UK National Wellbeing
Bhutan measures the wellbeing of its citizens using the Gross National Happiness Index. Many countries have developed indicators to measure the wellbeing and happiness of their citizens. The UK uses indicators across ten areas (domains) to measure personal and economic well being. The indicators provide the government with an alternative way of evaluating economic performance. Both subjective and objective measures are employed in arriving at national wellbeing. Subjective measures are not based on facts and could be self-reported, e.g. satisfaction with life, level of happiness or anxiety. Objective measures are unbiased, quantifiable and based on data/facts such as inflation rate or unemployment rate.
Table 1: Domains and measures of UK national wellbeing
| Domain | Measure |
| Personal wellbeing | satisfaction with life |
| how worthwhile things people do are | |
| happiness yesterday | |
| anxiety yesterday | |
| population wellbeing | |
| Our relationships | fairly/extremely unhappy relationships |
| loneliness | |
| someone to rely on if there is a serious problem | |
| Health | healthy life expectancy at birth |
| disability | |
| satisfaction with their health | |
| evidence of depression or anxiety | |
| What we do | unemployment rate |
| satisfaction with job | |
| satisfaction with the amount of leisure time | |
| volunteer work | |
| engaged with/participated in arts or cultural activity | |
| participation in sport and physical activities | |
| Where we live | crimes against the person |
| feeling safe walking alone after dark | |
| access to the natural environment | |
| feeling of belonging to neighbourhood | |
| time travelled to reach key services | |
| satisfaction with accommodation | |
| Personal finance | household with less than 60% of median income |
| median wealth per household | |
| real median household income | |
| satisfaction with household income | |
| difficulty to get by financially | |
| The economy | real net national disposable income per head |
| UK public sector net debt as a percentage of GDP | |
| Inflation rate | |
| Education and skill | human capital |
| not in education, employment or training | |
| UK residents aged 16 to 64 with no qualifications | |
| Governance | voter turnout in UK General Elections |
| trust in the national government | |
| The natural environment | total greenhouse gas emissions |
| protected areas in the UK | |
| energy consumed from renewable sources | |
| waste recycled |
