PCA components cluster correlated input variables, with component weights essentially proportional to number of inputs corresponding to it. If you put 10 health indicators, 2 economy indicators, and 2 education indicators - your principal component will be health-based. If you put 10 education indicators, 2 economy, 2 health, your principal component will be education-based etc. In no case will it be meaningfully "welfare".

That's how you get 5-factor models in psychology - you just know what kind of questions to put on the questionnaire, and as long as you don't stray too far from it, you'll get exactly the 5 factors you want.

PCA can only be insightful if all inputs are equally important - something that people using PCA rarely bother sanity-checking.