Le bien-être dans les sciences sociales: Naissance et développement d'un champ de recherches

Abstract

In France, the welfare has long been neglected by social science. The first studies on the "subjective well-being" appeared in the Anglo-Saxon world in the early twentieth century. They take their rise in the inter-war period and a specific research field can be identified in the United States since the early 1960s. The development of such surveys is more recent in France, where researchers take longer to recognize the merits of the subjective studies. In this evolution, we have to emphazise the role of a few social scientists, like Jean Stoetzel. But the more general evolution of norms and values is also responsible for the development of this new research field: without the uprise and the consecration of well-being, there will be no welfare's sociology.