A review of the literature on well-being in Italy: A human development perspective

Abstract

In recent years, a large literature on indicators of well-being and quality of life has emerged. While all these indicators are an important step toward the recognition of well-being as a multidimensional phenomenon, they are often rooted in very different approaches—when we can identify a relevant “theoretical” framework—such as basic needs, happiness, or capability approach, and vary significantly in terms of statistical quality. This paper has a twofold objective: (1) to analyze the state of the art of the literature on well-being in Italy; (2) to examine this literature from a human development perspective. Thus, we investigate the pros and cons of the existing approaches/indicators and assess whether they are rooted in the human development approach. This is deemed necessary for the final goal of constructing a context-based indicator of human development for Italy and its territorial units.