Measuring well-being

The UK has joined a growing number of countries in looking at how traditional measures of progress such as GDP can be complemented by subjective measures to assess how people feel. New statistics released in February 2012 show how these measures vary from one area to another and for diffferent social groups. Younger and older people tend to be happier than those in middle age. as are those with partners (married, civil partners or cohabiting). People with children have higher ratings for “worthwhile lives”; those unemployed have lower scores on life satisfaction and these fall the longer the duration of unemployment