In recent decades, the exclusive use of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a measure of social progress has been increasingly questioned, prompting a conceptual shift towards a multidimensional understanding of well-being that encompasses both objective metrics and subjective assessments of life quality, especially following the influential Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Report (2009), which advocated moving beyond economic production to assess the real impact on people’s lives, within this framework, Karin Tailbot’s (2020) paper offers a critical review of how governments in countries such as Bhutan, New Zealand, and Wales are integrating subjective well-being indicators into public policy, advancing budgets centred on happiness, social balance, and intergenerational sustainability, despite facing strong scepticism: many critics still doubt the reliability, comparability, or policy relevance of self-reported happiness data, viewing them as vague, manipulable or paternalistic, yet research by scholars like Layard, Clark, and Frey suggests these data offer a deeper, more humane understanding of the consequences of policies such as unemployment, whose impact extends far beyond income loss to affect emotional, social and familial dimensions often invisible in economic statistics, ultimately, the article argues for a complementary use of both objective and subjective measures, asserting that together they enable more effective, legitimate and citizen-centred policymaking, while also warning against transforming happiness into a new form of technocratic absolutism, and instead promoting its integration within democratic processes where individuals remain active and deliberative agents in shaping their own lives (Tailbot, 2020).
