The History of Well-Being in Global Perspective

Abstract

The first 19 chapters of this book focus on changes in well-being from national and regional perspectives. This chapter summarizes the book’s major findings concerning global changes in well-being, with special emphasis on the critically important changes that have occurred in global well-being since the end of World War II. The major findings confirm that all eight of the world’s major regions (including the poorest regions and despite regional variations) experienced significant improvements in well-being (in health, education, and income) over the 34-year period from 1980 to the end of 2014. These gains often were dramatic and occurred possibly as a function of high levels of international cooperation on the part of governmental, intergovernmental, and private sector investments, including those made by transglobal businesses. Major advances in global health well-being were achieved through much needed investments by governments, businesses, and other actors in the private sector directed at advancing the quality of preventive and primary health care across a wide range of health services. Expenditures in the heath sector now average more than 10 % of national gross domestic product, and those expenditures made in richer countries now equal or exceed 17 % of total gross domestic product, remarkable investment levels in just one sector. Health care increases in the public and private sectors were most notable for Latin America and the Caribbean, North America, sub-Saharan Africa, and, most recently, East Asia and the Pacific region. In the United States and European nations, levels of health expenditures well exceeded 17.4 % of national gross domestic product and continue to increase at a more rapid pace than investments in other sectors. A consequence of these expenditures has been substantial increases worldwide in average years of life expectancy as well as steep declines in rates of infant, child, and maternal mortality. Thirty-four years of increases in global investments in education are also impressive—the most dramatic of which took place in the countries of North Africa and West Asia and in sub-Saharan Africa. Significant progress was achieved in increasing primary and secondary school enrollment levels as well as access by qualified adults to higher education and career-oriented technical schools. Today, enrollment in primary schools includes more than 91 % of age-appropriate children and the percentage is increasing. Even so, cross-national increases in levels of economic well-being progress slowly, and poverty levels remain high in many countries in which children are not receiving formal education. In response to the dilemma of chronic poverty, many countries have developed public approaches to well-being through carefully targeted publicly administered but privately funded social security taxes, general sales taxes, and estate taxes for those who leave estates beyond a certain threshold, as well as taxes targeted at luxury consumer goods and services. These initiatives have proven to be especially successful in reducing poverty levels in economically advanced countries and in countries with high levels of economic growth, e.g., developing countries of East and South Asia in which literally hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of abject poverty. Similar changes have occurred among many of the small island developing nations of the South Pacific and, surprisingly, among many of the Arctic peoples of the circumpolar region. These important advances in poverty alleviation also are reflected in the emergence since 1950 of more progressive development trends in East and Central Europe, the newly independent countries of Central Asia, those of North America, and those in some countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Also of relevance to progress in well-being is the fact that the vast majority of the populations of economically advanced and developing countries now live in urban rather than rural communities. In all, significant progress in well-being has been achieved as a result of carefully implemented taxation and public policies in combination with rapidly expanding housing, social, and economic opportunities for the growing numbers of urban residents.

Urbanization also has been a significant force in enhancing the well-being of recent migrants into urban centers. This pattern is expected to continue as the percentage of the total population living in metropolitan areas increases to include approximately 80 % of the world’s total population in economically advanced countries. Evidence suggests that the well-being of women, a major group considered “historically disadvantaged,” has improved nearly everywhere in the world over the millennium just ended. Major strides toward the reduction of gender disparities have been achieved in many walks of life: health, basic rights, leadership roles, and economic independence. Further, considerable global progress has been made in participatory democracies in previously autocratic or authoritarian regimes; however, large numbers of the world’s population continue to live under authoritarian rule, with China being the largest and least free nation on the planet. National and global reductions in perceived public corruption have declined steadily in all economically advanced countries but remain persistently high in many low-income and resource-poor developing countries. Perceived corruption levels have improved more than 40 % since 1995, a major achievement in both well-being and public policy—achievements that are essential to the promotion of higher than average levels of life satisfaction and personal happiness.

As reported by Neil Halloran and his data visualization associates, the number of war fatalities as a percentage of the world’s total population is at its lowest point in human history. Today’s world is particularly peaceful despite the egregious pockets of concentrated diversity-related conflict that persist in some geographic regions. Happiness or subjective well-being is on the rise nearly everywhere in the world as revealed in rigorous trend analyses conducted between 1981 and 2007. Indeed, self-assessed levels of subjective well-being rose in 45 of the 52 countries studied in detail. In summary, the evidence reported in this book indicates significant progress across all sectors of human development since the end of the Second World War. We expect, and hope, that progress in global well-being will continue to increase in the coming decades.

Supplemental Table

Supplemental Table 20.1 Level of indicator achievement for the Millennium Development Goals, 2014 (UNDP 2014)