Optimal human functioning around the world: A new index of eudaimonic well-being in 166 nations

As more and more people realize that wealth fails to fully capture the essence of human well-being, interest in non-monetary measures of well-being has intensified. Eudaimonic well-being (EWB; i.e., optimal psychosocial functioning) is a largely overlooked aspect of national well-being that has never been examined at the global level. This study uses data from nearly 1,800,000 respondents recruited probabilistically from 166 countries between the years of 2005 and 2017 to construct an index of EWB. EWB demonstrates moderate positive associations with other quality-of-life indicators (i.e., national life satisfaction, national prosperity, overall quality of life, and gross domestic product), indicating that it captures information not reflected by them. The distribution of EWB at national, regional, and global levels, as well as its global trend, is explored. The study also examines the relationships between EWB and a number of theoretically related individual- and country-level variables. Presented are also the results of multilevel modelling including a wide range of predictors.