OECD launches Better Life Index in Italian to help capture the essence of well-being | WPN World People News

On May 18 the OECD unveils its Better Life Index (BLI) in Italian. The BLI is an interactive online platform that offers important insights into how people perceive their own well-being and quality of life. For the first time, Italians will be able to access this instrument in their own language and find out how Italy compares to 35 other countries around the world across 11 dimensions of well-being: housing, income and wealth, jobs and earnings, education and skills, environmental quality, civic engagement, health, subjective well-being, social connections, work-life balance and personal security.

They will see that, according to the latest data, Italian people generally enjoy a good work-life balance and have above average income and wealth compared with other OECD countries. Italy also ranks well in terms of health and social connections.

But, levels of education and skills in Italy are generally lower than the OECD average, as are employment rates. Italy also performs relatively poorly in environmental quality, housing and subjective well-being.

Italy ranks 13th in terms of work-life balance; 14th for income and wealth, but 31st for education and skills.

Through the Better Life Index, citizens can create their own unique country rankings based on the relative priority they give to each of the 11 well-being dimensions for achieving a good quality of life. To date nearly 92,000 people have shared their views with OECD.

Based on the views of the over 3600 Italians who have shared their indexes, health, education and life satisfaction are given most importance relative to aspects such as income. Italian users generally give a greater importance to the environment and to civic engagement than users in other countries. To add your voice, create your own Better Life Index here.

Launching the Index, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría said: “In the wake of the crisis, we need to bridge the gap between the needs and aspirations of citizens, and the policies and priorities of governments. Thus, we need to have a better sense of what citizens want. This is the very essence of democracy. The OECD Better Life Index helps us to achieve this.”

An article by OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría on well-being in Italy and why measuring well-being should be a key component of governments’ economic and social policies is available here: Going beyond GDP – the OECD’s Better Life Index

The Better Life Index & Expo Milano 2015

The OECD is unveiling the Better Life Index in Italian as part of its involvement as an official partner of the EXPO Milano 2015, whose theme “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life” combines key elements of the Index’s vision of well-being with obvious connections to happiness and life satisfaction, human interaction and social connections, health, safety, environment, and culture.

Source: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development