ABSTRACT. Over the period 1990 to 2019, the foreign-born population increased by nearly 35 million people in the former Western Bloc countries (Northern, Western, and Southern Europe), of which 25 million were from other European countries. This movement affects both the destination and origin. Eastern European countries experienced declining total populations over this period, which was driven in part by emigration from the non-Former Soviet Union Eastern countries. We make use of the most recent Gallup World Poll, European Values Study, European Social Survey, UN Population Statistics, and World Bank to update relationships between immigration and happiness over the period 1980 to 2019 in Europe. Preliminary results indicate that migration affects happiness in both the destination and origin countries and happiness affects the decision to emigrate. This chapter is part of a book on how happiness changed in Europe and why, over the last three to four decades.

ABSTRACT. To what extent is well-being transmitted from one generation to another? We tackle this question using information from the parent-child dyads in BHPS/UKHLS data, and ask whether the GHQ-36 of a parent at a given age helps to predict the GHQ-36 score of their child when the child is at this same age. We first find that the raw correlation between the GHQ-36 scores of parents and their children is 0.15. This figure is comparable to that found for the intergenerational transmission of income in our sample, but somewhat smaller than that for the international transmission of education. Second, multivariate cross-sectional regressions indicate that 12% of parental well-being at a given age is transmitted to their children at that same age. Last, panel regressions continue to reveal correlations between parental and child well-being, so that the changes in well-being around a given age are similar between generations. Well-being is thus transmitted in both levels and slopes between generations.

ABSTRACT. Efforts to identify the happiness consequences of international migration for the migrants themselves have been hampered by severe data limitations. In principle, the effect of migration on the happiness of migrants can be evaluated via comparison between migrants and stayers; in that frame, the stayers are used as the counterfactual for migrants (i.e., had they not migrated). But analysis in this mode must pay close attention to the selectivity of migration: migrants and stayers are different in ways that are consequential for their happiness. The difficulty is that gaining leverage over selection into migration requires use of data about core aspects of migrants’ pre-migration lives. Available data on migrants mainly gives information on their current (post-migration) situations; data on their pre-migration situations is typically absent.

In this paper I address the incompleteness of information via a bounds analysis (in the spirit of Charles Manski’s approach). The aim is to identify happiness consequences for migrants via a propensity-score weighting analysis. Key variables, relevant to migration propensity, are lacking in the data I use (the European Social Survey) – in particular, pre-migration employment status, relationship status, and frustration with income. To overcome these absences, I estimate results via randomly-assigned values for migrants, oriented to defined scenarios that draw on what we know about migrant selectivity in general.

I apply this approach to an analysis of Polish migrants living in Ireland, the UK, and Germany, as compared to Polish stayers. In a difference of raw averages, the migrants are happier than the stayers. But comparisons adjusted via propensity-score weighting tell a different story. In results using values assigned via a ‘moderate’ scenario, there is no support for the idea that migration has led to any increase in migrants’ happiness. Even in an ‘extreme’ (unlikely) scenario this idea does not receive strong support.

A specific point estimate for the effect of migration is not possible; the data we need are not available, and the strong assumptions we would need for identification are not reasonable. But under weaker assumptions we can use the available data to reach a substantive conclusion: migrants originating in Poland (and currently living in the top three destination countries) do not achieve an increase in happiness following migration.

ABSTRACT. Research has demonstrated that holding a young subjective age (i.e. feeling younger than one’s chronological age) has been associated with various positive aspects of physical and psychological health. However, little is known about how such associations differ across cultural sub-groups within a given society. Accordingly, the current study focused on the Israeli component of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE-Israel) and aimed to explore the moderating role of culture on the association between subjective age and quality of life, physical health, and psychological health. Data were collected from 1,793 respondents, who were classified into three groups: veteran Israeli Jews, immigrants from the former Soviet Union and Israeli Arab citizens. Age ranged from 50 to 105 (mean = 69.65, standard deviation = 9.49). All participants rated their subjective age and filled out scales examining six dimensions covering quality of life, physical health, and psychological well-being. Across all examined dimensions, an older subjective age was associated with unfavorable outcomes. For the majority of health dimensions, the subjective age–health links were most prominent among Israeli Arabs. Results are discussed from both a general societal standpoint (i.e., group differences in access to health services), as well as from the individual’s specific role in his or her culture and society.

ABSTRACT. Background Monitoring and promoting quality of life for older adults becomes increasingly important. By far there is very limited evidence that quantifies the relative importance of life domains among older adults. This study aims to understand how older adults value four key life domains.

Methods An online survey was conducted among a panel of the general public aged 65 years and older in Australia from August to September 2021. Older adult-specific Quality of Life Scale (CASP-12) was administered. A discrete choice experiment (DCE) was conducted to elicit how older adults perceive the relative importance of four key life domains (Control, Autonomy, Self-realization, and Pleasure) using 4 selected items in CASP-12. Each item (attribute) is described using a 4-level response scale. Statistical methods that assume either homogenous or heterogenous preferences amongst respondents were adopted and the preferred model was selected using the Bayesian information criterion (BIC).

Results More than 460 respondents completed the survey. They have a mean (range) age of 73 (65-90) years and 52% are females. Three-quarters of respondents rated their current life condition as Good (65%) or Excellent (9%). For DCE tasks, 53% of respondents rated it as (Very) Easy, whilst 19% thought the tasks were Difficult (18.5%) or Very Difficult (0.4%). All four life domains were statistically significant. Based on DCE estimates, Autonomy was the most important life domain, followed by Pleasure, Self-realization, and Control. In general, a homogenous preference could be found among respondents when comparing conditional logit vs mixed logit estimates using BIC.

Conclusions Understanding what matters the most for older adults will provide important information for more effective interventions to improve their quality of life and facilitate healthy ageing. The results from this study could also be used to create a preference-based index when the CASP instrument was included.

ABSTRACT. Depression is characterized by a wide range of emotional, cognitive, and physical symptoms. Two prominent features of depressive symptoms are a sense that life has no meaning on the one hand, and that life is not worth living on the other hand. In recent years, the subjective perception of how close one feels to his/her death has gained importance as a significant factor associated with various aspects of physical and psychological wellbeing. Thus, the current study examined the connection between subjective nearness-to-death, meaning in life, and depressive symptoms, and assessed whether meaning in life mediates the connection between subjective nearness-to-death and depressive symptoms. Data was collected from 268 participants between the ages of 28 and 74 (mean age = 46.75), who completed measures of subjective nearness-to-death, meaning in life, and depressive symptoms. Results yielded a significant positive connection between subjective nearness-to-death and depressive symptoms, as well as a negative connection between meaning in life and depressive symptoms. Moreover, meaning in life was found to mediate the connection between subjective nearness-to-death and depressive symptoms. Findings are discussed in light of the Terror Management Theory, and potential clinical implications are suggested.

ABSTRACT. At the individual level, well-being is personal well-being – the well-being of people. At the national level too, national well-being is sometimes seen as the collective (personal) well-being of the nation’s population. However, some constructs of national well-being include impersonal measures, which track aspects of how the nation itself is faring. These may include, for example, governance measures, such as levels of corruption, environmental measures, such as levels of pollution, and economic measures such as productivity. Impersonal factors like these can, of course, affect the well-being of people within a nation, but are not in themselves part of what makes a person’s life go well or badly. The inclusion of impersonal measures within indexes of national well-being seems to suggest a shift in the meaning of the term “well-being” between the individual and national level. On the other hand, since “national well-being” is sometimes used to refer to the collective (personal) well-being of a nation’s inhabitants, there also seems to be an inconsistency between different contexts in what exactly is meant by “national well-being”. We identify two possible ways to make sense of the inclusion of impersonal factors within national well-being: firstly, “national well-being” could be used as a loose umbrella term covering both the (personal) well-being of the nation’s inhabitants and also external factors which have an impact on this. Alternatively, “national well-being” could be defined as the well-being of the nation as an entity in its own right. We identify certain challenges for both these options. There is also a third possibility: to reserve the term “national well-being” for the collective well-being of the inhabitants of the nation, and use some other term, such as “prosperity”, for constructs which include impersonal factors. We hope this paper will stimulate debate about these issues, which we believe are important in the light of the role of well-being in informing public policy, and the associated need for clarity about what conclusions can be drawn from well-being research.

ABSTRACT. We describe a replicable process for coproducing a theory of ‘thriving’, or more broadly ‘wellbeing’, in partnership with stakeholders to inform an area of policy. Coproduction promotes the effectiveness, practicality, and legitimacy of wellbeing policies by combining insights from people with lived experience of that policy, the practitioners who implement it, and technical experts with relevant area-specific knowledge. We illustrate our methodology using a case study of a coproduction exercise between wellbeing researchers and Turn2us, a UK-based anti-poverty charity. We report both the process developed for this collaboration and the bespoke theory and measures of thriving in financial hardship that emerged from it. We emphasise the interplay between different types of inputs: quantitative and qualitative data, academic knowledge and lived experience, formal and informal insights. The process we describe promotes both conceptual saturation for theory development and representativeness for efficient allocation of policy resources. Our experience demonstrates the value of contextualising wellbeing for policymaking and is an important complement to top-down approaches relying on standardised theories and metrics like subjective well-being.

