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Open Access 2021 | Open Access | Book

Understanding Well-being Data

Improving Social and Cultural Policy, Practice and Research

Author: Susan Oman

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Book Series : New Directions in Cultural Policy Research

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Table of Contents

About this book

‘Following the data’ is a now-familiar phrase in Covid-19 policy communications. Well-being data are pivotal in decisions that affect our life chances, livelihoods and quality of life. They are increasingly valuable to companies with their eyes on profit, organisations looking to make a social impact, and governments focussed on societal problems. This book follows well-being data back centuries, showing they have long been used to track the health and wealth of society. It questions assumptions that have underpinned over 200 years of social science, statistical and policy work.

Understanding Well-being Data is a readable, introductory book with real-life examples. Understanding the contexts of data and decision-making are critical for policy, practice and research that aims to do good, or at least avoid harm. Through its comprehensive survey and critical lens, this book provides tools to promote better understanding of the power and potential of well-being data for society, and the limits of their application.

Frontmatter

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Chapter 1. Introducing Well-being Data

Abstract

Well-being data are often our data, in that they are personal data about us—and their collection requires our time and consideration. We are increasingly aware of data’s role in our everyday lives, yet we lack a shared understanding of data and well-being and how they are linked. This chapter illustrates that data don’t just represent society, but they actually change society, culture and our values in ways we cannot see. This chapter discusses who the book is for, what it is trying to do, how the book should be used, its structure and key arguments. Data collection and uses are value-laden exercises and this chapter guides the reader on how this book can help them judge what well-being data mean for them.

Susan Oman

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Chapter 2. Knowing Well-being: A History of Data

Abstract

What is well-being? Well-being has become synonymous with the multi-billion-dollar wellness industry, whilst also being rooted in ancient philosophy and religious practices. It has no universal definition across time, place or scientific discipline, yet the very term ‘statistics’ was invented to measure human happiness.

This chapter contextualises the history of well-being data and development as one which is tied to political and technological change, firstly, in the desire to monitor human welfare, and secondly, for policy. Public management strategies embraced economic approaches to auditing, as a means to define value and efficiency in social policy choices. The chapter considers how well-being data became co-opted into an ostensibly rational process of decision-making and evaluation, becoming a tool of policy—for good and bad.

Susan Oman

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Chapter 3. Looking at Well-being Data in Context

Abstract

Understanding the where, what, how, who and why is important to any social research. This chapter poses these questions about data and well-being in various ways. We look at well-being measurement, appraising the pros and cons of different forms of data and approaches, acknowledging that all data have limits and that context should drive any chosen approach. It presents examples of qualitative data available through interviews and ethnographies, and quantitative data through surveys, and administrative records. We focus on objective well-being data and a case study of the OECD reveals the volume of decision-making behind international objective indicators. Such human intervention is rarely visible, but is important and useful to improve understanding and comprehension of well-being data more generally.

Susan Oman

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Chapter 4. Discovering ‘the New Science of Happiness’ and Subjective Well-being

Abstract

The ‘new science of happiness’ was not really discovered, but was a coming together of people, publications, projects, politicians, agencies and disciplines around the turn of the twenty-first century. This moment foregrounded the issue of how people feel (subjective well-being), changing how this is understood and measured, driving the ‘second wave’ of well-being. This chapter reviews these interlinked histories to contextualise the ‘new’ well-being data. It presents definitions, theories and methods to help understand what went on behind the scenes and under the bonnet of these data practices. We look at the establishment of the UK’s subjective well-being measures and address the question of what subjective well-being can do that differs from previous well-being measures.

Susan Oman

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Chapter 5. Getting a Sense of Big Data and Well-being

Abstract

Can Big Data improve understanding of well-being and can they harm well-being? The chapter opens by asking what even is ‘Big Data’, and is ‘it’ actually new when large datasets have been valuable in understanding population-level health, wealth and well-being for 6000 years. It reviews the failed promises of Big Data to predict and prevent pandemics, including COVID-19, comparing new data infrastructures with old ones. It presents examples and case studies of social media data and data mining on large scales, and for smaller organisations to understand how we feel. We find there are more limits to Big Data and new data technologies to understand well-being than are made explicit, and question the ethics of Big Data insights and their monetary value in the context of well-being.

Susan Oman

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Chapter 6. Well-being, Values, Culture and Society

Abstract

This chapter looks at the relationship between culture and well-being. It introduces how the ‘the culture-well-being relationship’ is invoked in advocacy for culture’s role in social policy, resting on a philosophical lineage. It demonstrates how this relationship has been theorised, naturalised and popularised to become ‘common sense’ for some, while its use in policy has seen it institutionalised, operationalised, metricised and monetised. This chapter reviews this process through a brief survey of cultural policy, asking who decides which—or whose—culture is good for society from Victorian to contemporary cultural value debates. This chapter presents the increasing presence of well-being data in this story, as well as the role of cultural measures in national well-being data from the UK to Bhutan.

Susan Oman

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Chapter 7. Evidencing Culture for Policy

Abstract

This chapter looks under the bonnet of research, interrogating data and evidence used in social and cultural policy. It looks at data in the culture-well-being relationship in three ways. First, if well-being data can indicate whether policy spend on culture is good for society. Second, a review of two projects that evaluate ‘cultural occupations’ and ‘artistic practice’ in the UK and the US. Despite ostensibly similar approaches with well-being data, different understandings of these categories affect findings. Third, Italian research found ‘cultural access’ was vital to well-being, but its operationalisations are curious in ways that affect the conclusions and recommendations. Understanding well-being data—and the contexts of their use—is critical in appreciating evidence, its limits and uses in social and cultural policy.

Susan Oman

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Chapter 8. Talking Different Languages of Value

Abstract

Cultural advocacy communicates the values of the cultural sector, often relying on economic valuations, which can feel like a different language. This chapter ‘follows the data’ in a valuation of the culture–well-being relationship. It contextualises why the research was commissioned and the data’s origins: how they were collected, as well as the processes and decisions made in analysing the data. The chapter follows the findings in two ways: discovering changed meanings, when reproduced in media reporting; and discovering different findings, when reproduced by another researcher. The chapter’s step-by-step approach opens the black box of these data processes, asking if data used like this can beimpartial. Are there limits to how they progress understanding of well-being in social and cultural policy?

Susan Oman

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Chapter 9. Understanding

Abstract

People want to better understand well-being and data—both separately and together. Others need to consider understanding differently. Arguably data should improve knowledge of good and bad well-being and reveal how to apply this information to improve societies. Understanding means more than knowledge, including a shared understanding of how to do something (like a method). Crucially, it also means empathy. This chapter presents academic and everyday perspectives from research on how people understand data and when data are a barrier to understanding and well-being. Context matters: where data come from, who these are for and about, where they go and for what purpose. Without acknowledging the limits in capacity for understanding, the ‘What Next?’ question cannot be addressed for well-being.

Susan Oman

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Backmatter

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Title: Understanding Well-being Data
Author: Susan Oman
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-72937-0
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-72936-3
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72937-0