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Have Your Cake and Eat it Too: The Well-Being of the Italians (1861–2011)

Author

Listed:
  • Mariateresa Ciommi

    (Università Politecnica delle Marche)

  • Andrea Gentili

    (Università Politecnica delle Marche
    Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna)

  • Barbara Ermini

    (Università Politecnica delle Marche)

  • Chiara Gigliarano

    (Università degli Studi dell’Insubria)

  • Francesco M. Chelli

    (Università Politecnica delle Marche)

  • Mauro Gallegati

    (Università Politecnica delle Marche)

Abstract

As a part of the international debate on Beyond the GDP, this paper describes the temporal trend of the multidimensional well-being of the Italians from 1861 to 2011. Building on the CNEL and ISTAT’s Equitable and Sustainable Well-being (Benessere Equo e Sostenibile, BES) project, the paper selects 41 indicators that are grouped into eight dimensions characterizing the most important aspects of everyday life: health, education, work, economic well-being, political participation, security, environment and research and development. In order to synthesize the information provided by this large set of indicators, a composite index for each dimension is tracked over the time span of 150 years. The main contributions of this paper consist in providing an analysis of the Italian BES over such a long period. As a result, the eight domains exhibit temporal tendencies that are different from the one of economic well-being. In particular, health, education, work and political participation show a pattern increasing over time (analogously to economic well-being), although at different growth rates, while an overall declining path emerges for the domains of security, environment and research and development. Moreover, we identify four main periods of the Italian history (before WWI, the Fascist period, the years from 1950 to 1990 and the most recent period) each characterized by different relations among the well-being domains.

Suggested Citation

  • Mariateresa Ciommi & Andrea Gentili & Barbara Ermini & Chiara Gigliarano & Francesco M. Chelli & Mauro Gallegati, 2017. "Have Your Cake and Eat it Too: The Well-Being of the Italians (1861–2011)," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 134(2), pages 473-509, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:134:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s11205-016-1450-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s11205-016-1450-y
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    5. Lance Newey & Rui Torres Oliveira, 2019. "Wellbeing as Emergent from the Leveraging of Polarities: Harnessing Component Interdependencies," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 144(2), pages 575-600, July.
    6. Samaneh Sadat Nickayin & Antonio Tomao & Giovanni Quaranta & Luca Salvati & Antonio Gimenez Morera, 2020. "Going toward Resilience? Town Planning, Peri-Urban Landscapes, and the Expansion of Athens, Greece," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-18, December.
    7. Cantone, Giulio Giacomo & Tomaselli, Venera, 2024. "On the Coherence of Composite Indexes: Multiversal Model and Specification Analysis for an Index of Well-Being," MetaArXiv d5y26, Center for Open Science.
    8. Filippo Gambella & Leonardo Bianchini & Massimo Cecchini & Gianluca Egidi & Agostino Ferrara & Luca Salvati & Andrea Colantoni & Donato Morea, 2021. "Moving toward the north? The spatial shift of olive groves in Italy," Agricultural Economics, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 67(4), pages 129-135.
    9. Ermini, Barbara & Santolini, Raffaella & Ciommi, Mariateresa, 2023. "Equitable and sustainable well-being in Italian municipalities: Do women in politics make the difference?," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).

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