ABSTRACT. Wellbeing (WB) is an integral aspect of public health and undergirds social progress – across the globe and throughout the life course. Substantial evidence shows that WB is closely and often prospectively associated with a wide range of important individual and societal outcomes like trust and prosocial behavior, innovation, and productivity, healthy behaviours, mental and physical health, and longevity. WB thus has significant implications for the development of individuals, communities, and societies —guiding the potential to realize social and economic sustainability. WB is also considered a fundamental human value, a United Nations Sustainable Development Goal, and an important national policy aim. While overall WB levels are high in Norway, disparities are becoming increasingly greater. Like most other countries, Norway faces major challenges to public health in terms of preventable non-communicable disorders, multimorbidity, high work absence, large-scale demographic changes and rising social inequalities in health. Climate change, the Covid-19 pandemic, antibiotic resistance, migration, war, and social injustice are paramount national and global challenges with major health impact and societal costs. Additionally, the ageing of the population substantially threatens the sustainability of the welfare state and an alarming negative trend in young people’s mental health is evident. Finally, over the last two decades there has been a gradual decline in well-being and future optimism among youth and younger adults. Progress in tackling these major threats to public health and informing policies going forward relies critically on knowledge and investments in three fundamental domains: monitoring, explaining, and promoting WB in the population. Norway is now among a few countries pioneering work to develop a national QoL strategy, headed by the Ministry of Health and to be launched in 2023-2024. Since 2018, WB indicators have been explicitly promoted as steering tools for policy development in Norway and a system of WB surveillance has been implemented. The WB strategy will build and expand on these developments, with further development of measures, monitoring, and above all, implementation of WB research to improve policy and thus individual and community integration and wellbeing. In this talk we will present recent results, updates, and ongoing work related to development of the national wellbeing strategy and the WB monitoring system in Norway. We also outline a compass for staying and getting happier together, building on the three domains of monitoring, explaining, and promoting wellbeing.

ABSTRACT. Background A frequent finding in the literature on cost-benefit analysis of traffic safety measures is that many people seem to differently value an expected positive impact on health or safety depending on whether it is achieved using a private or a public intervention. To our knowledge, there is much less know about how the relationship between respondent’s subjective well-being, measured in terms of life satisfaction, and their willingness to pay (WTP) for a measure that reduces the individual’s risk of experiencing a traffic accident.

The aim of the paper We aim to analyze the relationship between the individuals’ well-being and their willingness to pay to reduce by half the risk of a traffic accident for vulnerable road-users such as pedestrians and bicyclists controlling for various aspects that can be attributed to the public/private dichotomy of the measure and individual characteristics and attitudes.

Data and methods A representative sample for Swedish adult inhabitants responded online to our contingent valuation survey during May 2020. We use five different scenarios, where the first four hold constant the safety technology, which is a mobile phone app, but vary if the provider is a public or private institution, if the payment vehicle is a fee for use or a uniform tax, and whether the adoption of the mobile phone app is mandatory or not. In the fifth scenario, the technology is changed to a censor-based intervention in the infrastructure. All respondents were presented with two of these scenarios. All responded to the scenario of the mobile phone with public provision, uniform tax, and voluntary use. The second scenario was chosen randomly from the other four. In addition to the valuation questions respondents answered a few questions about their demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, accident experience, their attitudes to institutional rules and their subjective well-being.

Our dependent variable is defined by the respondent’s maximum WTP score from the payment scale of five given levels y∈ [0, 10, 25, 50, 100]. In this way, the respondent’s WTP is constrained by the limited range of integer values listed in the payment scale. So, a respondent who states that the maximum they would be willing to pay is, for example 25, could have a true value (y*) anywhere in the interval, 25≤y_i^*<50. The censoring of the variable y* violates the assumption that the error term is normally distributed. Even though in practice, OLS may be a robust estimator of the conditional mean function E[y|x], a more appropriate estimator is the interval regression model.

Results Our preliminary results suggest that expected utility (subjective well-being) depends on both objective and perceived risks and beliefs. When not controlling for the individual’s life satisfaction, we found significantly higher valuations of the infrastructure solution, which might suggest that the difference in valuations may arise due to other aspects of the framing of the private and public goods offered. But respondents with high value of life satisfaction and no experience of traffic accidents seem to have a higher WTP for the private good.

ABSTRACT. Social Weather Stations (SWS), a private, non-stock, non-profit and non-partisan social research institution engaged in public opinion polling in the Philippines, conducts nationally representative surveys to monitor the progress of Philippine economic, social and political conditions over time, and to assess public opinion on current public issues. Done semi-annually from 1986 to 1991 and quarterly since 1992, these surveys regularly cover quality of life, poverty, hunger, joblessness, governance, crime victimization and public safety.

Aside from the above topics, the SWS surveys sometimes measure public sentiments toward events celebrated in many parts of the world, like expectations of a happy or sad Christmas and entering the New Year with hope or fear. For another important event Valentine’s Day, the following questions were asked: - Assessment of own love life - Choice among money, health or love - Whether one is attracted more to a person’s body or brain - Choice between a person who is rich but ugly or poor but handsome/beautiful - Choice between following more the heart or mind when it comes to love - Belief that there is a person one is destined to be with and whether one has already found this person - Belief in Cupid and whether one has already been struck by his arrow - Likelihood of celebrating Valentine’s day

Results of these items will be presented and analyzed by sex, age, civil status and educational attainment. When applicable, their relationship with Filipino assessments of quality of life will also be examined.

ABSTRACT. Bato is an Eastern municipality within the Philippines’ typhoon capital, Catanduanes, located in front of the Pacific Ocean. In this area, the prevalence of typhoons is concurrently altered due to climate change, but, is a constant phenomenon. They have richer floral and faunal sustenance, which is a huge variable for their economic rise. However, the calamities make a huge impact on the people inhabiting the site. The economy crashes and people lose their jobs, shelters, and loved ones, in these typhoons. It is disconcerting why they are always left crippled each time when typhoons are constant. Hence, this study is conducted to find out the reasons behind this eventuality to help improve their climate resiliency through nature-based solutions, with their rich flora and fauna.

Recently, the area was ravaged by a super typhoon named “Goni”. Bato experienced the heaviest damage and cataclysmic effects. Their homes, electricity, food, and livelihood were lost, making it a dreadful year-end for the locals. The proponent saw the devastation within the community, which led to the pursuit of this project, not just to protect, but to help them improve their planning system and boost their resiliency towards these typhoons that are getting worse with climate change. Thus, the proponent conducted a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis of their Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP). The archive government files are layered with findings from the qualitative data in focus group discussions, to further dissect the CLUP and identify areas of improvement, ensuring a more climate-adaptable Bato.

Weaknesses and threats are found within the master plan, and strengths and opportunities are seen in their richer flora and fauna. These findings can be catalysts in promulgating nature-based solutions and strategies, to lessen their dependence on unstable finances due to their fluctuating economy from these disastrous typhoons.

ABSTRACT. Encouraging the government's concern to formulate a policy of happiness as a form of protection of its citizens by the government to maintain and protect its citizens to remain prosperous, is not only a hope but must become a reality. The importance of the existence of a happiness policy will strengthen the legality of the State and society, to maindstream the happiness policy in Indonesia. The policy proposal has been encouraged by the Indonesian Central Statistics Agency and the academies and a fairly good response from the 8th commission of the Indonesian people's representative council, so that the government can recognise the policy in an Act. The maindstreaming of this happiness policy will open up the government to pay more attention to the community in protecting and keeping its people happy in their lives and lives.

ABSTRACT. This research explored the happiness state in South East Asia Countries which was represented by Indonesian, Malaysian, and the Philippines. This study aims to build a happiness profile of people in those countries, especially in this Corona Virus Pandemic. This situation will affect every aspect of an individual’s life including their Happiness. Coronavirus pandemic made people faced uncertainty in everything. People tend to build a pessimistic feeling about what the future holds. Hence, it's important to find another source of happiness to overcome the stress and trauma because of the uncertain situation. The importance of studying happiness nowadays is to support and encourage people to be more aware that happiness will lead to more productivity at work and make them at the end of the day earn more money. Happiness will also help people to easily socialize and having social support, having a strong immune system which is very important in this coronavirus pandemic, and also copes with better stress and trauma. This research involved 514 participants from three countries and the data was collected through an online questionnaire and the help of local researchers. The result shows the happiness level from each country based on their age groups, Muslim countries or not, gender, and educational background. Furthermore, the findings show that there were no differences in how participants describe their happiness.

ABSTRACT. It is well known that individuals either consciously or unconsciously compare their income with that of others. However, it has yet to be investigated how stable this reference group is despite exogenous shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic. There are several reasons to assume that the size of the reference group and its socioeconomic composition have changed during the pandemic: physical and social distancing and doing home office let people potentially spend more time engaging in social media and attending webinars, online lectures and meetings. That means their virtual social contacts increased, often to a level above the one before the pandemic, while their physical social contacts decreased significantly. Thus, physical and social distancing may have changed the pool of people from which individuals can be drawn for income comparison.

Against this background, this study explores if (i) the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the size and composition of individual reference groups. Moreover, empirical evidence supports the hypothesis that an individual’s position in the income distribution—more than the absolute income level—determines subjective well-being (SWB). Hence, we investigate if (ii) a change in the size and composition of the reference group affected respondents’ SWB. Usually, empirical studies on income comparisons suffer from a critical methodological weakness as they use exogenously defined reference groups. Our study addresses this point by applying an innovative survey instrument to ask respondents to identify individual reference persons for income comparisons. We conducted an online survey of young adults at two German universities before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyzed the data using regression models.

Preliminary results show that the reference group size has slightly increased. Respondents reported comparing themselves to an average of 3 people before the pandemic, while the average during the pandemic was 3.1 people. As for the composition of the reference group, respondents compare more to others with higher incomes during the pandemic. The role relationships within the reference group slightly changed too. Friends are the most frequently mentioned reference persons, accounting for 46 % before and 42 % during the pandemic. They are followed by relatives, who make up about 30 % before and 34 % during the pandemic, followed by partners, with about 10 % before and 9 % during the pandemic. Moreover, the share of those in the reference group not personally known to the respondents increased from 0.9 % to 3.5 %. Although the differences seem small, it suggests that comparison behavior has slightly changed with the pandemic. As expected, SWB levels decreased, ceteris paribus, during the pandemic. Interestingly, SWB increased, on average, by 0.06 scale points when the individual reference group had increased by one person; everything else held constant.

