The modern discourse of human wellbeing is developing primarily in such fields as economics, social studies and psychology. There is, however, an ongoing cross-disciplinary fertilization, which enables researchers to build a new conceptually robust framework and to propose a broader research agenda.
There is a variety of indicators used to measure human wellbeing. However, some of these indicators are hard to measure and compare with each other since their choice is determined by the researchers' views and by the subjective perceptions of the people under study. The OECD uses the following indicators to measure wellbeing and progress: income and wealth; work and job quality; housing; health; environment quality; safety; knowledge and skills; subjective wellbeing; work-life balance; social connections; and civil engagement. The research on objective and subjective, material and non-material elements of wellbeing should pay due attention to the connections between these elements and to the methodology. In his seminal work on secularization, Ronald F. Inglehart integrates methods of the social sciences and humanities and shows how material wellbeing in society can influence individual religiosity. R. Inglehart and his colleagues highlight the development of post-materialist values as a general worldwide trend. In their studies, this change is capture by the notion of post-materialist turn, which signifies a shift in the value structure even of low-income societies towards the prevalence of post-materialist values such as belonging and self-expression.
The intangible or 'non-material' factors affecting human wellbeing include the level of trust and solidarity in society, which reflects people's willingness to take part in various charities, environmental conservation activities and other forms of civic participation; openness and effectiveness of interactions between different social groups and strata; efficiency and accessibility of public services; embeddedness in the historical tradition through conservation and promotion of national historical and cultural heritage; confidence in the security and prosperity of the future generations.
Thus, the project aims to bring together specialists from different fields - psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, historians, demographers and health professionals - for a collective effort to develop theoretical and methodological approaches to the investigation of human wellbeing in the context of the global challenges of modernity.
Cross-disciplinary collaborations will open opportunities for the development of new methodological tools to approach the study of human wellbeing in a novel way.
The project encompasses several subprojects of the following research teams:
Created / Updated: 25 January 2022 / 18 February 2022