One of the key objectives of the National Dementia Strategy is improving well-being, but carer burden and depression among isolated people living with dementia, is a major barrier. More social activities and improved carer support is greatly needed to deliver this important goal, argues Clarissa Giebel. Dementia affects over 850,000 in the UK alone. But […]
The redundancy trauma
Around 2.7 million people were made redundant in the UK during the ‘Great Recession’. Dr James Laurence examines the legacy of distrust created by those redundancies. The impact of the recession is the dominant back-drop to the General Election campaign. Politicians from all parties explain their approach to the continuing fiscal deficit. Yet there is […]
Public policy and the hegemony of happiness
Policy fetishism about GDP is being replaced by an unthinking devotion to simplistic happiness indicators, warns Annie Austin. “In a decade’s time we’re going to be using happiness as the sole basis for judging the impact of public policy.” So stated Paul Dolan recently in the opening sequence of ITV’s Tonight programme, entitled ‘Is Britain […]
Time to ditch GDP as a measure of economic well-being
There is nothing inevitable or ‘natural’ about using GDP to measure the economy. The Office for National Statistics has embarked on a journey toward a more rounded assessment of economic well-being, argues Professor Diane Coyle. Just before Christmas, the Office for National Statistics took a giant step, in its normal low key manner: it published […]