Could Quality of Life Be Used to Assess Progress?

On 4 February, Economics Professor Paul Anand gave a lecture on the Measurement of Progress to a packed Sociology Seminar at Nuffield College, Oxford. His talk, Multi-Dimensional Life Quality Measurement for the Assessment of Progress, covered recent OU-led joint research with Oxford and Birkbeck on how an alternative, non-financial approach to the assessment of progress might be developed, based on the measurement of life quality and using a framework initially proposed by Nobel Prize-winner and Harvard Professor Amartya Sen.

Covering recent work funded by the Leverhulme Trust as well as range of related papers developed by international research teams, his talk highlighted that it is now possible – and, indeed, deemed widely desirable by many international organisations and governments – that countries should develop dashboards of life quality based on what people are able to do and their activities and experiences, both of which provide more direct measures of wellbeing outcomes than more traditional financial measures.

Versions of the presentation are being given in a number of places including the London School of Economics. Professor Anand is currently completing a manuscript entitled Happiness Explained related to this work, which will be published by Oxford University Press at the end of the year.

Read more about the Capabilities Measurement project.