What Makes Wellbeing? [2004]
The necessities of life: health, money, peace of mind and optimism don't entirely determine a person's state of well-being.
Our qualitative research suggests that it is the quality of relationships - intimate, workplace and social - that correlates most closely with perceptions of one's current state of mind.
This was the rationale for the development of a new combined measure of well-being which encompasses the four original quality of life elements plus the new "current mood" which stands as a proxy for the less tangible elements of a happy life.
So people who score high on this measure not only experience an above average personal mood but are also more likely than average to believe the fabric of their life is in good order.
On a scale where the maximum is 2 and the minimum 0, the current level of the well-being index for the sample surveyed in 2004 is 1.17.
Here are three examples of factors which are strongly correlated with this measure amongst 18 to 64 year olds:-
| TV Channel Preferences | Wellbeing
Index |
| ONE | 1.25 |
| TV2 | 0.93 |
| TV3 | 1.27 |
| PRIME | 1.14 |
| SKY | 1.20 |
| Other | 1.07 |
| Working in a Well-Managed Workplace? | Wellbeing Index |
| Yes (67%) | 1.27 |
| No (30%) | 0.83 |
| Travelled Overseas in the Past 12 Months? | Wellbeing Index |
| Yes (38%) | 1.33 |
| No (62%) | 1.04 |
As we might expect, there is an underlying socio-economic bias here: people in the top socio-economic group (SES1) have an index score of 1.31 while those in the combined bottom group have an index score of 0.80.
The smoothness of this progression relates as much to perceptions of personal mood as to people's satisfaction with all aspects of the underlying fabric of their lives.
The table below shows the proportion of each socio-economic group with an above average quality of life index and an above average rating of their personal mood, taken from Windshift's 2004 Social Trends Survey:-
| SES Level | 5&6 |
3&4 |
1&2 |
| Sample Size | 82 |
206 |
114 |
| High Quality of Life | 34% |
52% |
58% |
| High Personal Mood | 48% |
64% |
75% |
The average personal income of people in SES1 - the professionals group - is basically double that of people in the lowest socio-economic group.
Data from Statistics New Zealand 2001 Census shows that while Professional earned an average of $45,800 per annum in 2001, people in what they call elementary occupations earned an average of $23,100. However wellbeing does not directly mirror income, neither for individuals nor for countries.
The World Values Study's research shows that diminishing returns for countries set in around a per capita income of $US10,000 per annum - so the perceived quality of life of New Zealanders is on a par with Australians and Americans, even though their per capita incomes are higher than ours.
This data from our 2003 survey shows that such diminishing returns set in at a fairly low level:
The slowly flattening
curve (asymptote) shows us that while a certain amount of income
is essential for perceptions of personal well-being; it has little
additive effect beyond a certain level. Beyond that point it is
what kind of life you make for yourself that counts.
"Wellbeing does not directly mirror income, neither for individuals, nor for countries."
