. Justice for the lockdown mistakes would help a lot in making it clear how much the mandated loneliness of the lockdowns hurt wellbeing.

R14. Philip Morrison (New Zealand) (back to summary)

My concern is that political manifestos and policies are developed prior to the securing of an evidence base. Too often consultants are used to find evidence that supports an existing political position. The horse needs to be put before the cart. While such a view might be expected of an academic it is unlikely policies that actually work can be formulated without the two being ordered correctly.
Government (and opposition) policies should be subject to an audit which requires an adequate 'business' case where 'business' includes the evidence in support of the investment. Its not just a question whether the State can afford a suite of programmes but it is also a question of whether any such program is likely to work (over a known time frame).

R15. Daniela Andrén (Sweden) (back to summary)

The most important change is to move from occasional wellbeing questions in surveys to a permanent national wellbeing data infrastructure. Perhaps AI innovations might help to collect data without "knowing" via passive sensing, eye-tracking, and AI-derived language measures, opt-in modules, biomarkers etc.

R16. Daniel Benjamin (Developed countries) (back to summary)

a well-accepted measure of wellbeing to be widely used in policy analysis

R17. Arie Kapteyn (no particular country) (back to summary)

It starts with systematic and convincing data across time and across countries. To convince policy makers one needs standards of comparison that are accepted in the political process. Although I am a big fan of simple life satisfaction questions, having a short battery of questions covering the most important life domains will make them more convincing. Ideally these domains translate directly into policy domains: e.g. income policy, public safety, unemployment insurance, etc.

R18. Eugenio Proto (In general) (back to summary)

clarify to politician that there is an advantage in terms of voting if one aim at individual wellbeing

R19. Gigi Foster (Western countries in general) (back to summary)

Return the direction of the machinery of state to a direction consistent with improving the welfare of the people rather than the wellbeing of elites.

R20. Stephanié Rossouw (New Zealand) (back to summary)

Politicians and statistical offices' buy-in. It is time for the well-being evidence we already have to systematically constrain and guide political decision‑making in the same way that fiscal or monetary policy does.

R22. Andreas Knabe (Germany) (back to summary)

First of all, I do believe that policymaking is already aimed at improving wellbeing (at least to the extent that wellbeing translates into votes in the next election).
But to give even more effective policy advice, we have to show "what works" and what is cost-effective. A lot has been done already, but I believe that it would help to have even more studies that explicitly establish causal effects of specific interventions and put them in relation to their cost. This allows showing where policymakers get the most wellbeing per tax dollar spent.

R23. Anna Alexandrova (my research does not focus on a particular country but I work in the UK) (back to summary)

Researchers should not just be correlation-mongering with life satisfaction data, no matter how adept they are at estimating effects. Research projects need to be co-developed with the users of this knowledge and metrics need to be co-produced with stakeholders.

R24. Arthur Grimes (New Zealand) (back to summary)

Since politicians are elected and they come-and-go, we cannot wish for changes on that front. Instead, it is important to develop a culture amongst officials (within the bureaucracy) of inviting and paying attention to rigorous ex ante analyses of the effect of policy options on a range of outcomes including subjective wellbeing (SWB). Equally important is to develop a practice of setting up outcome evaluations prior to a new policy or programme coming on stream, preferably with staggered interventions (by geography or time) in order to enable Diff-in-Diff analyses (i.e. before vs After for Control vs Treated groups). An obvious (but often overlooked) prerequisite to these practices is the need to ascertain what has worked in other jurisdictions prior to designing a new bespoke intervention.

R25. Darma Mahadea (South Africa) (back to summary)

Link GDP growth to quality of life like that of the New Economics Foundation.

R26. Sonam Choiden (Bhutan) (back to summary)

Political commitment

Strong effective collaboration between the government and the wellbeing research groups and institutions

R27. Mariano Rojas (Mexico) (back to summary)

There appears to be substantial agreement on the metrics of well‑being. I acknowledge that academic debates on these metrics exist, but doubts within the academic sector are normal and welcome.

Humans have a natural tendency to move away from the unknown and toward their area of comfort. Most policymakers are unfamiliar with the well‑being literature, and this constitutes a major bottleneck for incorporating well‑being into policy‑making. Current policymakers must become familiar with the well‑being literature, and future policymakers should be exposed to courses on the well‑being approach.

As with any new policies, well‑being policies need to go through a process of trial and error.

R28. John Helliwell (any and all) (back to summary)

A better understanding of what is required to improve lives, coupled with enough bravery to.enable it.

R29. Fengyu Wu (back to summary)

A key step in better integrating subjective well-being evidence into policy-making is to move beyond its current use as descriptive or supplementary information and embed it directly into formal policy appraisal frameworks. While many governments now collect well-being data and publish dashboards, these measures are rarely used in cost–benefit analysis or budgetary decision-making, which remain anchored in GDP or monetary valuation metrics. The literature in happiness economics argues that this limits the practical influence of subjective well-being research, despite strong evidence that variables such as unemployment, health, and social relationships have large and robust effects on life satisfaction. A more effective approach would be to systematically incorporate well-being impacts—derived from credible empirical estimates—into policy evaluation alongside traditional economic metrics, allowing trade-offs to be assessed in a common welfare framework. This would effectively shift policy analysis from an income-centred to a welfare-centred decision rule, making population well-being a direct input into how policies are designed, compared, and selected.

R30. Stefano Bartolini (developed and developing countries) (back to summary)

a change in policy priorities, switching from economic growth to wellbeing

R31. Kelsey J O'Connor (back to summary)

A public mandate for improved representation, decisive action, and the use of evidence in policymaking is necessary. Much of the available evidence is already sufficient to justify change, yet decision-makers do not always listen to the broader public and instead respond to other perceived demands.

Q2. Most important unresolved research questions

What are the three most important unresolved research questions in wellbeing research?

R1. Chris Barrington-Leigh (Canada) (back to summary)

1. Causal identification of policy to subjective wellbeing pathways: [Trial/intervention designs to credibly identify the SWB effect of large, durable policy changes are needed (more in mental health, education; any in other fields. Without these, WELLBY frameworks rest on shaky empirical ground.

2. Dynamics of wellbeing effects: understanding persistence, scarring, and above all adaptation/comparison:
Which interventions produce lasting wellbeing gains versus transient ones, and over what horizons?

3. Cross-cultural and cross-linguistic comparability of SWB measures. Country rankings and global cost-effectiveness comparisons depend on assumptions about scale use, including but also beyond cardinality, that are still poorly tested. Resolving this is a precondition for credible international wellbeing policy advice.

R2. Talita Greyling (South Africa) (back to summary)

1. Agreement on the definitions of wellbeing and subjective wellbeing.
The literature offers multiple definitions of subjective wellbeing, including those associated with Ed Diener, Carol Ryff, Ruut Veenhoven and Daniel Kahneman. These differ in focus and approach. The field lacks a single, widely accepted definitions, which must be clearly explainable to policy makers.
2. Clearly defined measures of wellbeing which applies globally.
We use measures such as the Cantrill ladder, life evaluation, evaluative happiness (though contested) interchangeably. These measures often produce different results. It remains unclear what each of these measure captures in reality and whether they reflect the same underlying concept.

