Measuring wellbeing

Forced displacement levels are hitting record modern-day highs around the world. Even with UN calls to ensure inclusion of refugees in urban settings, European and Indian cities’ efforts to effectively manage the inflow of migrants often face populist backlashes.

A better understanding is needed of the ways people build, attach meaning, belong to and derive wellbeing from in their urban environments.

Government Statistics and Measures of Wellbeing

In this report from the Displacement, Placemaking and Wellbeing in the City (DWELL) project, we explore and provide evidence about the availability of data sources that have been designed for measuring wellbeing. We map out current government approaches in the selected countries to assess wellbeing by addressing the following questions:

• In what ways are government statistics explicitly incorporating (or not) established measures of wellbeing?
• At what geographical and administrative scales is the analysis presented (national, urban/rural, city or urban local authority specific, neighbourhood specific?)
• Are these statistics (produced by the government itself or by other researchers) recording and showing differential wellbeing outcomes for displaced people as compared to other populations? If so, what are the differences and how are these explained for?

For this study, we focused on government approaches in the European Union, India, Finland, Norway and the United Kingdom.

Access the report

The lead author for the report is Andrei Wong Espejo and it is hosted on the Institute of Development Studies’ OpenDocs platform.

Read the full report here 👇
Government Statistics and Measures of Wellbeing