ABSTRACT. In 2020, the world was shaken by the COVID-19 pandemic. In Spain, the first wave of infections and deaths occurred between March and April, with a peak in March. The second wave of infections in Spain could be placed around November, reaching a record high on 5 November. During these first two waves of infection, the world's population did not yet have vaccines to protect them, and the measures implemented by governments consisted basically of restricting movement. In the case of Spain, the restrictive measures varied between the first and second waves. In the first case, the measures focused on confining the population to their homes, and during the second wave, once total confinement of the population had been ruled out, the different Autonomous Communities that make up the Spanish territory were responsible for implementing restrictive measures. These consisted, among others, of perimeter closures of the territories, night-time restrictions on movement and capacity limits. The literature has confirmed that all these measures have had an impact on the psychological well-being of the population. This paper contains a panel data analysis of the evolution of psychological well-being between the two phases of the pandemic depending on gender. The results allow us to conclude a differential development between men and women. While men's psychological well-being seems to have remained the same or even improved between the first and second waves, women's psychological well-being worsened. These differences could be explained by differences in caregiving tasks within the family, and by the different positions of men and women in the labour market.

ABSTRACT. One goal of organizations advancing happiness and well-being in the U.S. is to promote the use gross national happiness measures into policy decisions, thus promoting better outcomes for people.

This presentation discusses whether and how economic and health hardships are associated with ten dimensions of well-being and overall quality of life. In 2020 we deployed a statistically representative online survey that measured dimensions of well-being in a U.S. Northeast State. The study captured well-being before and during the COVID pandemic. We are redeploying the survey in early 2023 to explore well-being before and during the 2022 nflationary period in the U.S. Our research questions are:

1. How are two different external “shocks” associated with well-being associated with domains beyond physical health and the price of goods and services? 2. Do the associations, if present, differ for an “economic pandemic” compared to a health pandemic?

The data collection instrument is comprised of a battery of questions designed to explore respondents’ overall life satisfaction (using Cantril’s ladder) and questions developed by the Happiness Alliance known as the GNH Index. In addition, a variety of demographic classification questions were/will be included. Dimensions of well-being are:

• Psychological Wellbeing (Engagement, optimism, accomplishment) • Physical Health (Health, energy, ability, exercise) • Time Balance (Time for enjoyment, time balance, rushed time) • Community Vitality (Trust, safety, volunteerism, belonging) • Social Connectedness (Support, caring, love, loneliness) • Education and Culture (Cultural opportunity and community culture) • Physical Environment (Environmental quality and opportunity) • Governance (Access, trust, confidence) • Material Wellbeing (Financial security) • Work Life (Satisfaction, interest, autonomy, pay)

Univariate summary statistics will be calculated. Bivariate analysis identifying relationships between demographic characteristics and well-being will be estimated. Comparisons of well-being during a health pandemic and an “economic pandemic” will be made using bi-variate analyses. A multivariate regression analysis of the association of demographic characteristics and two different types of “shocks” (health and economic) will be conducted.

We will discuss how the understanding the role of externalities (both COVID and inflation) on several dimensions of well-being can be incorporated into policy solutions that may improve well-being beyond physical well-being and the cost of goods and services. We anticipate a lively discussion with audience members.

References: Gardner, Jonathan, and Andrew Oswald. “Does Money Buy Happiness? A Longitudinal Study Using Data on Windfalls.” Royal Economic Society, Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2002, January 1, 2002.

Jebb, Andrew T., Louis Tay, Ed Diener, and Shigehiro Oishi. “Happiness, Income Satiation and Turning Points around the World.” Nature Human Behaviour 2, no. 1 (January 2018): 33–38.

Okun, M. A., W. A. Stock, M. J. Haring, and R. A. Witter. “Health and Subjective Well-Being: A Meta-Analysis.” International Journal of Aging and Human Development 19, no. 2 (January 1, 1984): 111–32.

Yang, Haiyang, and Jingjing Ma. “How an Epidemic Outbreak Impacts Happiness: Factors That Worsen (vs. Protect) Emotional Well-Being during the Coronavirus Pandemic.” Psychiatry Research 289 (July 1, 2020): 113045.

ABSTRACT. Research has demonstrated that greater financial pressures are associated with poor mental health. However, no work has been done on how financial wellbeing, a multidimensional concept of how people are doing financially and can use their financial resources, affects mental health. In addition, it is also possible that mental health can impact on financial wellbeing, via pathways such as neglecting of finances or lower productivity levels. Research on the determinants of people’s financial wellbeing has mostly focused on personal resources, in the form of financial knowledge, economic resources, and social resources. Much less attention has been given to other personal resources, such as mental health, especially in a longitudinal setting. This paper investigates the bidirectional relationship over time between financial wellbeing and mental health. Data emanate from the Dutch Longitudinal Internet studies for the Social Sciences (LISS) panel, a longitudinal nationally representative survey of Dutch households. We use longitudinal information on 4,329 respondents interviewed in October 2022 and February 2023. The responses to a validated financial wellbeing scale are also linked to other available demographic-, health-, and financial information. We estimate dynamic correlated random-effect models of respondents’ financial wellbeing and mental health within a generalised structural equation modelling framework, accounting for the longitudinal nature of the data. The study will improve our understanding of the relationship between mental health and financial wellbeing and enable an investigation into the underlying causal mechanisms underlying this relationship. The results from this research will also inform policy related to mental health interventions as well as improvements in the financial wellbeing of individuals.

ABSTRACT. Several studies have demonstrated that expanding health insurance coverage has positive health and well-being consequences but there is little evidence on the benefits of supplementary private health insurance. In Australia, supplementary private health insurance (PHI) subsidised by the government can be purchased in addition to universal coverage of the population by Medicare. Individuals can use both to access healthcare, with PHI typically offering faster access to private specialists, lower costs of accessing private hospital care, and a higher degree of choice. A key policy question is whether the additional taxpayer subsidies for PHI improves health and wellbeing over and above Medicare. The aim of this research is to examine whether taking up or dropping PHI influences subjective well-being and general health status compared to having access to Medicare.

We examine the effect of supplementary insurance on health and wellbeing using data on 21,106 adults from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey between 2005 and 2020. We use two-stage least squares, in the context of a panel fixed effects model, to account for endogeneity and, as instruments, use two reforms that stimulated more coverage by increasing the income threshold at which individuals were penalised for not purchasing insurance and one demand shock that reduced coverage because premium increases outstripped wage growth. We also examine the health and well-being of starters and stoppers around the two reforms the demand shock.

The results from the first stage show that the three instruments are jointly statistically significant and that the policy reforms increased demand, whilst the demand shock in 2016 reduced demand for PHI. We find that supplementary insurance is positively associated with well-being and health and starting cover has positive effects while stopping cover has smaller negative effects. The effects are weaker and smaller for physical health compared to more subjective measures of mental health, general health, and life satisfaction.

These results show reasonably strong evidence that having private health insurance, over and above Medicare, has positive effects on life satisfaction and measures of mental, physical and general health. We provide the first evidence for Australia that private health insurance increases life satisfaction and health status compared to Medicare. We also examine the asymmetric effects of starting and dropping PHI cover and find that starting PHI cover has a larger positive effect on life satisfaction and health status than the negative effects of stopping PHI cover. We show relatively large increases in life satisfaction and health status (between 4 and 8 per cent) yet it remains unknown if the $6 billion-dollar annual government subsidy for PHI could have generated greater health benefits and improved equity of access if invested in Medicare or in public hospitals.

ABSTRACT. Entitlement attitude (EA) is an attitude that one is indebted social support in the absence of personal effort to improve his or her situation. Lewicka (2002) considers a claimant as a person who demands things, which “belong” to her in a non-objective manner. The idea of psychological entitlement is not new in social sciences. At the beginning of transformation period in Poland Reykowski (1993) noticed that common entitlement attitude was related with peoples approval of the welfare state and caring for its own interests. As the reasons for entitlement attitudes, especially in Poland or other post-communist countries, most researchers indicated to be in the legacy of a communist welfare state, for which the approval was still significant in Polish society (Reykowski, 1993). Entitlement attitude represents an important phenomenon in the field social policy and welfare state studies. It is assigned to various social groups, and calling someone a claimant has an extremely negative consequences. EA is an attitude towards other people, groups, society or state in which the in which the emphasis is put on self-interest (individual or group) (Bishop & Lane, 2002; Exline, Bushman, Baumeister, Keith Campbell, & Finkel, 2004). The literature review (Baslevent & Kirmanoglu, 2011; Mau, Veghte 2007) suggests that people are to some extent motivated to support the welfare recipients as an effect of the mix of their values and self-interest (as Rothstein (1998) call it: dual utility function). EAs are strongly connected to the perception of fairness, reciprocity, civil obligations etc. (Lerner, 1987). Individuals may find themselves morally (and legally) entitled to certain outcomes based on who they are or what they do (for review see: Exline et al., 2004). It is often argued that generous welfare state makes people feel psychologically entitled. The notion of an entitlement is a promise from government, and if the entitlement is for a large number of people, this may decisively change the subsequent political dynamics (Romer, 1996). The study of entitlements attitudes are likely to improve our understanding of the role of entitlement perceptions in welfare state and to foster research employing a scientific treatment of the construct. In the study the data on representative group of 2000 adults in Poland are analysed in order to answer the questions: how does EA affect life satisfaction? Are people who benefit from welfare state relativel more likely to have strong entitlement attitudes?

