The wealthier you are, the more you chase well-being, says survey

A recent survey on women’s health across five countries, including India, has confirmed what we’ve known all along: that wealth and well-being go hand in hand. It reports that 98% of those who are financially secure claim to actively pursue a sense of well-being compared to the 65% in lower income groups. The study titled ‘Women’s health and wellbeing: Evolving definitions and practices’ covered 453 women and 100 public officials across India, Brazil, Mexico, France and Germany.

The recently released survey was sponsored by the consumer health division of pharmaceutical company Merck and conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit. The project looked specifically at women’s responses to goals on health and wellbeing. The notion of wellbeing included factors other than physical health —work-life balance, education and skills, income, social connections, civil engagement, personal security, housing, environmental quality and subjective wellbeing. (By dint of its method of data-collection —via online questionnaires — the survey preselects a middleand-higher-class sample, at least in the Indian context.)

In an attempt to extend the horizons of personal health to holistic well-being (a Sustainable Development Goal), the survey tried to understand what ‘wellbeing’ meant to women across cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds. To 64% of the respondents, wellbeing was associated with feeling healthy and physically fit, a correlation made by 74% of public officials who work on government programmes aimed at women’s health and well-being. They conflated lack of illness with wellness, discounting social or psychological pressures as inhibitors to holistic health.

Then again 23% said ‘feeling well’ was feeling optimistic about their own future as well as that of their family, an association made by only 3% of public officials. This mismatch between the perception of women and policy-makers around wellness suggests how health policies can be better calibrated.

The survey revealed a further incongruity between the kind of health programmes desired by women, and what was officially on offer: 48% said they’d like programmes related to hobbies and cultural activities, but 73% of health officials rooted for illness prevention programmes. “Women are often the caretakers of their families and educate them on health and wellbeing,” said Uta Kemmerich-Keil, CEO of Merck’s consumer health business. “They also represent the majority of professionals in health care occupations, so they have the broadest impact on improving health and well-being in our societies.”

The survey showed that women in India (95%) and Brazil (86%) claimed to be most active in trying to ensure asense of personal well-being. They defined well-being as the avoidance of unhealthy activities like smoking or drinking, rather than a proactive commitment to exercise or a healthy diet. The survey also found a gap between women’s stated practice of healthy living and the actual fact: Brazilian women spent more heavily on beauty products and treatments than on their health, showing that beauty overrode health. Wellbeing apparently includes building and maintaining good family relations, vital to emotional stability.

However, Sanghita Bhattarcharya, senior public health specialist at the Public Health Foundation of India — a participant in EIU’s interview programme — pointed out that beyond a narrow elite, there’s little hope about Indian women actively managing their wellbeing. “Public health policy has paid little attention to the wellbeing of women beyond their reproductive years,” she said. “This in itself is a manifestation of gendered expectations, where even decision-makers have not looked at women beyond their roles as mothers and care-givers.”

(The author was in Germany at the invitation of Merck)

The wealthier you are, the more you chase well-being, says survey