Subjective Well-Being in Italian Regions

This study presents a comparative analysis of subjective well-being in the Italian regions (NUTS2) by synthesizing several ordinal indicators. In recent decades, the use of subjective indicators, i.e. information collected at individual level, has become widespread in official statistics. This article refers, in particular, to those subjective indicators that detect perceptions, points of view and emotional states. The data source is the ad-hoc module on subjective well-being of the European Union Survey on Income and Living Conditions, one of the harmonised European official statistical surveys. In synthesizing the information, the study applies the Partially Ordered Set methodology. The purpose is to safeguard the multidimensionality of the phenomenon and the ordinal nature of the items. The study synthesizes the dimension of subjective well-being at micro level, i.e. at individual level, and reports the individual condition of subjective well-being at regional level. In doing so, it explores the informative potential of the ad-hoc module on subjective well-being, which seems not yet fully exploited.