How’s Life? is part of the OECD Better Life Initiative, which aims to promote “better policies for better lives”, in line with the OECD’s overarching mission. It is a statistical report released every two years that documents a wide range of well-being outcomes, and how they vary over time, between population groups, and across countries. This assessment is based on a multi-dimensional framework covering 11 dimensions of well-being, and four different types of resources that help to support well-being over time. Each issue also includes special chapters that provide an in-depth look at specific aspects of well-being. The 2015 edition features a focus on child well-being, the role of volunteering in well-being, and measuring well-being at the regional level.

The final months of 2015 will be marked by two defining moments that will shape the well-being of generations to come: the agreement on the final set of Sustainable Development Goals at the UN General Assembly in New York, and the COP21 meeting in Paris – an opportunity for global leaders to take action to address the risks of climate change. These events bring into focus the importance of finding new ways to secure and improve well-being here and now, without placing at risk our children’s chances to enjoy well-being later.

In each figure, data shown for OECD and OECD EU are simple mean averages of the OECD countries displayed in each figure, unless otherwise indicated. Where data are not available for all 34 OECD countries, the number of countries included in the calculation is specified in the figure (e.g., OECD 33). Where changes over time are shown in the figures, the OECD averages refer to only those countries with data available for all time points.

A better understanding of people’s well-being is central to developing better policies for better lives. Well-being is multidimensional, covering aspects of life ranging from civic engagement to housing, from household income to work-life balance, and from skills to health status. A thorough assessment of whether life is getting better requires a wide range of metrics, captured on a human scale, and able to reflect the diverse experiences of people. That is what this report aims to supply.

This chapter draws together the big picture on well-being, outlining the OECD framework for measuring well-being, and including an overview of the detailed findings in . An analysis of well-being strengths and weaknesses finds that every OECD country has room for improvement, and countries with similar levels of GDP per capita can have very different well-being profiles. There can also be large gaps in well-being within countries, for example between younger and older people, between men and women, and between people with different levels of education. Changes in well-being since 2009 suggest a mixed picture, with progress in some countries and on some indicators, but continuing challenges in others. Recent trends relating to natural, human, social and economic capital highlight resources and risks for future well-being. Data from www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org show which dimensions of well-being people prioritise when building their own Better Life Index. Finally, some of the latest advances in the measurement and use of well-being data are described.

Measuring what matters for people’s well-being requires wide range of indicators, captured on a human scale, and able to reflect the diverse experiences of different population groups. This chapter documents the latest evidence on current well-being in OECD and partner countries, providing key statistics on 11 different dimensions of life, ranging from people’s material living conditions (such as their income and wealth, jobs and earnings, and housing), through to the factors that affect their quality of life (from their health status, to work-life balance, education and skills, social connections, civic engagement and governance, environment quality, personal security and subjective well-being). Besides providing a snapshot of people’s current levels of well-being, this chapter also examines whether life has been getting better lately. It focuses on the five years since 2009 and reports a very mixed performance – both across indicators and among countries. Differences in the levels of people’s well-being by age, gender, education and income are also described, highlighting how inequalities in well-being outcomes can differ substantially across OECD countries.

Choices and decisions that are made today can have important consequences for well-being tomorrow. To provide a first glimpse of future well-being prospects, this chapter focuses on some of the key resources that are likely to shape well-being outcomes over time. It provides a small set of measures to illustrate elements of the natural, human, social and economic “capital stocks” that exist today, and that provide a store of wealth for later well-being. It also considers some of the risk factors that can have a bearing on those stocks. The indicators range from forest area through to trust in public institutions, and from educational attainment in young adults, to household debt. While there is considerable work to be done to further develop this indicator set, this chapter shows the wide range of evidence that is already available today, and highlights some of the gaps that need to be filled in order to have a more complete dashboard of measures in the future. In the longer term, the goal is to be able to evaluate current well-being outcomes in the context of the resources left for future generations.

Childhood is a unique period of human development, and a critical phase for preparing future societies to be prosperous and sustainable. This chapter discusses the main measurement issues in child well-being, and then presents evidence of how children fare in 10 aspects of their lives. The analysis shows that a significant number of children live in poverty and in workless households in many OECD countries, and that risk of poverty has increased amid the Great Recession. While risks to health in early infancy are low in most OECD countries, they are substantially higher among adolescents. Most children grow up in a friendly social environment and many of them are socially engaged. However, a non-negligible share of children are at risk of being victimised. Children’s experiences are also extremely diverse across ages, between genders, and according to the socio-economic background of their families. As children grow older, their relationships with schoolmates and parents become more difficult, and their life satisfaction and self-reported health fall. Children from poorer families experience lower well-being than children from richer families in almost all dimensions considered in this chapter.

This chapter analyses the importance and features of volunteer work – i.e. the time devoted to unpaid non-compulsory activities whose concern is the common good – across OECD countries. The evidence shown in this chapter suggests that one in three adults volunteers through an organisation at least once a year. This proportion is potentially higher when informal help to friends, neighbours and strangers is considered. Volunteering produces benefits not only for the beneficiaries but also for the volunteers themselves: volunteering helps people to acquire skills and knowledge that may enhance career development or employment prospects, and is also associated with higher levels of life satisfaction and positive moods. Moreover, volunteering is beneficial to society at large and plays an important economic role. The lack of a standard definition and of comparable data makes it difficult to paint a definitive picture of the level and extent of volunteer work in the OECD area; the main steps to be implemented in order to improve the measurement of volunteering are discussed.

This chapter provides a framework and a set of indicators to assess well-being in OECD sub-national regions. Circumstances in the place where people live are important elements to consider in order to obtain a thorough picture of their well-being, which is shaped by a combination of individual attributes and place characteristics. The indicators presented in this chapter cover nine dimensions of well-being and include aspects of both material conditions and quality of life. The chapter provides evidence on the regional disparities in the different well-being dimensions and includes an assessment of income inequality and poverty within regions. Finally, the main steps to be implemented in order to improve the measurement of well-being at sub-national level in the future are discussed.