ABSTRACT. There has been vast research on the link between mental health and financial wellbeing. This study examines the association among physical health, mental wellbeing and financial wellbeing. The data was collected for the year 2022 in urban Pakistan through questionnaire method from the head (the financial decision maker) of the sample households. The total sample size of 400 households was selected using Yamane’s formula. Using stratified random sampling technique, the sample was allocated proportionally among all the provinces and the corresponding sampled cities. The results from the regression analyses suggest that physical health fully mediates the relationship between mental health and financial wellbeing both in economic terms and on pure statistical grounds. Financial wellbeing was associated with mental health. The Government should put more emphasis on education and employment opportunities to ensure greater financial wellbeing and better quality of life particularly in terms of health satisfaction.

ABSTRACT. South Korea’s low fertility rate is extraordinary, posing threat to the society’s long-term sustainability. Its total fertility rate(the average number of children a woman would give birth to during her lifetime) was 0.79 as of the third quarter of 2022. To better understand the causes of continuous declines in marriage and fertility in South Korea, this study examines the roles of perceived social qualities as well as the quality of life on attitudes toward marriage and parenthood. Data were collected through surveys of a national sample of 1,040 adults in age between 20 and 59. K-means cluster analysis was used to classify people’s attitudes toward marriage and parenthood. And, logistic regression was applied to determine associated factors for those attitudes. The main findings of this study are as follows: First, the importance of marriage and parenthood was more emphasized in women’s life than men’s; approximately 22% of women reported marriage and parenthood not important in their life compared to 12% of men. Second, young adults under the age of 35 have shown much more than other age groups negative attitudes towards marriage and parenthood with 53% of young women and 24% of young men reporting marriage and parenthood not important in their life. Third, the proportion of those who reported marriage and parenthood are essential in life was lower among young adults in 20’s than those in 30’s and older; Lastly, negatively perceived social qualities, including low level of social trust, lack of equal opportunities, and decrease of social mobility, were associated with weak support for marriage and parenthood. This study suggests that in addition to the quality of life, social qualities including social cohesion and social inclusion need to be improved in order to respond to a continuous decline in marriage and fertility.

ABSTRACT. Background: It has been observed that marriage often leads to better health and this is particularly true for men. Although previous studies have provided great insights into this, the “substantive effect” of first marriage on relationship satisfaction has received only minimum attention, especially in a non-western cultural setting. This study used a counterfactual approach to examine how first marriage influences the relationship of young adults with their parents in the short term (i.e., the immediate effect) and the long term (i.e., three years after first marriage) in a Taiwanese young adult sample. Given that there may be an effect of gender on the results, our investigation was gendered.

Method: Using the Taiwan Youth Project, a cohort sample of 1,776 young adults married between 2012 and 2014 inclusive was retrieved. Perceived satisfaction with primary parents was measured in 2011 to cover the pre-married situation, in 2014 to cover the short-term post-married situation and in 2017 to cover the long-term post-married situation. Several important confounders were included (e.g., gender and sexual and romantic experience). We applied difference-in-differences (DID) with propensity score matching (PSM) (DID+PSM) to current analysis so that our estimation could provide proper estimation of the substantive effect of marital effect.

Results: After reaching balance, the bootstrapping results showed that female young adults who entered into their first marriage around 28 years old on average had an increased likelihood immediately of displaying a more satisfied parent-child relationship than their counterparts who did not get married (ATT 0.14; 95% C.I. 0.03, 0.26). This effect was also significant even after three years of marriage (ATT 0.15; 95% C.I. 0.03-0.30). However, these effects were not significant for males.

Conclusion: The results emphasize the deep rooted cultural expectation that young women in Taiwan should enter into marriage. By marrying, these female subjects found that “tension” with their parents was reduced; hence, their relationship with their parents was improved.

ABSTRACT. Personality is a potentially important for one’s satisfaction with relationship, and so far studies have yielded mixed results, but neuroticism seems to be consistent predictor of marital or relationship dissatisfaction. The aim of this research was to analyze association between marital/relationship satisfaction and one’s own personality traits, partner’s personality traits and similarities in personality traits between partners. Participants were 878 dyads of mothers and fathers with school age children who were either married or in cohabitation. Average age was 44 years (men) and 42 years (women). This study is a part of an ongoing longitudinal comprehensive project on the well-being of children in a family context (CHILD-WELL) which is financed by the Croatian Science Foundation. For this study we used data from the first wave of the project. Both mothers and fathers manually filled in the questionnaires at their homes. Marital/Relationship Satisfaction scale consists of nine items measuring satisfaction with various aspects of marriage/relationship such as communication between partners, joint activities, and distribution of duties and responsibilities. Participants answered using 11-point scale from “not satisfied at all” to “very satisfied”. The scale showed single factor structure and high reliability. To assess Big Five Personality traits International Personality Item Pool IPIP 15 was applied. Each of five personality traits was assessed by three items. Participants responded using 5-point scale from “absolutely incorrect” to “absolutely correct”. All subscales showed satisfactory reliability. Partners shared about 40% of common variance of marital/relationship satisfaction. Association with education or age was not found, but it was associated with average income of the family. For both parents marital satisfaction was higher if either they or their partners scored higher on Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Intellect, Agreeableness, and Emotional stability. For women, their own Extraversion and Emotional stability, and partner’s Conscientiousness and Intellect yelled highest correlations with marital/relationship satisfaction, while for men their own personality traits were associated with their marital/relationship satisfaction more than their partner’s personality traits. For both men and women, marital satisfaction was lower when the difference between them and their partners on Big 5 personality traits was larger. All correlations were low, but significant. This study suggests that not only one’s own, but also partner’s personality traits, and resemblance among personalities of partners, are associated with higher marital/relationship satisfaction.

ABSTRACT. While previous research has shown that good social relations are part of our subjective well-being and that being in a partnership improves it, less is known about the couple or partner characteristics and partner’s well-being affecting our own. There is some evidence to support the hypothesis that the well-being of older couples is interrelated. Previous research on this topic, however, has mainly focused on health outcomes. It is likely that partner and couple characteristics and partner’s well-being, including health, will have a strong impact on individual’s subjective well-being especially when we grow older.

We examine how partners’ subjective well-beings are interrelated. In particular, we ask (1) how one’s life satisfaction is related to a partner’s life satisfaction, among older couples (aged 50+) in Europe; and (2) what is the role of gender, health, disability, and caregiving in this dyadic SWB pattern.

We utilize 6 waves (2,4,5,6,7,8) of Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) data. We use strongly balanced sample with 7,464 observations (1,244 couples) on individuals from ten countries. The data spans longer time and has more observations than most studies up to date. We utilize fixed effects regression and three-level (individuals nested in countries and countries nested in waves) hierarchical regression models suitable for longitudinal data.

Our results show that the effect of partner life satisfaction on respondent life satisfaction remain stable (and relatively high) both in fixed effects and in hierarchical models, regardless of control variables (demographics, SES, health) introduced into the model. Hence, partner SWB appears to have an independent effect on respondent SWB, regardless of the health of respondent, or health of partner.

The interrelation between respondent SWB and partner SWB does not differ significantly between genders. However, in hierarchical models the expected correlation of SWB between two random individuals in the same country is substantially higher among women, than among men (the ICC is approx. 53% for women and 30% for men). Furthermore, if female respondent was a carer for her male partner, her SWB decreased, but this carer-effect was not significant for male-respondents caring for their female partners. And this carer-effect did not alter the respondent SWB – partner SWB interrelation.

The findings of this research are important because people are often treated as individuals in health care and social services, and when cost-benefit analyses are conducted with respect to well-being interventions. However, in the case that our well-being is linked to the well-being of our family members or other closed ones, the interventions might need to be rethought for optimal efficacy. Also, if the interventions have wider effects than usually assumed, then the benefit side of cost-benefit analyses of social interventions may be greatly underestimated. These issues may be especially relevant among older people with deteriorating health and increasing care needs which likely emphasize the importance of their close relationships. The research also contributes to our understanding of subjective well-being that has so far been conceptualized as being individual-focused.

ABSTRACT. Subjective well-being (SWB) is often estimated as a latent construct out of life satisfaction (LS) and happiness. Recently, a comprehensive structural model for SWB and its determinants has been proposed that includes lifeability as well as livability determinants. The latter are often not considered in the literature. This study relies on this theoretical model and estimates the proposed relationships using the rich EU-SILC data, a cross-sectional survey of income, poverty, social exclusion, and living conditions in 30 European countries. Using structural equation modeling (SEM) a substantial contribution of lifeability determinants to explaining SWB can be confirmed. However, the common practice of factorizing LS and happiness has its drawbacks as valuable information of LS and happiness is lost. The findings indicate that numerous determinants (e.g., mental health, monetary means, and satisfaction with the environment) have different associations with LS and happiness. Therefore, modeling LS and happiness separately provides more profound insights.

ABSTRACT. The aim of this research is to explore the relationship between female empowerment and quality of life for 46 countries in Europe and Central Asia over the period 2005-2018. Using the fixed effects regression method, it documents that representation of women in parliament and regulations affect women’s economic opportunity and significantly positive impacts on life satisfaction and adjusted national income, a proxy for sustainable economic development. For example, moving from countries with no representation of women in parliament to gender parity (50%) is associated with a nearly half-standard deviation increase in life satisfaction. These findings have a number of essential policy implications.