Even when we compare the similar measures, across different datasets, such as Gallup and the World Values Survey, the results differ. Without clarity on what each measure captures, we cannot be certain what we are measuring.

3. Are wellbeing measures comparable across cultures?
Cultural context may shape how people interpret and respond to wellbeing questions. The same question can carry different meanings across countries and cultures. This raises concerns about cross-country comparability and the validity of international comparisons.

Considering the above, validating alternative data sources—particularly Big Data—against established well-being measures becomes a methodological minefield.

Considering the above-mentioned, the question of validating other sources of data (big data) becomes a methodological mine-field.

R3. Ori Heffetz (Any high-income country (roughly, OECD)) (back to summary)

What do these (self-reported wellbeing) questions really capture?
How to best aggregate specific-domain questions into an index efficiently (read: with limited data)?
Can we use technology (from neuroscience to gathering sentiment from text to facial recognition etc) to better measure (at least some aspects of) well-being?

R4. Antje Jantsch (Southeastern Europe (SEE)) (back to summary)

Some will likely mention the well-known (and somewhat mysterious) U-shape in the relationship between wellbeing and age. In my view, however, there are several unresolved questions. The more relevant question may be: which of these unresolved questions should we prioritise addressing first?

R5. Mark Fabian (Mostly the United Kingdom, but global especially Australia, New Zealand, and Bhutan) (back to summary)

What is wellbeing? Or more narrowly, how should wellbeing be conceptualised in heterogenous research and applied contexts so that we can overcome problems or challenges therein.

What goes on when people report subjective evaluations of how their life is going?

How do the various ingredients of wellbeing fit together? There is an individual psychology element to this e.g. how do basic psychological needs relate to optimism, mood, and values. And a sociological element e.g. how do different designs for urban spaces facilitate the formation of social capital, positive experiences, and human expression.

R6. Carol Graham (many!) (back to summary)

There is a wide debate on how reliable response scales are across different populations and places. While my view is that this criticism is exaggerated, but it serves to discourage key policy actors to embrace wellbeing in policy.

R7. Aaron Jarden (Australia) (back to summary)

What is wellbeing? (how is it defined and conceptualised)
To what degree is wellbeing personalised?
Who is responsible for wellbeing, and to what degree?

R8. Mohsen Joshanloo (back to summary)

Many important questions remain in well-being research, but three are particularly salient for me at present. First, to what extent are observed well-being findings shaped by measurement artifacts, biases, and limitations of commonly used instruments? Second, how can cultural variation in well-being be more accurately conceptualized and studied in ways that capture context-specific meanings rather than imposing predefined frameworks? Third, how do emerging challenges in data quality, including the use of online panels, paid respondents, and automated responses, affect the robustness of empirical findings?

R9. Martijn Burger (The Netherlands) (back to summary)

What institutional changes are needed for wellbeing to become a binding policy objective?

Which interventions/policies deliver the largest and most durable improvements in well-being, and for whom and under which circumstances?

Is subjective wellbeing (life satisfaction, affect) a reliable proxy for welfare across individuals, cultures, and contexts?

R10. Martijn Hendriks (Netherlands) (back to summary)

1. What are the long-term effects of policies on future well-being? Most research focuses on current or short-term impacts, leaving long-term consequences insufficiently understood.
2. Which policies deliver the highest return on investment? Existing research is often conducted in isolation, making it difficult to compare and prioritize across policy domains.
3. How can we reverse the concerning decline in well-being among younger generations?

R11. Maurizio Pugno (Italy) (back to summary)

Determine the causality between behavior and well-being.
Determine the relative importance of individual choices and socioeconomic factors for well-being.
Understand what drives people to persist in choices that are counterproductive to their well-being.

R12. Anthony Lepinteur (Luxembourg) (back to summary)

Rather than three separate questions, I see a central unresolved challenge in wellbeing research: how to properly understand and model the reporting function that maps latent wellbeing into survey responses.

Most empirical work treats reported life satisfaction as a cardinal and comparable measure across individuals. However, there is increasing evidence that this assumption is fragile. Three closely related issues remain insufficiently understood.

First, non-linearity of the reporting scale: individuals may not perceive equal distances between response categories, which can distort both the magnitude and even the sign of estimated relationships.

Second, scale norming: without a clear understanding of the underlying mapping, it is difficult to interpret coefficients or compare results across studies, samples, or contexts.

Third, heterogeneity in scale use: different individuals or groups may systematically use response scales differently, raising concerns about interpersonal comparability and bias in estimated effects.

The key research frontier is therefore not only to document these issues, but to develop credible empirical tools to identify and correct for them. This includes new survey designs (e.g. experimental elicitation of scale use), structural approaches to modelling reporting behaviour, and robustness frameworks that assess the sensitivity of conclusions to alternative assumptions about the reporting function.

Advancing on this front is crucial, as it directly affects the reliability of wellbeing evidence used in both academic research and policy-making.

R13. Paul Frijters (the UK) (back to summary)

1. The natural rate of social connection formation and the public policies that accellerate that rate.
2. The long-term wellbeing benefits of freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, citizen-lead media, a meritocratic public service, and so forth. The challenge here is as much theoretical (how to think about this) as empirical.
3. Is there any technology that would extend human life or slow ageing beyond what we already see in the longest-lived countries?

R14. Philip Morrison (New Zealand) (back to summary)

1. The temporal frameing of the wellbeing question. Expressions of wellbeing gathered on individuals are partly a reflection of what has been, what is now, and what is expected of the future. The questions we typically use (life satisfaction, WHO-5, positive wellbeing etc.) are a confusing mix of temporal non-specificity.
2. We have, esp. through the Gallup Poll, a fairly robust short list of determinants of wellbeing (family, meaningful work, and feeling values, among a few others). What is not clear is how the particular mix of those 'determinants' affects wellbeing over the life cycle (and by gender and by culture).
3. The unit of analysis. The bulk of analytic work to date has been based on the individual, which is an intellectually convenient stance given the micro economic models typically applied. However individuals do not function in a vacuum and we know far less about what makes families 'happy', what 'happy' cities mean, what makes a supportive 'society'. There are ensuing issues of 'unit relationships', e.g. how does the mix of individual wellbeings relate to 'social cohesion' for example. In short, a great deal more attention needs to be paid to the relationship between the happiness of 'the group' the way individuals think and behave, and how they interact (relate) to each other.

R15. Daniela Andrén (Sweden) (back to summary)

1) how should subjective wellbeing be linked to biological stress processes over time?

2) when and how do passive sensing, eye-tracking, and AI-derived language measures validly capture individual wellbeing?

3) AI adaption short- and long-run effects on human well-being

R16. Daniel Benjamin (Developed countries) (back to summary)

which measure(s) of well-being should be used?
how can well-being be aggregated across individuals for policy analysis?
how does the well-being measure relate to more standard measures in policy analysis (e.g., dollar-valued flow utility from consumption of market goods)

R17. Arie Kapteyn (no particular country) (back to summary)

Not really unresolved, but one often raises the objection that self reports of wellbeing cannot be compared across individuals. There are several ways to somewhat address this, including IRT and anchoring vignettes. Nevertheless, the more evidence one can produce on the comparability of self reports (or lack thereof), the more wellbeing measures will be accepted in both research and policy.

