This note introduces the special issue on Well-being in cities and regions: measurement, analysis and policy practices. After highlighting the importance of well-being research, this contribution provides a rationale for focusing on the local level rather than looking at country averages for...

This paper assesses differences in life satisfaction along the urban-rural continuum in 111 countries across all world regions. It combines survey data with a consistent definition of settlements to maximise international comparability. Globally, once controlled for individual characteristics,...

This paper operationalises the OECD Guidelines for Measuring the Quality of the Working Environment (OECD, 2017) to describe job characteristics among European countries, the United States and Korea in 2010 and 2015. The analysis extends the range of aspects of quality of the working environment...

The paper describes inequality trends in selected emerging economies (Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, China, India, Indonesia and South Africa) in a range of monetary (i.e. income) and non-monetary dimensions of people’s life (i.e. education, health status, employment and subjective well-being)....

We compute a distribution-adjusted welfare measure that aggregates outcomes in three dimensions of well-being, namely income, employment and longevity. Aggregation weights reflect preferences of people on these dimensions. The welfare measure is calculated for 26 OECD countries and selected...

As well-being has matured as a statistical and measurement agenda, it has become increasingly relevant as a “compass” for policy, with a growing number of countries using well-being metrics to guide decision-making and inform budgetary processes. One remaining challenge has consisted in...

This working paper provides an overview of a standardised Employee Well-being Survey implemented in four companies in Japan. This survey aligns with international measurement guidelines and practices, including the 2017 OECD Guidelines on Measuring the Quality of the Working Environment, it has...

This paper applies Machine learning techniques to Google Trends data to provide real-time estimates of national average subjective well-being among 38 OECD countries since 2010. We make extensive usage of large custom micro databases to enhance the training of models on carefully pre-processed...