New report: The Wisdom Panel Wave 2 – The Value of Wellbeing
At the Center for Wellbeing, Welfare and Happiness (CWWH), we are proud to share new insights from The Wisdom Panel, a long-term collaboration with Swedbank and Sparbankerna. The study follows a nationally representative group of older Swedes to understand how life circumstances and experiences shape wellbeing over time.
The results show that wellbeing in Sweden is highly dynamic, changing both for better and worse across participants since the previous wave. Four foundational factors — Togetherness, Agency, Coherence, and Kinetics (TACK), together explain 98 percent of the differences in people’s wellbeing.
The report also introduces a new measure, the Value of Wellbeing Increase (VOWI), which estimates that a small step up on the wellbeing scale equals 3,651 SEK per month. Notably, having a life partner corresponds to the same wellbeing gain as an income increase of around 30,000 SEK per month.
Finally, using machine learning, the report uncovers the themes that older Swedes most often associate with wisdom: the importance of family, friendship, and self-understanding, and advice to their younger selves to believe in themselves, keep learning, and take care of their health.
This second wave continues the panel’s mission to follow how Swedes’ wellbeing develops over time — and what we can learn from those with long life experience.