R18. Eugenio Proto (In general) (back to summary)

The way to measure
The extend to which the mental health validate indices is a good proxy for wellbeing

R19. Gigi Foster (Western countries in general) (back to summary)

- What measures of wellbeing are best to use in different circumstances/policy contexts?
- Which uses of intangible resources (like time and mental effort) are associated with highest wellbeing?
- What is the optimal amount of suffering/pain that will enable maximum lifecycle wellbeing?

R20. Stephanié Rossouw (New Zealand) (back to summary)

1. We need a policy-ready framework that coherently incorporates hedonic, eudaimonic and evaluative well-being.
2. We need a global measure that is genuinely culturally and age inclusive. We are too eager to exclude people younger than 15 from surveys, which I think is a mistake.
3. We still don’t really know how to set up governments and politics so that good well-being data actually changes what policies get made, and when it does or doesn’t work.

R21. Jan Delhey (Germany) (back to summary)

Is there a "cap" in well-being benefits from economic resources?
The art of life: How are way of life and well-being connected?
Sustainably: Is it possible to make both the planet and humanity happy at the same time?

R22. Andreas Knabe (Germany) (back to summary)

I am not in the position to say what questions are the "most important". But questions I would like to see more substantiated answers to would be:
What is the causal impact of money (income/wealth) on subjective well-being?
Given that subjective well-being is multidimensional, what dimensions do individuals value most? What dimensions should policymakers aim at?
How can we compare statements about subjective well-being over longer periods of time?

R23. Anna Alexandrova (my research does not focus on a particular country but I work in the UK) (back to summary)

Which measures of wellbeing to use when.
How to think of wellbeing in an infrastructural way.
How to responsibly include stakeholders into wellbeing research.

R24. Arthur Grimes (New Zealand) (back to summary)

1. While we know that interpersonal relativities are important for SWB, we have much less knowledge about which relativities are important (e.g. income, conspicuous consumption, health, opportunity, ...); and which interpersonal relationships are important (e.g. workmates, neighbours, people in the same town or country, people in other countries); and whether the importance of these factors differ for different population groups (e.g. according to a person's gender, religion, urbanicity, ...). It is important to understand these matters both for conceptual and policy purposes. For instance, if inter-country income relativities are important then a policymaker may have to prioritise policies that promote a high rate of economic growth domestically as otherwise (possibly very skilled) people will emigrate. If such relativities are not important, then a policymaker may wish to place greater emphasis on other domestic outcomes (e.g. social and environmental outcomes) that contribute to SWB.
2. Do the determinants of SWB differ meaningfully across cultures? While the work of Hadley Cantril and some more recent studies find similarities in SWB determinants across cultures, other studies (and, especially, qualitative studies) suggest that determinants may differ considerably for people from 'western' vs 'non-western' cultural backgrounds. It is important to understand this matter both for countries that are primarily 'non-western' (in case they inappropriately import policies that are unsuitable for their culture) and for countries with diverse ethnic groups where 'one size may not fit all'.
3. Given the enormous importance of mental health for a person's SWB, we need to understand much more about: (a) what works in the treatment of differing mental health conditions (e.g. depression, anxiety, OCD, schizophrenia ...) and how these treatments flow through not just to addressing symptoms but also through to SWB more broadly, both for the patient and for their family members.

R25. Darma Mahadea (South Africa) (back to summary)

Research on wellbeing and happiness tends to discipline based. Interdisciplinary research and links to mega policy may be desirable.

Wellbeing is a personal issue; one cannot rely solely on the government to enhance the wellbeing of individuals. Therefore, how much does individual's behaviour vs government interventions contribute towards wellbeing and happiness is an important question.

The interlinkage between economic growth and well-being with ethics and morality is an important consideration in wellbeing research.

R26. Sonam Choiden (Bhutan) (back to summary)

1. What causally drives long-term wellbeing (not just correlates of it)?
For example, Do stronger relationships cause higher wellbeing, or do happier people simply build better relationships? Does increasing income beyond a threshold improve wellbeing, or are effects mediated by expectations and social comparison?

2. How should wellbeing be defined and measured across contexts?
There’s still no consensus on what “wellbeing” actually is though there anre competing frameworks and their definition.
Issues remain such as-
a) Are self-reports reliable, or biased by mood, culture, or memory?
b) Can we compare wellbeing across cultures without distortion?
c) Should physiological or behavioral metrics complement subjective reports?

3. What explains adaptation and its limits?

Humans show hedonic adaptation—we tend to return toward a baseline level of wellbeing after major life events (both positive and negative). So issues remain such as-
a) Why do some people adapt quickly while others don’t?
b) Are there domains (e.g., chronic illness, unemployment) where adaptation fails?
c) Can interventions permanently shift baseline wellbeing?

There’s also debate about whether baseline wellbeing is:
* Largely genetically constrained, or
* Meaningfully malleable through environment and behavior.

If adaptation is strong and universal, many interventions (raises, achievements, even some therapies) may have only temporary effects.

Thus a broader issue issue is:-
Is wellbeing fundamentally stable or meaningfully changeable 9at scale?

That’s the question policymakers, clinicians, and individuals- all implicitly care about—and it’s still not settled.

R27. Mariano Rojas (Mexico) (back to summary)

First. The most important question, in my opinion, concerns the ontology of wellbeing: what is wellbeing? There are many traditions in wellbeing research, and it seems that wellbeing is whatever scholars define it to be. I am inclined to argue that wellbeing is an empirical reality rather than an academic construct. Thus, wellbeing already exists as a lived experience of being well that people have. The role of scholars is not to define or construct wellbeing but to understand it.

Second. It is important to have a theory of human wellbeing rather than a collection of fragmented theories supported by compartmentalized academic disciplines. Moving beyond this requires moving beyond the Cartesian analytic paradigm, and this will take time and effort. For the moment, we are trying to understand human wellbeing based on theories developed for abstract and disciplinary oriented agents. This is not a good starting point.

Third. The epistemology of wellbeing. I think there is substantial agreement about the importance of relying on people's reported wellbeing rather than on third party assessments based on observable attributes. However, there is an issue that, in my opinion, will always surround wellbeing research: interpersonal comparability. Do interpersonal comparisons have meaning? I think that, given the human condition, comparability of human wellbeing makes sense. It is important to state that doubts about the interpersonal comparability of an indicator apply not only to wellbeing metrics but also to any other metric, such as income. For example, does interpersonal comparability of income for wellbeing purposes make sense?

R28. John Helliwell (any and all) (back to summary)

What are the keys to shifting the focus from that is wrong to to finding co-operative ways to make lives better?
What are the likely sources of the prevailing increases in risk aversion, and what might most easily help to reverse these trends so as to build shared trust?
What are some good ways to increase people's understanding of their communities and organizations, and to enable their inherent wishes to make things work better?

R29. Fengyu Wu (back to summary)

1. Can subjective well-being measures be objective?
2. What is the relationship between meaning and happiness?
3. How does inequality affect aggregate societal well-being?

