Years of Good Life (YoGL): A wellbeing indicator designed to serve research on sustainability

Lutz, W. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7975-8145, Striessnig, E. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5419-9498, Dimitrova, A., Ghislandi, S., Lijadi, A., Reiter, C. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1485-3851, Spitzer, S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2114-7947, & Yildiz, D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6192-0634 (2021). Years of Good Life (YoGL): A wellbeing indicator designed to serve research on sustainability. 10.22022/POPJUS/01-2021.114.

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Abstract

The Years of Good Life (YoGL) indicator reflects the evident fact that in order to be able to enjoy any quality of life, one has to be alive and thus is primarily based on life expectancy. But since mere survival is not considered as good enough, life years are counted conditional on meeting minimum standards in two dimensions: the objective dimension of capable longevity (consisting of being out of absolute poverty and enjoying minimal levels of physical and cognitive health) and the subjective dimension of overall life satisfaction. Here we provide aggregate level datasets with shares of people who are out-of-poverty, free from cognitive limitations, free from physical limitations and have positive life satisfaction; and life tables from United Nations World Populations Prospects and Eurostat which were used to calculate YoGL. The aggregate level data were derived from several surveys: SHARE, WVS, the Study of Global Ageing and Adult Health (SAGE) and the Multi-Country Survey Study on Health and Responsiveness (MCSS). The details of combining several data sources to calculate YoGL are provided in the supplementary material.

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