OECD Better Life Index

Your Better Life Index (BLI),[2] launched in May 2011, is an interactive tool that allows people to compare countries' performances according to their own preferences in terms of what makes for a better life. It was designed by Berlin-based agency Raureif in collaboration with Moritz Stefaner. First published on 24 May 2011, it includes 11 "dimensions" of well-being:[3]

1. Housing: housing conditions and spendings (e.g. real estate pricing)
2. Income: household income (after taxes and transfers) and net financial wealth
3. Jobs: earnings, job security and unemployment
4. Community: quality of social support network
5. Education: education and what one gets out of it
6. Environment: quality of environment (e.g. environmental health)
7. Governance: involvement in democracy
8. Health
9. Life Satisfaction: level of happiness
10. Safety: murder and assault rates
11. Work–life balance

Canberra has been ranked as the world's most liveable city according to the OECD Better Life Index for the second consecutive year, based on results published on 6 October 2014.[4][5][6]

How's Life?[7] offers a comprehensive picture of what makes up people's lives in 40 countries worldwide. The report assesses the above 11 specific aspects of life as part of the OECD's ongoing effort to devise new measures for assessing well-being that go beyond GDP.

New indicators and dimensions are planned be added to the Better Life Index in the future. For example, the Better Life Index was criticised for not showing inequalities in a society.[8] Future editions of the index are planned to take inequalities into account, by focusing on well-being achievements of specific groups of the population (women and men and low and high socio-economic status).

From an econometric point of view, the Index seems similar to other efforts aimed at substituting or complementing the gross domestic product (GDP) measure by an econometric model for measuring happiness and well-being of the population. One major criticism is that the Better Life Index uses a limited subset of indicators used by other econometric models such as Gross National Well-being Index 2005, Sustainable Society Index of 2008,[11] and Bhutan Gross National Happiness Index of 2012, and Social Progress Index of 2013. Observers argue that "the 11 dimensions still cannot fully capture what is truly important to a populace, such as social networks that sustain relationships, and freedom of speech.".[12] Various critics have pointed out that the OECD's BLI does not include such dimensions as poverty, economic inequality, access to health insurance, pollution.[13]

In 2012 OECD relaunched "with new indicators on inequality and gender plus rankings for Brazil and Russia. A couple have been removed too: Governance has been renamed civic engagement, employment rate of women with children has been replaced by the full integration of gender information in the employment data and students' cognitive skills (e.g. student skills in reading, math and sciences) has replaced students' reading skills to have a broader view."[14]

Some argue that some of the criteria are vague and question the purpose of such measure, for example, they question, "what really constitutes "environmental quality"? Can it result in population control policy to minimize damage to the environment? While others argue that the Better Life Index unlike the Gross National Happiness Index does not pay attention to religion. Critics also state that the Better Life Index ignores good family life, or moral formation.[15]

Others have criticized its methodology such as the use of relative scores instead of absolute ones.[16]

• Official website