R30. Stefano Bartolini (developed and developing countries) (back to summary)

We currently lack convincing explanations for the well-being crisis of specific population groups; females and young people.
1) Since decades, in most industrial countries the trends of subjective well-being are much worse for female than for males. Interestingly, healthy life years (HLY) follow a similar pattern: in most European countries they have diminished for females, despite increasing longevity. Instead, HLY trends of males are not so disquieting. Why? We currently do not have a comprehensive explanation for these gender differences.
2) the trends of mental health of young people are alarming, and the few data on subjective well-being of youth seems to confirm such alarm. Most debates on the issue focus on the negative contribution of social media to youth well-being and mental health. However, the negative evolution of youth mental health began decades before the social media affirmation. Thus, a comprehensive explanation of the youth crisis is lacking.
3) The crisis among women and that of young people are intertwined. Mental health trends among girls are worse than those among boys. This requires an explanation.

R31. Kelsey J O'Connor (back to summary)

How to scale well-being interventions.
How to measure societal progress.
Duration of well-being effects, from interventions and otherwise.

Q3. Most important data gaps

What are the most important sets of wellbeing data we need but do not yet have?

R1. Chris Barrington-Leigh (Canada) (back to summary)

- high fidelity and high response rate panel data from developing and middle-income countries

- full life-course panels, from childhood, including an array of major wellbeing outcomes, and linked to administrative data (tax, health, education, location)

(Also / maybe separate): children's and adolescents' wellbeing, measured longitudinally and with instruments designed for them rather than adapted from adult scales.

- time-use combined with momentary affect at scale (but with statistically useful sampling frame and response rate), to recover the wellbeing content of daily activities.

- this is a subset of the life-course linked panels, but: better SWB data linkage to detailed health records: healthcare expenditure is high, so understanding longevity/quality tradeoffs, and morbidity/treatment tradeoffs, and prevention vs treatment tradeoffs are highly valuable

- high spatial resolution SWB data: neighbourhood-level rather than region-level need to study built environment, social context, and place-based policy; and also to help to get municipal-level governments more on board with wellbeing policy approach

R2. Talita Greyling (South Africa) (back to summary)

In Africa, we largely lack systematic measures of subjective wellbeing. This includes core indicators such as:
• Life satisfaction
• Positive affect
• Negative affect
• Life worthwhileness
And in general, we lack higher frequency measures of these concepts delivered more timeously.

R3. Ori Heffetz (Any high-income country (roughly, OECD)) (back to summary)

Long time-series, uniform across countries, measuring long lists of domain-specific ratings and the weights people assign to the different domains.

R5. Mark Fabian (Mostly the United Kingdom, but global especially Australia, New Zealand, and Bhutan) (back to summary)

Massive qualitative studies where people talk in depth about their subjective wellbeing and its determinants. In short form questions you get the same chunky themes like "my health is important" or "friendships". We can do this with quant.
What we can't do with quant is things like "I have a son who is institutionalised with paranoid schizophrenia and has been for nearly 20 years, since he was 16. There is a person in the world who is not whole, and I don't think I can be whole [i.e. 10/10] until he is well". Is this relationships? Is it health? I think those categories are both insufficient. But this is rich stuff of subjective wellbeing and currently we can only get at it through therapeutic case data. We have nothing on the positive end, e.g. "how did you achieve happiness?" or "what would you like to see more of in the world to make you happy and why?".

On the purely quant side, we have far too little data on things like basic psychological needs and the 3-factor model of meaning in life, but hopefully the global flourishing study and the new ESS wellbeing module will help a bit with that.

R6. Carol Graham (many!) (back to summary)

Longitudinal data is essential for exploring causality, scale norming, adaptation, and more and yet very few countries have nationally representative longitudinal data.

R7. Aaron Jarden (Australia) (back to summary)

1) More behavioural data (what to people high in wellbeing actually do?)
2) MOve over time data
3) More cross-cultural data (wellbeing means different things in different context and culturls)

(there is also an argument that we could be using AI better to make much better use of the data we already have...)

R8. Mohsen Joshanloo (back to summary)

Many types of data are needed, but for me, well-being data from countries in the global majority that remain underrepresented in existing research.

R9. Martijn Burger (The Netherlands) (back to summary)

There are many surveys conducted that include well-being questions. However, as field we are generally lacking datasets explicitly designed to evaluate policy, including consistent data at regional, city, and neighborhood levels

R10. Martijn Hendriks (Netherlands) (back to summary)

1. Panel data in developing countries to enable stronger causal inferences
2. Data collections (RCTs) to evaluate public policies

R11. Maurizio Pugno (Italy) (back to summary)

Synthetic, consistent, historical data on the capabilities that lead people to resilient well-being.

R12. Anthony Lepinteur (Luxembourg) (back to summary)

One of the most important data gaps in wellbeing research is the lack of high-quality longitudinal (panel) data in developing countries, particularly in Latin America and Africa.

While panel datasets tracking subjective wellbeing over time are increasingly available in high-income countries, they remain extremely scarce elsewhere. This is a major limitation, as panel data are essential to identify causal relationships, understand dynamics (e.g. adaptation, scarring, or persistence), and distinguish between individual fixed effects and true changes in wellbeing.

In ongoing work compiling a global “Atlas” of subjective wellbeing panels, I realized how entire regions are quasi-missing from the longitudinal evidence base. This creates an imbalance in our understanding of wellbeing determinants and limits the external validity of findings, which are often extrapolated from a small set of rich countries.

Addressing this gap requires sustained investment in harmonized, large-scale panel surveys that include consistent measures of subjective wellbeing, alongside socio-economic and demographic information. Ideally, these data should also be linkable to administrative records and designed to ensure comparability across countries.

More broadly, improving data availability in underrepresented regions is crucial not only for advancing research, but also for ensuring that wellbeing-based policy frameworks are globally relevant rather than based on a narrow subset of contexts.

R13. Paul Frijters (the UK) (back to summary)

1. Fine-grained longitudinal data on community and friendship formation. This is time-consuming and difficult.
2. Various capital levels that reflect the quality, resilience, cross-networking, and intelligence of both communities and bureaucracies. We have no real measure of the quality and resilience of our institutions even though it is a massive area of investment and the key input into national wellbeing. Particularly measuring the cross-awareness and relevant-skill level is a challenge.

R14. Philip Morrison (New Zealand) (back to summary)

1. Based on answer 3 above, we need to develop measures of 'family wellbeing', 'community wellbeing' 'societal wellbeing', bearing in mind the commensurate need to measure both individual and group wellbeing using metrics from both which can talk to each other.

2. Wellbeing questionnaires are often developed and applied separately from questionnaires on values. This means it is usually difficult to relate the two. However values not only preceed behavior but they also condition answers to wellbeing questions as well. More attention needs to be paid - in instrument construction - to both and the relationship between them.

R15. Daniela Andrén (Sweden) (back to summary)

large longitudinal datasets that combine repeated subjective wellbeing measures with administrative records, biomarkers. collecting SWB data at the same time when collecting administrative data (such tax declaration) and collecting samples of blood, etc.

R16. Daniel Benjamin (Developed countries) (back to summary)

a nationally representative panel with a range of well-being measures along with other high-quality social-science measures

R17. Arie Kapteyn (no particular country) (back to summary)

I answered this before: a limited set of wellbeing measures collected regularly across countries. The Gallup World Poll is the best example of the power of doing this.

