The Royal Spanish Academy defines social well-being as the set of essential elements to lead a comfortable, full and peaceful life. If social needs are added to this, it can be determined that social welfare It is achieved as a positive sum of certain measurable variables that come together to improve people’s lives.
Feeling satisfied with ourselves depends, to a large extent, on many factors, biological, psychological and contextual, and necessarily involves good health of the body and mind.
Therefore, to define social well-being two types of factors must be taken into account. The first, those of a personal nature that directly refer to topics such as health, physical or mental, or happiness. On the other hand, it is also determined by other global socioeconomic elements. For example, the Gross Domestic Product, corruption, freedom, equality or the lack of social opportunities.
The influence of the economy on social well-being
It was in the 1960s when the study of social well-being as a socioeconomic concept began. At that time, two main currents emerged: the hedonic, that analyzes well-being from a subjective point of view, and the eudaimonic that focuses on the psychological well-being of the human being.
Although economic factors are fundamental when referring to social well-being, the Russian economist Simon Kuznets, Nobel Prize in Economics and creator of the concept of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), maintains that this index cannot be used categorically to evaluate levels of social well-being. According to these experts, GDP does not distinguish between benevolent and harmful economic activity, nuances that have a direct impact on citizen satisfaction.
Besides, Diane Cyle, Professor of Politics at the University of Cambridge, explains that during the Second World War, Keynes said: “I don’t need to know how much well-being there is, because we are at war and that is not good for well-being. What I need to know is how much the economy can produce and what is the bare minimum that people need to consume. All this to know how much is left over to finance the war.”
It must also be taken into account that social well-being and Welfare state they are not the same. The latter is European in origin, character and identity and cannot be understood without knowing the history of the continent. Although they are related, several experts suggest that Europe should consider leaving behind the welfare state model, which emerged in the postwar period. These defend that we must move towards other policies that focus more on promote economic growth, without neglecting the well-being of the population.