ABSTRACT. Background: Why do some people have high wellbeing, and others not? Previous twin studies of subjective wellbeing (SWB) report substantial heritabilities and effects from unique environments, but typically find no effects from shared environments. However, extant twin studies have primarily examined within-country variability in SWB, and do not take into account mean differences across nations. Thus, the findings are not necessarily valid at the global level. We aim to examine the effect of shared environments, unique environments and genetic factors for the global population. Methods: We combine known parameters from national wellbeing studies (means and SDs) and behavioral genetic studies (heritability), to examine a scenario of twin studies across 157 countries. We simulate data for a set of twin pairs for each country and pool the data into a total global sample, in order to estimate the major sources of worldwide variability in SWB. Results: We find that shared environmental factors account for 16-23% of the global variance in SWB. Findings also include a worldwide heritability of 31-32%, and that unique environmental factors explain 46-52% (including measurement error). Conclusion: In a global perspective, wellbeing is somewhat less heritable than within nations. Further, unlike previous within-country studies, we find a notable effect of shared environments, operating at a national level.

ABSTRACT. This study examines the competing conceptualisations of wellbeing in the context of green social prescribing and highlights the implications for the policy process. ‘Green social prescribing’ is a rapidly growing form of intervention in the health and social care sector in the UK and seen to have potential to address issues of health inequality and the climate crisis. Patients are signposted to non-clinical interventions in the outdoors for support for wellbeing, often provided by voluntary sector organisations and volunteers. There is some controversy over how this approach shifts burden of responsibility for wellbeing away from the state onto the voluntary sector and ultimately communities and individuals. The study examines the UK wellbeing policy landscape surrounding green social prescribing and whether this is consequential for wellbeing ideas, identities and behaviours of participants and volunteers involved in green social prescribing practice. An ethnographic, comparative case study approach is used across two different green social prescribing contexts in Somerset, UK. Data is collected through walking and go-along interviews, questionnaires and participant observation involving practitioners, volunteers, and participants. A relational wellbeing framework is used to support with the generation, organisation, and analysis of the data. The study found that while organisations held a predominantly individualised, medicalised view of wellbeing, more diverse material and relational forms of wellbeing are made visible through the green social prescribing policy implementation process. A mixture of different individualist, collectivist and relational values underpin peoples’ and organisations’ understandings of wellbeing. Different wellbeing concepts and values are negotiated through the green social prescribing policy process. At times, tensions and paradoxes exist as different wellbeing ideas and agendas are adopted, appropriated, and translated into reality, through green social prescribing practice. The study seeks to offer greater conceptual clarity and shared understanding of wellbeing between policy makers, practitioners, and participants within this context.

ABSTRACT. Can the practice of a sociopoetic form sustain wellbeing? What is the evidence? A 2019 doctoral award for A heuristic inquiry with teachers and leaders uncovers a poetry path to wellbeing evoked a broader-based enquiry. A series of workshops followed across diverse social settings, over an eighteen-month timeframe with a cross-section of participants who continued to engage with the process through covid-lockdowns. The researcher sought to understand what, if anything, was the effect of regular practice of this particular poetic form called the mindfulness of seminaria. Using a mixed methods approach, this qualitative study examined the responses of 20 men and women aged 15-75, to adopting this poetic form as a reflexive practice. Though introduced to its theoretical construct, they were encouraged, in practice, to explore it in playful ways to suit their personal and professional needs. Possible applications included: recording events, processing feelings, problem solving, ‘bookending’ the day, planning ahead. The mindfulness of seminaria was found to be surprisingly creative, energising and grounding. Key benefits were the wellbeing components: meaningfulness and self-realisation. Clear evidence emerged of the versatility, vitality and potential of this sociopoetic practice for attaining subjective wellbeing—a factor in participants’ positive adjustment to living and working productively in ‘Covid-times’.

ABSTRACT. This study investigated the efficacy of a school-based intervention (8 sessions of 45 min) based on mindfulness and character strengths use (i.e., “Think Happy-Be Happy”). A quasi-experimental study, including assessments at baseline, post-intervention (i.e., one week after the intervention), and follow-up (i.e., six months after the intervention) was performed. Results at post-intervention revealed that adolescents who participated in all intervention sessions experienced signifcantly increased well-being (i.e., emotional, psychological, and social well-being) and decreased hyperactivity/inattention symptoms and peer-related problems compared to adolescents who did not participate in the intervention. The “intention to treat” analyses showed that adolescents who started the intervention, regardless of the number of sessions they attended, experienced significantly decreased hyperactivity/inattention symptoms compared to adolescents who did not participate in the intervention. However, significant outcomes were not maintained at follow-up. Nevertheless, this study demonstrates that integrating mindfulness with strengths use in schoolbased interventions might have the potential to promote the mental health of adolescents in terms of both increased well-being and reduced psychological problems.

ABSTRACT. Contemporary societies are shaped by different histories, different institutions, different norms and different values. Up to now, conceptualizations of societal development were, however, mostly based on culturally universal paradigms. Cultural sensitivity in development science has been argued for since at least the 1960s, but has remained understudied. In the proposed presentation, I will overview empirical and theoretical steps we made into documentation of cultural diversity of preferred societal development pathways.

I will discuss (1) theoretical foundations of the idea of cultural sensitivity in societal development that we laid with our paper (Krys et al., 2020), (2) ideas described in the special issue of the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology that was aimed at “Bridging (Cross-)Cultural Psychology with Societal Development Studies: Discussion on the Idea of Cultural Sensitivity in Conceptualizing and Measuring Societal Development”, and (3) findings from our first empirical studies on folk theorizing on societal development.

I will conclude the presentation by indicating future directions for cultural sensitivity in development science. People in all world regions deserve a societal development science that is informed by, and helps to explain, development processes in their local cultural contexts.

ABSTRACT. Well-being forms a central part of social sustainability as well-being has been shown to promote multiple aspects of social sustainability such as prosocial behaviour and higher productivity. More importantly, without well-being and its wide and fair distribution, we can hardly speak of social sustainability. The article first explores the relationship between well-being and social sustainability based on existing research, and second, examines inequalities in well-being between groups and regions in Europe empirically based on European wide survey data.

The following questions are addressed: 1) How well-being and its distribution are linked with different dimensions of social sustainability? 2) Do different objective and subjective measures of well-being, such as income, life satisfaction and meaning in life, reveal different patterns of inequality both between and within regions? 3) How are different welfare states associated with the level of well-being and inequality in well-being?

The first part of the article also provides a general theory of social sustainability. The common ground in social sustainability is that it refers to the human dimension of sustainability – on how well social factors are in a given place. The article proposes that human well-being is at the centre of social sustainability separating it from, for example, ecological sustainability. Within the social sphere three aspects can be distinguished: (1) citizen well-being, (2) communities and culture, and (3) human institutions. When these are combined with time dimension, they yield respective three dimensions of social sustainability of which well-being sustainability is the central aspect and the others are instrumental to it. To the extent these function well, they increase human well-being which, then, increases trust and functioning of the other dimensions forming a positive cycle. Human well-being also serves as a natural boundary for social sustainability: sufficient amount of satisfaction with one’s life, the community and institutions is required for the citizens to have an interest in maintaining the society. The greater the interest the greater the resilience of system in the face of system-wide shocks again contributing to social sustainability through individual agency.

The empirical section operationalizes the central aspects of well-being and social sustainability and uses European wide data such as the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions, that is a wide representative data on European citizens including measures on subjective and objective well-being, to answer the research questions empirically.

Better understanding of the dynamics between well-being and inequalities therein (based on, for example, age, gender and socioeconomic class) can help policymaking to enhance well-being in the context of ageing and financially strained welfare states. Better understanding of the relationships between well-being and social sustainability will shed light on social sustainability, the third central pillar of sustainable development, which has suffered from conceptual ambiguity, contradicting definitions, and indicators not founded in any explicit theory. This will help in better grasping its nature, how to reach it, and, importantly, how to reach it within the boundaries of ecological sustainability.

ABSTRACT. Many believe that the purpose of economic growth is to improve human welfare. Any economic activity has some degree of environmental impact, with higher activity as measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) typically involving a more considerable environmental impact. In light of this circumstance, economic growth can be conceived of as wasted if it is not accompanied by improved welfare. In this paper, a concept of “wasted GDP” is introduced. In this perspective, GDP is wasted if it does not support welfare. By estimating what portion of a country´s GDP is wasted, we can assess how effectively the country promotes welfare. The paper is focused on a case study assessing the performance of the United States of America (USA), based on analysis of Human Development Index data. The USA started out as no. 2 in the world by HDI in 1990, but has since been sliding down the list in terms of ranking. While by 2010 the USA was no longer among the world´s 10 most developed countries by this measure, by 2021 it was no longer among the world´s 20 most developed countries. The average US citizen has an income that is considerably higher than the average income in most other countries, including in most rich countries. But despite solid economic growth, over the last three decades the USA has fallen behind several other highly developed countries in the Human Development Index (HDI). 27 countries, large and small, now outperform the USA in terms of nonincome human development, relating to the Health and Education dimensions of HDI. Of these, 22 countries outperforms the USA by nonincome HDI despite having a lower GNI per capita than the USA. I stipulate the share of US GDP that is wasted by comparing US HDI performance with the HDI performance of better performing countries by nonincome HDI that have a lower GDP per capita than the USA. I also estimate ecological pressures related to the USA´s suboptimal human development performance, specifically US CO2 emissions and material footprint related to wasted GDP.