R18. Eugenio Proto (In general) (back to summary)

there are a lot of data around

R19. Gigi Foster (Western countries in general) (back to summary)

Time use data matched to wellbeing; wellbeing of children and incompetent elderly

R20. Stephanié Rossouw (New Zealand) (back to summary)

High frequency data!! What we see from measuring well-being in real time (where it is currently possible) shows huge promise, but large tech companies and private organisations are too greedy and profit-driven, thereby limiting independent research and public‑interest policymaking.

R21. Jan Delhey (Germany) (back to summary)

A systematic survey of societal satisfaction.
Interfaces between general population surveys and digital behavioral data.

R22. Andreas Knabe (Germany) (back to summary)

For specific applications: data from randomized control trials on the well-being impact of certain policies

in general: panel data on subjective well-being dimensions beyond life satisfaction (e.g. from the day reconstruction method)

R23. Anna Alexandrova (my research does not focus on a particular country but I work in the UK) (back to summary)

data on whether people feel able to plan for their lives in accordance with their values.

R24. Arthur Grimes (New Zealand) (back to summary)

1. Globally, we have too few longitudinal panel surveys that include SWB questions along with items that contribute to SWB (eg mental health, housing, ...). In particular, we are lacking sufficient longitudinal surveys in 'non-western' settings. Cohort surveys (such as the series of "Growing up in ..." surveys may be particularly useful but need to be designed with SWB measures of parents/caregivers and (when old enough) of the children included.
2. We are deficient in wellbeing data on children. Some of the existing cohort surveys have useful information, but others avoid questions on SWB. The Children's World and PISA surveys are useful but do not have large samples in each country (and are intermittent cross-sections). Arguably, children's wellbeing is far more important than adult wellbeing (since the former is likely to affect the latter both now and in future) but we have much less information on child SWB than on adult SWB.
3. Time use data (coupled with SWB measures linked to each use) are available for a limited number of instances, but need to be expanded across countries, again with a longitudinal element so that we can understand better how individuals' time use (and SWB returns to those uses) changes across their own lifecycle (controlling for their fixed characteristics).
4. More consistent measures of housing quality and suitability are required across countries. People (at least in developed countries) spend over two-thirds of their time (each week) within their own home, yet we often have much better data on their workplace than their home environment. It makes intuitive sense to consider that the characteristics of the place in which people spend the bulk of their lives is important for their SWB.

R25. Darma Mahadea (South Africa) (back to summary)

Economic and non-economic data sets in an integrated manner.

R26. Sonam Choiden (Bhutan) (back to summary)

1. Causality
a) Dense longitudinal panels
b) Large-scale randomized interventions
c) Integration with behavioral and environmental data.
We rarely see:
* Passive data (movement, sleep, digital behavior)
* Contextual data (neighborhood, pollution, social networks)

2. Measurement
a) Cross-cultural equivalence datasets
We need
* Large, harmonized datasets across cultures
* Evidence that constructs (e.g., “life satisfaction”) mean the same thing globally

b) Multimodal measurement (beyond self-report)

* Physiological signals (HRV, cortisol)
* Behavioral traces (activity, communication patterns)
* Informant reports (peers, family)

c) High-frequency experience sampling at scale

We need datasets that are simultaneously longitudinal, high-frequency, cross-cultural, multimodal, and causally informative.

R27. Mariano Rojas (Mexico) (back to summary)

There has been a bias in favour of economic data. As a result, we have excellent data on income and expenditure through Household Income and Expenditure Surveys, as well as excellent data on national production through the GDP accounting system. The Social Indicators Movement aimed to expand the set of information by keeping systematic track of social indicators.

I think it is important to develop a general domains of life dataset that permits a better understanding of overall assessments of wellbeing, such as life satisfaction. Domains of life metrics provide a holistic perspective on human wellbeing, and this is very important for understanding and for policy design.

Furthermore, we need more data on other drivers of wellbeing. Particularly important is to keep track of data on the quantity and quality of interpersonal relationships. However, to generate good datasets on alternative drivers of wellbeing, we first need to develop adequate theories that explain which attributes of interpersonal relationships must be tracked. Similarly, we need good datasets on the availability and use of free time.

R28. John Helliwell (any and all) (back to summary)

Since the purview of wellbeing policy is pervasive, so are the knowledge requirements. To provide a simple example, research on the iGen intergenerational programme in Saskatoon involving a great six class living for a whole year in a care home, required evaluations, by a variety of methods, of the consequences for students, their families, teachers, care home staff and the residents of the care home.

R29. Fengyu Wu (back to summary)

1. Data that follows the same individuals from childhood through old age across diverse populations.
2. High-quality data from low- and middle-income countries
3. Wellbeing data linked to administrative records
4. Real-time experiential data at scale

R30. Stefano Bartolini (developed and developing countries) (back to summary)

Much of the data on subjective well-being is suitable for nationally representative analysis. However, in most databases, the samples are too small to analyze population subgroups, such as young people or women. Once missing data have been eliminated, the observations are too few to obtain meaningful results, especially in trend analysis. Larger samples or specific research on population subgroups are needed.

R31. Kelsey J O'Connor (back to summary)

Cross-country, harmonized, frequent (quarterly), large-sample, general-population longitudinal surveys should be implemented. These surveys should include standard questions alongside measures of subjective well-being, a battery of domain satisfaction variables, calibration questions, and occasional open-ended questions that could be used to develop new modules (e.g., on values and concerns).

Q4. Improving wellbeing measurement

How would you improve wellbeing measurement, or the generation of wellbeing-related datasets?

R2. Talita Greyling (South Africa) (back to summary)

To improve wellbeing measurement, we need:

Clear and consistent definitions
Comparable measurement across countries
More reliable and expanded data sources

As data is costly, we need to exploit other sources of data (big data) that are validated and robust measures of wellbeing concepts.

R3. Ori Heffetz (Any high-income country (roughly, OECD)) (back to summary)

As we wrote in the last line of the Abstract of our forthcoming Handbook chapter "Measuring Self-reported Well-being": "We call on researchers to collect (a variety of) SWB measures in their online, lab, and field experiments." As we later explain, I think that a collection of a variety of measures, on different domains, in different orders and using different methods (e.g., response scales), applying to different time periods (past week, past year, etc) and to different social circles (you, your family) will help us jointly study what these questions capture.

R5. Mark Fabian (Mostly the United Kingdom, but global especially Australia, New Zealand, and Bhutan) (back to summary)

On life satisfaction we have to better understand the reporting function.

R6. Carol Graham (many!) (back to summary)

Please see above for the need for more longitudinal data. Also, the more harmonized the metrics that are used across countries, the more useful wellbeing surveys are in comparing and contrasting trends across countries, which in turn allows for learning from a large number of policies and experiences.

