Editorial: Achieving Well-Being for All

Well-being cannot prosper in divided societies. Nearly ten years since the start of the global financial crisis, the world economy is regaining momentum. Yet the crisis has left behind scars of uncertainty about the future, and after a period of widening income inequalities, there is a sense of deepening divisions in several OECD countries. In particular, there is concern that the economic shifts in the last 30-40 years have left too many people behind. With the crisis as its backdrop, the “beyond GDP” movement has drawn attention to the limits of macroeconomic statistics in describing what matters most to the quality of people’s lives. This has encouraged us to ask both who and whataspects of life are missing from the traditional indicators that policy-makers most often use to guide their decisions. The OECD well-being framework and the statistics we have been compiling since 2011 offer a unique way to approach these issues directly, injecting some hard-won evidence into the heated debate on inclusiveness.