ABSTRACT. Inequality is a major problem in modern times, with profound consequences for economies, societies and policies. The most advanced theories of inequality emphasize the multidimensional, systemic, intersectional and cumulative character of social inequalities, constraining the well-being of citizens, and the sustainable development of countries. Well-being is still a far-off dream for millions of people in all world regions, who face various forms of suffering, deprivations and injustices. Working within the framework of the 2030 UN Agenda for Sustainable Development and with a special focus on SDG 10 (reduced inequalities), this research has two overarching objectives: 1) it sets out to investigate the different configurations of social, economic, and political inclusion in European countries; and 2) it aims to analyze the relations of several types of inequalities with the specific configurations of inclusion observed in contemporary Europe. This analysis investigates the influence of distributive and categorical inequalities in the conditions concerning the inclusion of European citizens, namely their shared resources (education and income), their place in certain social categories (class, gender, ethnicity, age, disability or religion), and their socio-political contexts (country of origin). Social, economic and political inclusion implies increasing capabilities for social participation, greater opportunities to fulfill normatively prescribed social roles, broader parameters of recognition and dignity, and a stronger sense of trust, integration and solidarity at the societal level. We have developed bivariate and multivariate analyses and articulated several statistical methods, based on updated micro-data from the European Social Survey (years 2016 and 2020), about 21 countries that comprise several regions of Europe. We have sought to 1) build a system of indicators that can measure inequalities and inclusion within the European context through space and time; 2) compare European countries and determine clusters of countries according to the levels of social, economic, and political inclusion; 3) understand the relations between inequalities and inclusion in each “cluster of countries”, through regression analysis; and 4) pinpoint recent European changes that happened between 2016 and 2020, through the evolution of key-indicators of inequality and inclusion. The data analyzed in Europe suggests that there is still much to be done to meet the objectives defined in SDG 10. The results obtained reveal social inequalities as differentiated drivers of the conditions of social, economic and political inclusion of European citizens. The research results make it possible to overcome strict visions of European integration, convergence, and social cohesion, by offering an innovative approach to monitoring progress in achieving the objectives of Target 10.2 of SDG 10. In its various forms, the reduction of inequalities also depends on creating theoretical and analytical instruments to monitor the effects of policies on equality and inclusion. Moreover, the empirical framework proposed by organizations such as the UN, the Eurostat and the OECD for achieving the implementation of the SDGs, is lacking in multidimensional scope and does not allow the evaluation of the interrelating subjective perceptions of citizens.

ABSTRACT. In the current study, we consider the viability of a bifactor model of children’s subjective well-being (SWB) by contributing to the discussion on the dimensionality of children’s SWB. We specify a general factor of SWB and four group factors (context-free life satisfaction, domain-based life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect) using structural equation modeling and parcelling. We used data from the Children’s Worlds International Survey of Children’s Well-Being (N = 92 782). Our analysis strategy included confirmatory factor analysis and bifactor analysis. We found a good fit for the specified bifactor model, with all items loading onto a General Factor and Group Factors. For the bifactor analysis, after controlling for the General Factor, the loadings on the Group Factors were substantially lower and did not meet the criteria of acceptability for bifactor indices thresholds. The common variance of the items is largely explained by the General Factor; the specification of the Group Factors cannot be justified. We found an excellent fit for a model using the parceling approach. From a measurement perspective, the construct of children’s SWB can potentially be measured as a unidimensional construct. Thus, it may be feasible to report a total score for children’s SWB, as opposed to scores on the individual subscales (group factors). Applied researchers can thus confidently use subjective wellbeing as a unidimensional construct or follow the parceling approach in the structural equation model context.

ABSTRACT. Child adoption was prevalent in colonial Taiwan, in which about 42% of the females had been adopted. The adoption behavior, considered as a mechanism of reducing infanticide, enhanced child wellbeing, especially in girls. Scholars documented that the application of child adoption served for several purposes, for example, (1) increasing family labor force, (2) preparing for a minor marriage in which females moved to their husbands' households during their childhood, and (3) replacing the loss of children, in the adoptive families. On the other hand, the act of the biological parents giving away their children to reduce the burden of raising too many children increased the survival possibility of the undesired children.

Although giving away children to increase their survival possibility was rational, the question was who should have been the adoptees. The researcher argues that giving away children was a way of family survival or a strategy for family continuity. Parents only sent certain children away so that the continuity of their families, which depended on whether the family had enough labor force and children to carry family surnames, was ensured. Therefore, the characteristics of the adoptees and their siblings were crucial for the adoptive parents in making the decision of an adoption.

Finding out the key characteristics of the adoptees is the aim of this research. Drawing data from the Taiwan Historical Household Registers Database (1906-1945), the researcher conducted a preliminary analysis to investigate the factors associated with the hazards of out-adoption among children in Xinzhu, located on the edge of northern Taiwan. Results showed that girls were more likely to be adopted out than boys, and most adoptees were given away at young ages. In addition, the statistical results showed that sibling composition was important. The first boy or girl was barely given away in any household.

Preliminary findings based on limited data of four settlements in northern Taiwan showed a regional pattern. Data of more settlements should be included to generate a more complete understanding of adoption in colonial Taiwan. Further analysis will also include data of the villages in Penghu, an archipelago of 90 isles, located approximately 50 kilometers west of Taiwan main island. Due to the restricted geography, fishery was its main industry while agriculture was limited. Its population lived in hardship during the Japanese colonization. People migrated to Taiwan main island as seasonal workers during winter. The hardship made Penghu villagers develop different survival strategies that could have affected their behaviors and decisions on child adoption. In the paper, the researcher will also compare the differences of out-adoption between Taiwan mainland and its isles.

ABSTRACT. The transition to adolescence is one of the most challenging developmental periods for a child’s and adolescents’ mental health. Developmental changes in this period provide useful skills for mental health preservation, but challenges also occur as children are still acquiring adequate emotion regulation capacities. In this turbulent period, parental behaviors are one of the many factors which may offer protection or hazard to a child’s mental health development. Several types of parental behavior have been linked to a child’s emotional and behavioral problems. Parental support has been negatively linked to different mental health problems, while restrictive control and permissiveness were positively linked to different mental health problems. The goal of this study is to assess whether parenting behaviors reported by mothers, fathers, and children predict changes in different child’s emotional and behavioral problems over a period of one year. The study was conducted as part of the project Child well-being in the context of family, which is financed by the Croatian Science Foundation. In this study, children aged between 9 and 12 years at first wave assessed mothers’ and fathers’ parenting behaviors and their own emotional, conduct, and hyperactivity-inattention problems. Mothers and fathers also assessed their own parenting behaviors. Parental behaviors were used as a predictor of residualized change in children’s emotional and behavioral problems only for children who lived with the parent whose behaviors were assessed (1165 child-mother pairs, and 913 child-father pairs). Bivariate correlations mostly showed the expected pattern of associations between parenting behaviors and a child’s emotional and behavioral problems. For child-reported parenting behaviors, mothers’ and fathers’ support was linked to decreases in conduct problem behaviors. Perceived fathers’ support was further linked with decreases in emotional and hyperactivity problems. Perceived mother’s restrictive control was positively linked to increases in emotional and conduct problems. For mother-reported parenting behaviors, support and restrictive control were related to changes in conduct problems only. Father reported parenting behaviors were not related to changes in the child’s emotional and behavioral problems. Overall, associations of parenting behaviors and changes in a child’s emotional and behavioral problems over a year were relatively small in magnitude with children’s perceived parenting having the highest number of significant effects.

ABSTRACT. As a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, social-distancing measures have been implemented worldwide, including school closures. Previous studies indicated that children's relational social cohesion with family (RSC-Fa) and friends (RSC-Fr) may have decreased during the pandemic, but some children described that positive experiences were gained from the confinement measures of social distancing. Mostly, these studies are qualitative or capture a single country and have an exploratory character. Using data collected in 2021 of more than 20,000 children primarily aged 9–13 years as part of the International Children's Worlds COVID-19 Supplement Survey from 18 countries (Germany, Turkey, Bangladesh, Italy, Albania, Romania, Chile, Wales, Taiwan, Belgium, Algeria, Israel, Russia, South Korea, Indonesia, Estonia, Finland, and Spain), this study aimed to examine how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected children's RSC-Fa and RSC-Fr and explore the role of relational factors. RSC-Fa and RSC-Fr are measured through satisfaction in relationships with family members and friends before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, respectively. We employed descriptive statistics, cluster analysis, and multinomial logistic regression analysis. Our analyses confirmed the decrease in RSC-Fa and RSC-Fr, with a noticeably bigger decrease in RSC-Fr. Five profiles of change in RSC emerged: (1) gainers in both RSC; (2) gainers in RSC-Fa and decliners in RSC-Fr; (3) no change in either RSC; (4) decliners in RSC-Fa and gainers in RSC-Fr; and (5) decliners in both RSC. The quantity and quality of children's relationships differ by their profiles of change in RSC. For example, it was significantly more likely that “decliners in both RSC” had to be at home all day because of COVID-19 than “gainers in both RSC” or “no changers.” Mainly, the quantity of relationship factors, and among different quality factors, only autonomy perceptions, help to explain the children belonging to the “gainers in both RSC” profile compared to the “no changers.” Meanwhile, almost all the quantity and quality of relationships factors help to explain children's belonging to the “decliners in both RSC” profile compared to “no changers.” In conclusion, our study confirmed the importance of keeping schools open to protect the RSC of children.

ABSTRACT. In this study, we use an unexpected crew rescheduling announcement during a survey data collection at a large European airline to examine the relationship between the loss of schedule control and employee well-being. Using propensity score matching models, we find a negative effect of the rescheduling announcement on job satisfaction, but not on life satisfaction. The decrease in work-related well-being can be attributed to a decrease in work-life balance and satisfaction with management. In addition, we find that the well-being of part-time workers and senior staff members are more affected by the announcement than the well-being of full-time workers.

