The centuries-old question of the “wealth of nations” was in the past decades more and more challenged by the question of the “well-being of nations”. What is the outcome of human activities in terms of improving the quality-of-life of countries and continents. In the context of quality-of-life-research different methods and procedures were developed to monitor the well-being of nations. Transcending traditional methods objective and subjective indicators were taken into account. The development of different approaches shows that no single indicator comes out as a unique one. What are the good and the bad countries is shown with batteries of quality-of-life-indicators. Principally the state of each nation can be evaluated from the perspective of social experts and from the perspective of the whole population which is measured in representative approaches. Main guiding questions are the relationship of well-being to economic growth and of well-being to sustainability. The inequality of well-being in a global world is under question in respect to developed and developing countries and within the nations depending on various types of welfare states.
