Personal and social well-being describes a person’s state of mind, relationship with the world around them, and the fulfilment they get from life. It can be understood as how people feel and how they function, both on a personal and a social level, and how they evaluate their lives as a whole. It is linked to a range of other outcomes, including mental health.

This overview documents different approaches to measuring and understanding personal and social well-being based on four categories:

1. Feelings about self,

2. Relationships with family and friends,

3. Perception and connectedness to the community, and

4. Overall life satisfaction.

This overview looks specifically at 'subjective well-being', or the internal feelings that people have and how they relate to the world around them. Despite the label ‘subjective’ these outcomes can be measured using objective methods to a high degree of validity.

Within our definition of well-being, we do not include indicators such as economic prosperity, physical activity or diet. The New Economics Foundation refers to these outcomes as ‘drivers of well-being’ (rather than descriptors of well-being itself), and they are considered in detail elsewhere in this framework.