SDG 3: Good Health and Well-Being | SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities
Institutions: Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) | NITI Aayog | Ministry of Health and Family Welfare
The OECD Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-being: 2025 Update provides technical recommendations and international standards for national statistical offices globally to measure and report on the perceived quality of citizensβ lives (how people feel about their lives). First issued in 2013 and now updated in 2025, they are not annual reports but periodic methodological handbooks that shape official well-being surveys worldwide.
This update refines the framework for assessing subjective well-being (SWB), which includes three core elements: cognitive evaluations of life (life satisfaction), positive and negative emotions (affect), and sense of purpose or meaning (eudaimonia).
The Guidelines incorporate modern challenges and opportunities, offering methodological advice on leveraging new data sources-such as big data, social media, and administrative records-and integrating SWB metrics into policy analysis concerning emerging issues like digital health and climate change impacts. The core goal is to ensure the adoption of harmonized questions and methods worldwide, making national well-being data reliable and internationally comparable.
These guidelines are highly relevant for Indian policy planning as the nation looks beyond traditional GDP metrics to achieve holistic development goals. Implementing standardized SWB metrics, possibly anchored by NITI Aayog or MoSPI, can help evaluate the effectiveness of social programs and inform resource allocation decisions aimed at improving citizensβ perceived quality of life and happiness.
What is subjective well-being? β It refers to how people experience and evaluate their lives β their satisfaction, emotions, sense of meaning and daily mental state.
Follow the full report here: OECD Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-Being (2025 Update)