Global Flourishing Study: Piloting and Waves 1-5

The Global Flourishing Study (GFS) is a longitudinal data collection and research collaboration between scholars at Harvard University and Baylor University, in partnership with Gallup and the Center for Open Science and with the support of a consortium of funders. The $43.4 million initiative will include data collection for approximately 240,000 participants from 22 geographically and culturally diverse countries, including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Turkey, South Africa, Spain, Tanzania, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The study will obtain nationally representative data within each country, with collection on the same panel of individuals annually for five waves of data.

The GFS will include a rich set of measures of well-being and health, religion and spirituality, and social, demographic, economic, political, and psychological variables. Much prior research on many of these topics has relied upon cross-sectional samples (a “snapshot” approach) and has often been limited to the United States and Europe. We propose to address present knowledge gaps with longitudinal data (a “film” approach), by examining the determinants of well-being in a global probability-based panel study that includes people of diverse geographical, cultural, and religious backgrounds.

The GFS will expand knowledge on the extent to which, and in what ways, many of the world’s largest nations are or are not flourishing, as well as why. Its longitudinal panel nature will supply evidence concerning the causes of flourishing, while the large panel size and multi-country and nationally representative coverage will give insights from around the world. The design of the GFS has benefited from extensive feedback from a globally diverse group of scholars. Preparation for the study began in 2018 and pilot work in each of the 22 countries took place between January and June of 2021. This process included a rigorous translation process, cognitive interviewing, and multiple waves of survey refinement.

One of the major outcomes of the GFS will be a publicly accessible data resource that can be used by scholars across disciplines around the world. Data will be made publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework in a branded registry, hosted by the Center for Open Science. This data set will provide an important new resource for researchers, journalists, policymakers, and educators.