The key message from a Cambridge University study about a country's happiness is that the UK government, like many around the world, now recognises that economic measures such as GDP do not provide adequate information about a society's progress.
Within the three regions of Europe, the study shows remarkable constancy across the 10 features of flourishing.
Nordic countries are ranked first and Eastern European countries third on all but one feature -- vitality (or energy), where Eastern European countries have the highest ranking.
Southern/Western European countries are ranked second in all 10 features.
But strikingly, at the country level, some nations showed very marked variability in their rankings.
For instance, France had the highest score in Europe on engagement but the lowest on self-esteem and was among the lowest on optimism and positive
In contrast, Spain had the highest score on self-esteem, but the lowest on the measures of competence and vitality.
The UK was near the middle in overall well-being as well as in almost every feature, leaving plenty of room for improvement.
Implications of this study are that a multi-dimensional approach can provide a deeper understanding of well-being than single indicators such as measures of happiness or life satisfaction, which have been widely used to date.
According to Professor Huppert, "If policy makers want to improve well-being, the approach used in our study can identify which aspects of well-being need to be targeted in particular groups or nations.
In the same way, that improving GDP involves identifying the specific components of the GDP which need adjusting, so too improving well-being requires identifying the specific components of well-being which could benefit most from policy interventions."