R7. Aaron Jarden (Australia) (back to summary)

Integrating data sources better (wearables, sensor cameras to capture and code observations, with surveys, usage of tech stats, bio-markers (e.g., HRV))

R8. Mohsen Joshanloo (back to summary)

It requires greater attention to measurement expertise. Graduate training often provides limited coverage of measurement principles, and research teams may design studies and develop instruments without sufficient experience or support. As a result, measurement issues do not always receive adequate attention. Strengthening training and involving qualified experts in survey and instrument design would improve the quality and interpretability of well-being data. This is especially important in cross-cultural well-being research. Measurement across cultural contexts is technically demanding and cannot be reduced to administering the same items in multiple countries. Greater attention to equivalence, translation, and study design is essential for valid cross-national comparisons.

R9. Martijn Burger (The Netherlands) (back to summary)

We need to anchor measurement around a clear outcome and start treating subjective well-being as main headline indicator.

R10. Martijn Hendriks (Netherlands) (back to summary)

More large-scale data collection projects within large consortia (such as the Global Flourishing Study), and fewer small-scale data collection efforts by small teams.

R11. Maurizio Pugno (Italy) (back to summary)

Find a synthetic and valid measure of well-being for interpersonal comparisons.
Find synthetic measures that distinguish between hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, emotional and cognitive well-being.

R12. Anthony Lepinteur (Luxembourg) (back to summary)

Improving wellbeing measurement requires moving beyond the implicit assumption that survey responses directly reflect a comparable, cardinal measure of latent wellbeing. Instead, the priority should be to better understand and explicitly model the reporting function that maps true wellbeing into observed responses.

Current datasets typically collect self-reported measures (e.g. life satisfaction on a 0–10 scale) without any information on how individuals interpret and use that scale. This makes it difficult to assess whether differences in reported wellbeing reflect true differences in underlying welfare or variation in scale use.

A first improvement would be to embed experimental modules within surveys to directly elicit how respondents perceive response categories—for instance, using slider tasks or anchoring exercises to recover perceived distances between scale points. This would allow researchers to test and correct for non-linearity in the reporting scale.

Second, surveys should be designed to identify heterogeneity in scale use across individuals and groups, for example by collecting repeated measures, alternative framings, or vignettes. This would improve interpersonal comparability and help detect systematic biases linked to socio-economic or cultural factors.

Third, there is a need to develop and standardize empirical correction tools, combining richer data with structural or semi-parametric approaches to adjust for reporting behavior. Rather than assuming cardinality, researchers should routinely assess the robustness of their findings to alternative mappings between latent wellbeing and reported responses.

Overall, the key shift is from treating measurement error as noise to recognizing that the reporting function is a central object of interest. Better measurement (and better datasets) will come from explicitly incorporating it into both survey design and empirical analysis.

R13. Paul Frijters (the UK) (back to summary)

Again, it starts with good wellbeing training of public servants and governments. Most of what is taught about wellbeing misses the point, making the things done or measured irrelevant.

R14. Philip Morrison (New Zealand) (back to summary)

Based on the above I'd associate a time frame (before, now and next) when asking wellbeing questions. I'd ask these not only of the individual but the individuals family, influential groups and communities.

If data sets are to have value added by a wide range of analysts it is important they be free to trained users - like the European Social Survey for example. The ESS is an excellent model with rotating modules about a robust spine, and one which also recognises the value of multi-level analysis. Above all the ESS makes life much easier than most data sets for the researcher and this inturn encourages its widespread use. Another is of course the World Values Survey.

At present far to many otherwise valuable surveys remain grossly under utilised because user charges are imposed along with unimaginative conditions of entry. Sad to say New Zealand is one of the countries whose government statistics arm still has not appreciated the simple fact that widespread use by a trained population of users is the way to maximise the return on the huge investment the state makes in collecting high quality data. But NZ is not alone.

R15. Daniela Andrén (Sweden) (back to summary)

collecting SWB data in an "innovative" way at the same time when collecting administrative data (such tax declaration, application for any social insurance) and collecting health information.

R16. Daniel Benjamin (Developed countries) (back to summary)

measure a range of aspects of well-being, in addition to broader measures such as happiness and life satisfaction, as well as calibration questions to correct for scale-use heterogeneity

R17. Arie Kapteyn (no particular country) (back to summary)

This repeats my earlier answers, really. I don't think we need a lot of new measures, but rather more systematic incorporation in existing national surveys.

R18. Eugenio Proto (In general) (back to summary)

As I said, I would look at the validated mental health indices

R19. Gigi Foster (Western countries in general) (back to summary)

Expand use of the WELLBY around the world and compare outcomes achieved in the WELLBY currency to those achieved on other traditional measures of wellbeing, including those that are domain-specific (e.g., QALYs, dollars, GDP/capita).

R20. Stephanié Rossouw (New Zealand) (back to summary)

1. Mandatory inclusion of a standard set of well‑validated well-being questions in all major national surveys.
2. New Zealand is setting the pace here with its Integrated Data Infrastructure, which is a large, de-identified research database linking person- and household-level data from government sources, surveys, and some NGOs managed by Stats NZ. We need these for all countries.

R21. Jan Delhey (Germany) (back to summary)

Reviving a tool that has since fallen out of favor: domain satisfactions.
Expand the measurement of subjective quality of life (once again) to include more societal aspects—perceptions and evaluations of societal characteristics and functional systems.

R22. Andreas Knabe (Germany) (back to summary)

collect nationally representative panel data on subjective well-being dimensions beyond life satisfaction (e.g. from the day reconstruction method)

R23. Anna Alexandrova (my research does not focus on a particular country but I work in the UK) (back to summary)

I would not invest efforts into chasing the single optimal measure but empower researchers to find contextually valid measures for their projects. Even if this means proliferation of more measures and resulting lack of comparability between datasets.

R24. Arthur Grimes (New Zealand) (back to summary)

I caution against developing new measures of existing concepts, unless it is absolutely necessary to do so. It is far better to have comparable measures across time and place even if they are not perfectly fit for purpose. The OECD has done a terrific job of standardising SWB and related measures and I am supportive of their efforts.
Rather than devising new measures, it is better to concentrate on developing longitudinal datasets, and to developing case-specific datasets used for (Diff-in-Diff) evaluative purposes of a policy or programme. Where possible, the use of identical survey techniques and questions across different policy evaluations can be valuable to be able to compare returns to different programmes (eg through the use of WELLBYs).

R25. Darma Mahadea (South Africa) (back to summary)

Consider qualitative and quantitative measures, including measurement of psychological and medical factors.

R26. Sonam Choiden (Bhutan) (back to summary)

Despite huge limitations technically, financially and politically, the idea is to
1. Generate a multi-layer longitudinal panel

At minimum:

* Sample size: 50,000–500,000 individuals
* Duration: 10–20+ years
* Sampling: Nationally and Globally stratified
* Refresh cohorts: New participants added periodically to offset attrition

2. Measurement stack (multimodal by design)

A. Subjective wellbeing done properly

* Daily or weekly experience sampling (short prompts)
* Periodic deep surveys (quarterly/annual)
* Multiple constructs:
* Hedonic (affect)
* Eudaimonic (meaning, purpose)
* Cognitive (life evaluation)

B. Passive behavioral data

Collected via phones and wearables (with consent):

* Sleep patterns
* Physical activity
* Mobility (GPS-derived life-space)
* Social interaction proxies (call/text frequency—not content)
* Digital behavior (app usage patterns)

C. Physiological layer

A subset (or rotating panel) with deeper biometrics:

* Heart rate variability (stress proxy)
* Cortisol (chronic stress)
* Inflammatory markers
* Possibly genomics (polygenic scores)

D. Contextual and environmental data

Automatically linked via geolocation:

* Air quality, noise, green space
* Neighborhood socioeconomic status
* Local policy changes (taxes, welfare, lockdowns, etc.)

