Inequality and the Better Life Initiative

The Better Life Initiative provides new and comparable statistics on well-being What makes a good life?
Martine Durand from the OECD explains the strengths of the Better Life Initiative in providing a diverse range of internationally comparable statistics on well-being – from health and wealth, to jobs and housing, safety and civic engagement.
While the richness of human experience cannot be captured in numbers alone, it is important that the statistics shaping public policy reflect both people’s material living conditions, and the quality of their lives. Yet, national averages disguise a great deal of variation in people’s experiences within OECD countries – and it is important to understand how life is going for people, not just on average, but across all groups in society. Inequality is, indeed, an important feature shaping the well-being of societies, including disparities associated with age, gender, education and income.
The 2017 edition of the OECD report How’s Life? highlights the many facets of inequality, showing that gaps in people’s achievements and opportunities extend right across the different dimensions of well-being.