ABSTRACT. We use the UK Time-Use Survey to analyze how differences in the frequency and intensity of social contacts contribute to the experienced well-being of employed and unemployed persons. We observe that people generally enjoy being with others more than being alone. The unemployed generally feel worse than the employed when engaging in the same kind of activities, partly because they are more often alone. The unemployed can replace lost work contacts only partially with private contacts. In terms of experienced well-being, however, the small increase in time spent with family and friends (which people enjoy a lot) offsets the loss of work contacts (which people generally enjoy only little). Hence, we do not find that the differences in the social-contact composition between the employed and the unemployed are associated with differences in their experienced well-being.

ABSTRACT. Income is an important component for an individual's well-being. There are, however, many means by which someone can earn it. There is extensive literature in economics providing a wealth of robust evidence that the relationship between income and happiness is positive. Nevertheless, most studies to date treat income as one variable with no attempt to break it down to its different sources such as income earned from labour, social or private benefits and income from investments among others. This distinction is important because of the social norms and stigma effects that exist, especially in small areas where people identify that they belong. We further argue that the level of social capital as well as the share of individuals receiving stigmatised income in the area moderate the relationship between subjective well-being and stigmatised income. The article uses data from the United Kingdom, where individuals are nested at the Local Authority Districts (LADs) level, while we employ linear and quantile regressions as well as propensity score matching techniques that allow us to examine the causal effect of stigmatised income on happiness. We find that the various sources of income have a different (and nonlinear) relationship with happiness, even after controlling for a wide range of relevant individual characteristics. We also find that when controlling for social capital measures at the small geographical scale, the latter act as a buffer against stigmatised income resulting in mitigating its effect. Lastly, we show that social benefits seem to have a negative and significant causal effect on happiness.

ABSTRACT. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms are known for predicting accelerated aging. However, it has not been examined whether individuals are subjectively aware of this process. The present study examined whether PTSD symptoms predict subjective accelerated aging and whether quality of life status moderates this relationship. One hundred and thirty-two community-dwelling older adults (M = 66.85, SD = 9.13) who were sampled through random dialing of Jewish residents in the south of Israel completed the questionnaire twice: At Wave 1 after the flare-up of an Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and at Wave 2, a year later. Participants reported their PTSD symptoms, positive mental health (quality of life), and on their subjective accelerated aging a year later. Higher levels of PTSD symptoms and lower levels of positive mental health were separately related to increased subjective accelerated aging. Participants with a lower level of positive mental health demonstrated a stronger association between PTSD symptoms and subjective accelerated aging. These findings emphasize that individuals who suffer from higher levels of PTSD symptoms and specifically those with lower levels of positive mental health status tend to feel they are aging faster. This finding adds to previous research suggesting that alongside the physiological process of accelerated aging there is also a subjective similar process.

ABSTRACT. Context: There is a growing consent that well-being is a multi-dimensional concept. Yet, there is no widely accepted method to make interpersonal well-being comparisons in a multidimensional framework. At the same time, aging trends pose formidable pressure on public health care (funding) and urge the need to develop an adequate yardstick for policy targeting. Dominant approaches using either the objective view of experts or the self-rated subjective well-being scores of older people appeared to fail to respect “what matters to older people” in interpersonal comparisons.

Objective: Against this background, we present a new instrument based on a factorial survey to derive a weighting system that reflects older peoples’ view on the relative importance of well-being dimensions (about their “preferences” as in the economic jargon) (the “Well-Being At Older Age” instrument). Notwithstanding that the factorial survey has a long pedigree in social science to address human judgements, we are, to the best of our knowledge, the first to use it for the implementation a preference-based instrument. We provide an empirical illustration of our instrument and compare it to the common “objective” or “subjective” approaches with respect to the highly policy-relevant question of who are the worse off.

Methods: We implemented our Well-BOA instrument using novel data from an online survey among older people in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking northern part of Belgium).

Results: Compared to the existing approaches, the Well-BOA instrument leaded to considerably different well-being rankings of older people. The lower ranked individuals according to the subjective approach were generally less deprived, but in a worse states of mental well-being. The relative risk of deprivation in dimensions of well-being that matter more to older people was generally higher according to the Well-BOA instrument than according to the objective approach. The opposite was true for dimensions that were considered to be less important.

Discussion: This study shows that measurement matters when making interpersonal well-being comparisons at older age. The decision which approach to use may thus have strong implications for the outcome of research focusing on the worst (or best) off and the design of targeted policies. It is therefore important that researchers and policymakers are aware of the potential implications of their choices and that they are open for debate.

A full version of the paper can be provided upon request if needed.

ABSTRACT. Maintaining a high quality of life for the elderly is currently one field of utmost importance in QoL research. The question arises how adequate health and housing conditions as well as functioning social integration can be prolonged for as long as possible. Taking demographic changes into account, the need for health care among the elderly is going to increase significantly in the coming decades (Dall et al. 2013; Harper 2014). One possible way of dealing with these forthcoming challenges is to rely increasingly on the use of modern technologies, such as avatar and telecare solutions (Turner & McGee-Lennon 2013; Bujnowska-Fedak & Grata-Borkowska 2015; Schulz et al. 2015; Miller & Polson 2019).

In our study as a part of a collaborative research project (cf. Krutter et al. 2022) we evaluate an Avatar-solution called “Addison” as an example of a technological tablet-based tool that supports older people in private households in monitoring their health. The avatar was developed to establish an interaction platform close to real life, enables a user-centred remote patient monitoring and care management, and personifies the telecare experience by representing an interactable 3D-animated virtual caregiver in one's own home to facilitate autonomous and independent living.

To measure the attitudes of the elderly population regarding the software and to assess the extent of technological readiness for technological advancements in the care sector, we financed an extensive population survey in the D-A-CH region, which will be conducted in spring 2023. The study will be based on a quota sample drawn by an established online-access provider. We are particularly interested in the perspective of the older population, which we take into special consideration by means of oversampling. In total, more than 1000 respondents will take part in the quota sample in every country and we intend to survey more than 1500 respondents above 65 years.

In the construction of our technologically advanced online-questionnaire we follow a clear theoretical framework to come to sophisticated results on the extent of technological readiness in the D-A-CH region. First, we integrate a comprehensive list of background variables to control for differences in technological readiness among social groups, across socio-demographic factors and between the three nations. Second, we measure subjective factors potentially influencing attitudes towards technological advancements in care (such as health impairments, perceived quality of life, social inclusion and a general affinity towards new technologies). Third, the appearance and functionality of Addison stands in the fore of the study and is enriched by general views about potentials and limits of Avatar-solutions in the D-A-CH context. After constructing sophisticated scales and controlling for their reliabilities and dimensionalities, we finally compute sequential regression models to assess the dynamics of technological readiness towards innovations in the care sector and to take sociodemographic, structural and country differences adequately into account. As the project will be completed in early summer we are able to present extensive results and to give first insights into the potentials of new (virtual) care instruments in the European context based on large-scale population samples.

ABSTRACT. Routine approaches to population well-being aggregation have thorny ethical implications that are rarely, if ever, acknowledged. The problem of quantifying population well-being has not received enough attention, despite the fact that many countries are adopting well-being strategies alongside economic ones. The most popular approach is a variant of simple summing or conventional regression, where the average is used to represent the distribution of happiness. However, using average well-being as a key performance indicator is problematic for numerous reasons, not the least of which is its tolerance for increases in average well-being at the cost of the worst off in a given society. Alternative methods of aggregation have been proposed by philosophers dating back to the 13th century up to the 21st century. In this paper, we critically examine three alternative practical methods of aggregation along with their supporting theories of prioritarianism, sufficientarianism, and egalitarianism and contrast them to the standard—average utilitarianism. Second, using Gallup World Poll data from almost 300,000 participants in 140 countries, we calculated the 10-year difference in well-being using the tenets of each framework. Our findings show notable differences in the rankings of the countries according to different aggregative theories. These results demonstrate the need to reevaluate the existing paradigm of well-being aggregation and realign it with societal values of equity, which may be better expressed in the alternative methods outlined. Given the shift in global priorities toward well-being promotion, we risk detrimental consequences if our policy decisions are informed by aggregative methods that are ambivalent towards those that are suffering in our society.

ABSTRACT. Marsh and Scalas (2018) proposed a taxonomic structural equation modeling (SEM) approach to test the individually importance weighted-average models (IWAMs). As Marsh and Scalas (2018) pointed out, IWAMs could be found in many research areas, including self-concept, job satisfaction, and quality of life (QOL) research. Based on the findings of their proposed approach, Marsh and Scalas (2018) argued that importance weights don’t make a difference. The purpose of this paper is to assess the applicability of the approach developed by Marsh and Scalas (2018) in the area of QOL, specifically subjective well-being (SWB), research. In the research area of QOL, IWAMs have been discussed often under the topic of domain importance weighting. Findings from an analysis of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics’ Wellbeing and Daily Life Supplement data show that different domain importance weighting methods, based on different underlying (within-domain vs between/across-domain) perspectives, produced different results leading to different conclusions. Although the SEM approach for testing IWAMs developed by Marsh and Scalas (2018) offered several methodological advances and strengths, its applicability to the evaluation of domain importance weighting in QOL studies is limited by its underlying (within-domain) perspective, its assumption that domain importance can be accurately and precisely measured, and the possibility of the small effect size of domain importance. Marsh and Scalas’ (2018) findings that importance weights don’t make a difference should be interpreted with caution.