This is essential for connecting individual wellbeing to macro conditions

E. Administrative and life-outcome data

With proper governance:

* Income and employment records
* Healthcare utilization
* Education outcomes
* Major life events (marriage, divorce, migration)

This reduces self-report error and enables causal inference.

R27. Mariano Rojas (Mexico) (back to summary)

I think that what we need to develop is a general wellbeing accounting system. This would be a hierarchical system with at least four layers.

First, metrics regarding overall assessment of life, such as life satisfaction.

Second, measures regarding partial assessments of life, including domains of life, and essential experiences of being well, such as affective, evaluative, and sensory experiences. These metrics provide texture and depth to the overall assessment.

Third, a layer of drivers of wellbeing. This includes economic, social, demographic, leisure, interpersonal relationship, and many other indicators.

Fourth, a layer of explanatory factors of the drivers. This includes productivity, geographic mobility and uprooting, holidays and working hours, household arrangement, and many more.

R28. John Helliwell (any and all) (back to summary)

First, there is a need to get the collection of self-assessed measures of the quality of life as widespread as other basic demographic data, such as age, place of birth, and gender. The long-form census is a natural place for these assessments.
Second, every policy proposal, and each innovation should be tracked by as many of its well-being aspects as can be easily collected, enabling wider adoption of what works and avoidance of what does ot.

R29. Fengyu Wu (back to summary)

First, the most impactful improvements to wellbeing measurement would begin with a fundamental redesign of core survey instruments, moving beyond the static, one-size-fits-all questionnaires inherited from the 1970s toward adaptive tools that probe the reasons behind reported scores, calibrate individual response scales through anchoring vignettes, and rigorously separate hedonic, evaluative, and eudaimonic dimensions. Second, these redesigned surveys would reach their full potential only when linked to the administrative records governments already hold — health, income, housing, and employment data — enabling researchers to move beyond correlation toward genuine causal identification, exploiting natural policy experiments to understand what actually drives well-being rather than what merely accompanies it. Third, the widespread adoption of responsible experience sampling methods — using smartphones to capture real-time affect and passive behavioural signals across diverse populations — would finally close the persistent gap between how people feel moment to moment and how they evaluate their lives in retrospect, provided that open data agreements bring this information into the public research domain rather than leaving it locked inside technology companies. Finally, underpinning all of this should be a new generation of longitudinal cohort studies, designed explicitly around wellbeing from the outset, with pre-registered protocols, multigenerational scope, and funding commitments long enough — decades rather than years — to answer the life-course questions that matter most.

R30. Stefano Bartolini (developed and developing countries) (back to summary)

see previous answer

R31. Kelsey J O'Connor (back to summary)

Surveys should be longitudinal, with explicit efforts to reduce attrition; mandatory, in order to improve response rates; and conducted more frequently. Survey results should be processed efficiently to enhance timeliness. Wherever possible, objective indicators should accompany subjective assessments for key topics.

Q5a. Whom are you mainly writing for?

Personally, in your wellbeing-related papers and books: whom are you mainly writing for?

R1. Chris Barrington-Leigh (Canada) (back to summary)

Most of what I write: academics, mostly economists; and policy analysts

The rest: general public, civil servants, and policy makers

R2. Talita Greyling (South Africa) (back to summary)

In practice, most of our work is written for academic audiences, as the publish-or-perish environment requires publication in academic journals. As a result, the primary readers are other researchers.

However, the audience we aim to reach is policymakers and communities, particularly at the local level, such as municipalities. These are the groups where meaningful improvements in wellbeing can take place.
Policymakers and local communities do not read academic journals. They engage more with:
• Television
• Radio
• Social media
• Workshops and direct engagement
This creates a major gap between research and impact.

R3. Ori Heffetz (Any high-income country (roughly, OECD)) (back to summary)

Economists who *use* (rather than study) SWB measures; policymakers who use these economists' research.

R4. Antje Jantsch (Southeastern Europe (SEE)) (back to summary)

In practice, I am mainly writing for the academic community, as the current incentive structures in academia prioritise publications in peer-reviewed journals. However, I see this as a constraint rather than an ideal. Ideally, wellbeing research should also reach policymakers and broader society, but the academic system still provides limited incentives for engaging with these audiences.

R5. Mark Fabian (Mostly the United Kingdom, but global especially Australia, New Zealand, and Bhutan) (back to summary)

Academics and policymakers outside the treasury, especially in local government and social policy.

R6. Carol Graham (many!) (back to summary)

Firstly, academics, to ensure validation of the results, but then disseminating the tools and lessons from those in publications and fora that are usable for non-technical audiences (both publics and policymakers).

R7. Aaron Jarden (Australia) (back to summary)

Academics and the lay public

R8. Mohsen Joshanloo (back to summary)

Students, the general public, journalists, researchers, psychotherapists, counselors, and life coaches.

R9. Martijn Burger (The Netherlands) (back to summary)

I primarily write for an academic audience in my scientific work, while consistently translating my findings for broader audiences.

R10. Martijn Hendriks (Netherlands) (back to summary)

Everyone interested in evidence-based decision making in professional settings, such as policy makers, managers, and students.

R11. Maurizio Pugno (Italy) (back to summary)

Teachers, social workers, parents, adolescents, young people entering the job market, policy-makers.

R12. Anthony Lepinteur (Luxembourg) (back to summary)

For most of my career, I have primarily written for an academic audience, especially economists working on subjective wellbeing, labor economics, and applied microeconometrics. My work has recently focused on methodological and empirical questions, which naturally target readers interested in identification, measurement, and the interpretation of wellbeing data.

R13. Paul Frijters (the UK) (back to summary)

I mainly write for the academics in wellbeing because they are the gate keepers, and the interested public servants.

R14. Philip Morrison (New Zealand) (back to summary)

Other academics mainly. But also some forums via (NZ's) Policy Quarterly which is read mainly by government servants.

R15. Daniela Andrén (Sweden) (back to summary)

for humans involved in decision making and decision taking.

R16. Daniel Benjamin (Developed countries) (back to summary)

researchers

R17. Arie Kapteyn (no particular country) (back to summary)

Academics

R18. Eugenio Proto (In general) (back to summary)

academic and policy-makers

R19. Gigi Foster (Western countries in general) (back to summary)

Present and future generations of both researchers and Western lay public

R20. Stephanié Rossouw (New Zealand) (back to summary)

Unfortunately, the academic community. It would be great if we didn't live in this publish-or-perish environment because then we could focus on targeting practitioners, statistical offices and lobbying politicians.

