Oxfam launches Humankind Index to measure wellbeing
With all the doom and gloom associated with the double dip recession, unlikely in my view to be swept away by the “Bread and Circuses” distractions of the Olympics and Jubillee, this article helpfully remind us that well-being and life is about more than money. This article tells us:
“Anti-poverty campaigners at Oxfam have created a new technique for measuring quality of life and social justice in Britain which they claim has found major flaws in mainstream policies on jobs and economic growth.
The charity said its new Humankind Index, launched on Tuesday, was a far more accurate measure of people’s wellbeing and happiness than focusing on GDP and employment rates, and had found deep-seated and significant problems which had been ignored by successive governments.
It said the index – designed by Oxfam’s Scotland office using 18 measures ranging from health, transport, family life and experiences of work to access to parks – found most people put much greater weight on the quality of their lives and work than on material wealth and success.
While quality of life for most people in Scotland had improved slightly, by 1.2%, between 2007-08 and 2009-10, this was chiefly due to improvements in their health and community spirit.
The index, which is now being evaluated by UK government statisticians and Scottish government civil servants, estimated that in contrast, there had been a 43% fall in people’s financial security, a 26% fall in the number of people who felt they had secure and suitable jobs and a 24% decline in those who felt they had enough to live on.”
It seems to me that there is a lot in this new index and I will keep my eyes peeled to see if Government takes it up more substantively.