Doing wellbeing policy: A discussion on public policy making for integrative prosperity

Focusing on holistic wellbeing rather than solely economic prosperity is becoming ever more popular among policy makers, both in Australia and New Zealand, and elsewhere. And yet, turning a complex set of system-level indicators of wellbeing into actionable policy requires us to rethink how we develop, implement, and evaluate policy. In this article, I review the current trends in wellbeing, including developments in the measurement and tracking of wellbeing, and offer practical steps for integrating actionable wellbeing outcomes into future policymaking processes.

Points for practitioners

• Focusing on wellbeing as part of the policy making process is becoming more popular among governments, including in Australia and New Zealand. The New Zealand Government has been doing wellbeing budgets since 2019 while the Australian Government released a new wellbeing framework in 2023.
• Wellbeing policy represents an approach to policy making that aims to maximize the general health and happiness of a target population on both subjective and objective measures of wellbeing. This includes both economic and non-economic measures of prosperity and wellbeing.
• There are many ways of tracking the wellbeing effect of policy and so choosing the right framework is important for effective wellbeing policy making. This starts with a wellbeing purpose for the policy and a clear and concise definition of wellbeing.
• Doing wellbeing policy requires a good understanding of what wellbeing represents and how it is measured. You need relevant and measurable indicators of wellbeing, an evaluation strategy, and the ability to reflect and innovate as part of an iterative policy making process.