R21. Jan Delhey (Germany) (back to summary)

Scientific community

R22. Andreas Knabe (Germany) (back to summary)

academic wellbeing researchers

R23. Anna Alexandrova (my research does not focus on a particular country but I work in the UK) (back to summary)

social scientists and users of this knowledge

R24. Arthur Grimes (New Zealand) (back to summary)

I write for 3 audiences, depending on the paper or project:
1. My (global) academic colleagues, especially those who pay attention to SWB.
2. Officials, especially when I am evaluating a policy or programme.
3. The educated public, to enhance their appreciation of using SWB as a guide to designing and prioritising policies.

R25. Darma Mahadea (South Africa) (back to summary)

Students, NGOs and social scientists

R26. Sonam Choiden (Bhutan) (back to summary)

Funding Agencies
Wellbeing students and researchers
Governments
Academics
Global readers

R27. Mariano Rojas (Mexico) (back to summary)

Papers are written for an academic audience, whereas reports and talks are oriented toward policymakers and politicians. I have also written books for a general audience as well as for university students.

R28. John Helliwell (any and all) (back to summary)

Everyone, as the implications of wellbeing science apply to all in their daily lives, in how they do their jobs, and how they influence others, whether by their behaviour or by their votes.

R29. Fengyu Wu (back to summary)

Academic researchers, the general public, and policy makers

R30. Stefano Bartolini (developed and developing countries) (back to summary)

I write academic papers for colleaugues and popular science books for the general audience

R31. Kelsey J O'Connor (back to summary)

Researchers, journalists, and specialized practitioners, including decision makers in business, non-governmental organizations, and government.

Q5b. Whom are you mainly trying to reach and/or help?

Personally, in your wellbeing-related papers and books: whom are you mainly trying to reach and/or help?

R1. Chris Barrington-Leigh (Canada) (back to summary)

All people, all levels of development: get people thinking about what we want from life, and out of society: ultimately, children and future generations

R2. Talita Greyling (South Africa) (back to summary)

My wish is to reach policymakers to help communities, particularly at the local level, to improve the wellbeing of vulnerable groups, especially:

Women
Children
Older people (grandmothers taking care of children)

These groups are often the most affected by poverty and economic hardship in African contexts.

R3. Ori Heffetz (Any high-income country (roughly, OECD)) (back to summary)

Whom we are trying to reach: As we write in the intro to our ARE 2024 review: we try to provide "practical advice to the agencies and institutions that generate SWB data, the researchers who use
them, and the policymakers who may use the resulting research." Of course we are also trying to reach funders.
Whom we are trying to help: the weakest members of society.

R4. Antje Jantsch (Southeastern Europe (SEE)) (back to summary)

Ideally, I aim to reach and contribute to policymakers and individuals affected by structural disadvantages, particularly in rural and peripheral regions. More broadly, wellbeing research should help inform policies that improve people's life chances. However, as noted above, there remains a gap between this intended audience and the academic audiences.

R5. Mark Fabian (Mostly the United Kingdom, but global especially Australia, New Zealand, and Bhutan) (back to summary)

Everybody! This question is a bit hard for me to answer. I have recently written a popular book on wellbeing and have another out next year on wellbeing public policy. In my university work I am mostly writing for other academics because they are the ones who do the peer review. But most of my projects are in partnership with some practitioner community, and I write outputs for them as well. They are mostly in the areas of anti-poverty and rewilding.

R6. Carol Graham (many!) (back to summary)

People everywhere can benefit from more attention to the human side of societal and economic progress.

R7. Aaron Jarden (Australia) (back to summary)

Academics and the lay public

R8. Mohsen Joshanloo (back to summary)

Students and the general public.

R9. Martijn Burger (The Netherlands) (back to summary)

I aim to generate new knowledge and insights that enable organizations and governments to make better-informed decisions, ultimately contributing to greater happiness for more people.

R10. Martijn Hendriks (Netherlands) (back to summary)

No specific target group.

R11. Maurizio Pugno (Italy) (back to summary)

People who persist in making counterproductive choices, and people who have great influence on others' choices.

R12. Anthony Lepinteur (Luxembourg) (back to summary)

While my work remains rooted in academia, I am increasingly aiming to reach a broader set of stakeholders, including policymakers and institutions interested in using wellbeing evidence to inform decision-making.

In particular, I am interested in contributing to discussions around how wellbeing can be reliably measured and integrated into policy. This includes engaging with statistical agencies, government bodies, and international organizations, as well as making research more accessible beyond academic circles.

More broadly, my goal is to help ensure that wellbeing research is not only methodologically sound, but also usable and relevant for real-world decisions, especially as interest in wellbeing-based policy frameworks continues to grow.

R13. Paul Frijters (the UK) (back to summary)

I am trying to reach and help the good public servants and truly interested general public.

R14. Philip Morrison (New Zealand) (back to summary)

I try, very modestly, to help stear the academic ship, the collective of us working on the same broad set of issues. This is based on the assumption that an agreed body of carefully vetted knowledge is a sound basis for public (and private) action.

R15. Daniela Andrén (Sweden) (back to summary)

policy-makers policy-makers and researchers who seek to understand when, how, and why human wellbeing changes, and to translate that knowledge into better policy.

R16. Daniel Benjamin (Developed countries) (back to summary)

initially researchers, but hopefully ultimately the public through better policy research.

R17. Arie Kapteyn (no particular country) (back to summary)

My main interest is in understanding determinants of wellbeing; if that then would have an effect on policy, that would be great, but I am not actively trying to affect policy.

R18. Eugenio Proto (In general) (back to summary)

academics and policy-makers

R19. Gigi Foster (Western countries in general) (back to summary)

The peoples of the West

R20. Stephanié Rossouw (New Zealand) (back to summary)

Personally, the people on the street. The people who are doing it tough and the people suffering in silence. Do I actually accomplish that? No. I end up writing yet another paper that will end up gathering dust in some academic journal.

R21. Jan Delhey (Germany) (back to summary)

Other scientists in the field of well-being research
Well-being practicioners (social reporting community)

R22. Andreas Knabe (Germany) (back to summary)

academic wellbeing researchers

R23. Anna Alexandrova (my research does not focus on a particular country but I work in the UK) (back to summary)

policy makers, bureaucrats

R24. Arthur Grimes (New Zealand) (back to summary)

My main concern is with people who lack opportunities in life, which may arise as a result of: family background (which can lead, inter alia, to poor educational choices), mental health issues, poor policy design or implementation (e.g. resulting in poverty through high housing costs). I am also more concerned about assisting children and youth, rather than working-aged adults or older adults.

R25. Darma Mahadea (South Africa) (back to summary)

Students, individuals and institutions with an interest in wellbeing and life satisfaction.

R26. Sonam Choiden (Bhutan) (back to summary)

Wellbeing research groups and institutions
Academics
Governments

R27. Mariano Rojas (Mexico) (back to summary)

I am still mostly focused on academic papers for an academic audience, but I am now switching to writing books for a general audience.

R28. John Helliwell (any and all) (back to summary)

The same group, plus those able to apply and benefit from the lessons, but without access to what is known, and what possibilities for change are open to them.

R29. Fengyu Wu (back to summary)

Academic researchers, the general public, and policy makers

R30. Stefano Bartolini (developed and developing countries) (back to summary)

see previous answer

R31. Kelsey J O'Connor (back to summary)

The general population, researchers, journalists, and specialized practitioners, including decision makers in business, non-governmental organizations, and government.