ABSTRACT. UWE („Umwelt, Wohlbefinden und Entwicklung“ = “Environment, Well-Being and Development”) is a classroom-based, repeated cross-sectional study. It set out asking every youth in grades 7 and 9 in two Ruhr-Area municipalities about their well-being, everyday life, and social resources, every other year since 2019. Multidimensional operationalisation of subjective well-being, social resources, and contexts, allow drawing a comprehensive picture of adolescent life from a socio-ecological perspective. The general approach is to hand out questionnaires in class-rooms with a researcher and a teacher present. Researchers are responsible for explaining and answering questions, while teachers are much needed figures of trust and authority during these sessions.

In 2021, schools were either closed or classes were split in learning-at-home and learning-in-school-groups, and the situation was changing every week. Schools in one of two municipalities did not want to continue. In the second municipality, schools agreed to cooperate. Their handling of the situation and equipment for online-surveys differed wildly.

Thus, interviews took place in school with only teachers present, with teachers present and researchers present via video-conference technology (VCT), or at home with researchers present via VCT but without teachers. Questionnaires were filled out using school-owned devices, students’ own devices or paper-forms, depending on teachers’ preferences and schools’ equipment. We had different modes in the same schools and even classrooms were interviewed in different setups, due to the unique pandemic situation.

Teachers turned out to be crucial for our survey approach: parents trust them (parental consent, unit nonresponse), students respect their authority (unit & item nonresponse, validity) and rely on their expertise (item nonresponse, validity). However, relying on them to convey a scientific survey might bias results. Not least because the questionnaires contain questions about school, relationships to adults in school and further topics that are prone to social desirability bias. The presence of external adults (researchers) could possibly intervene, as they could stress the importance of neutrality of the present adults, either verbally or just by being present.

Aim of this study is testing how item-nonresponse, interview duration and drop-out-rate differ between groups, depending on their supervision. Results could help researchers surveying youths and adolescents to decide (1) whether they allow confidants or other adults to be present during (group-)interviews, (2) if they can rely on teachers alone when surveying classrooms and (3) if it is cost-efficient to send out researchers for classroom sessions.

ABSTRACT. Empowering persons with disability and providing them opportunities for participation and self determination according to the Convention on the Rights for Persons with Disabilities involves adequate options for the self-reporting of quality of life (QOL). However, QOL information in practice is often measured by proxy reports given by relatives or caregivers. Consequently, the aim of our research was to develop a feasible procedure to measure self-reported QOL in individuals with deafness and intellectual disability (ID) adapted to their cognitive and communicative abilities. Based on an established short measure for QOL (EUROHIS-QOL), we developed an adapted easy-to-understand sign language version which was applied in a population (n=61) with severe-to-profound hearing loss and mild-to-profound ID (IQ-reference age between 2.8 and 11.8 years) who are enrolled in a specialized therapeutic living community in Austria. Self-reports were conducted twice (t1 and t2), with 6 months in between. Moreover, two additional measures of validation criteria (Stark QOL and an experimental light response) were obtained (at t2) and three proxy ratings of QOL from caregivers were conducted for each participant at t1. Self-reported QOL was successfully administered for 80% of the population and 61% (IQ reference age between 4.0 and 11.8 years) showed good questionnaire comprehension. Self reports showed sufficient test-retest reliability and - contrary to proxy measures - significant correlations with the Stark validation criteria. Whereas fair to good consistency of self reports with proxy ratings were found, the absolute agreements were lower which is due to a systematic higher self-reported QOL compared to proxy reports. It is concluded that reliable and valid self-reports of QOL are possible in a population with moderate levels of ID and hearing loss by adapting standard inventories to their special linguistic and cognitive needs.

ABSTRACT. In the current paper, the empirical findings of C.W.-SMILE for the whole country of Greece regarding the school year 2022–2023 are presented. In particular, the successive crises in Greece over the last few years have had a negative impact on society as a whole. These effects are most visible in the rapid increase in child poverty over the same time period. This paper focuses on the whole country of Greece, regarding factors affecting children’s well-being. More specifically, in all the previous years, the research of C.W.-SMILE focused only on one region, Attica in Greece. For the first time, this research is being extended to the whole country of Greece. Taking this into account, the research question on which this paper is based deals with the state of children’s quality of life in Greece. The main aim of this paper is to present and discuss the results of the quantitative research of C.W.-SMILE regarding the whole country. Its secondary aim is to propose specific policies.

ABSTRACT. The primary aim of the study was to determine the relation between the frequency of children’s interactions with family and friends and their subjective well-being amongst a sample of children residing in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. Within this process, the study further aimed to determine the differential relation of interactions with family and friends across two age groups (10- and 12-year-olds) and gender. The study included a sample of 2252 children between the ages of 10- to 12-years (Mage = 11.01, SD = 1.00). The instrument comprised a revised version of the Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale and six items representing the frequency of interactions with family and friends. We used confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling to analyse the data, with multi-group structural equation modelling to analyse the data across the two age groups and gender. We found a significant relation between children’s frequency of interactions with family and friends and their subjective well-being. While each of the latent constructs made a significant contribution, ‘frequency of interactions with family’ made the highest contribution to subjective well-being for the overall sample. Multi-group structural equation modelling demonstrated evidence of scalar invariance across age (10- and 12-year-olds) and gender, which endorses comparisons across groups by correlations, regression coefficients and mean scores. The latent variable ‘frequency of interactions with family’ presented with a stronger contribution for both age groups, as well as for both boys and girls. The study highlights the importance of social relationships on children’s lives and well-being.

ABSTRACT. In order to improve the measurement of well-being of children and adolescents, in recent years a growing number of OECD countries have developed child-specific well-being measurement activities, in some cases motivated by policy initiatives (New Zealand), in others simply to improve the monitoring of well-being of this specific group of population (United States, Australia, United Kingdom, Ireland, and Finland). All initiatives are based on a multidimensional approach and identify a set of indicators to capture child well-being. While largely focusing on outcomes, a few initiatives (e.g., Australia, New Zealand, UNICEF) emphasize also that, particularly for children, well-being is embedded in the family, social, community, and physical environment (UNICEF, 2020), recognizing that children's outcomes are influenced by and intertwined with different levels of social influence and underlining the importance of children's connections and relationships with the physical and social environment in which they live. In Italy, the National Institute of Statistics (Istat) launched in 2023 an initiative to develop a specific framework for measuring well-being of children and adolescents, building on the project launched by Istat in 2010 to measure equitable and sustainable well-being (Bes). Developing a child well-being measurement system in Italy certainly means adopting the same kind of multidimensional approach adopted for the Bes. However, the most recent international experiences, which embed child well-being in the broader spheres of the family, the social environment, the community and the environment cannot be disregarded. The purpose of this paper is to present analysis already carried out on adolescents to measure the recent evolution of their well-being, based on the Bes framework on the general population, and to discuss the first advances and the perspectives ahead for the development of the specific framework to measure well-being of children and adolescents in Italy.

ABSTRACT. Mathematics is important in other sciences and societies, so its education plays a major role in the development of societies. The lack of deep learning is still one of the challenges for educators. In this research, the girl students’ attitude and quality of their life towards mathematics education were examined and predicted. Two questionnaires including personal characteristics - quality of life and students’ attitude based on revised Bloom's taxonomy towards mathematics were analyzed by the Rasch model. After investigating fitting data with item Characteristic Curve, students’ agreement and item location were compared on a common scale like the Wright map. The left side of the Wright Map shows the distribution of students' ability to choose the questions on the right side. The questions related to GPA, math score, satisfaction with transportation to the educational place and satisfaction with solving math problems in appropriate solutions are located in the lowest place on the Map, while parents' education, lack of health and working for educational needs are located at the top of the map with the least agreement. Results show the students' attitude towards revised Bloom's taxonomy is almost middle. In addition, the feeling of confusion and depression towards education at the bottom map with the students' agreement. The students believe that mathematics will improve their life and be useful in their future, but they still don’t know its application and not get involved in mathematics concepts in daily life. so, educators should concentrate on effective factors in education and decrease existing problems to improve students’ performance. The study approach is to identify the intervals by means of the expected average value of the responses at each point on the latent variable at the Rasch-half-point threshold. It is particularly useful for predicting an individual or sample about which nothing else is.

ABSTRACT. Background: Given the convenient and prevalence of social network site and wireless Internet access, a phenomenon “fear of missing out” (FoMO) becomes serious a concern about psychological well-being. Some review has found that FoMO is related to mental health. Another line of research demonstrated that character strength has a positive impact on mental health. More importantly, character strength is proposed to act as a protective factor that may mitigate the negative influence of risk factor on mental health and well-being. Accordingly, this research focused on how social intelligent (SI) may buffer the relationship between FoMO on psychological well-being, namely depression and anxiety in a medical students from Taiwan.

Method: A self-administered survey was distributed to third-year medical students during the first week of Fall in in 2022 (N = 169). SI was one of character strength, measured by the VIA-120. FoMO was based on Przybylski scale with 10 items, each has five response categories, ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Depression was accessed by the PHQ-9 scale (9 items) with four response categories for each item. Anxiety was based on GAD-7 scale (7 items) with four response categories for each item. Several covariates were also included (e.g., family SES and family cohesion) to multivariate regression model.

Results: All the scales were first submitted to explanatory factor analysis, items that loaded lower than 0.45 on a particular factor or cross-loaded were discarded. The regression showed that higher score on FoMO was significantly and positively associated with depression (β= .98; p < .05) but not anxiety. Further analyses showed that FoMO was significantly and positively associated with depression (β= .1.07; p < .1) and anxiety (β= 1.22; p < .05) when medical students had a lower level of SI. Yet, this association was disappeared when students had a higher level of SI (1 SD above the mean). Conclusion: The results showed that while FoMO may be detrimental to medical students’ psychological well-being but a higher SI protects these medical students from psychological harm. Intervention that focused on promoting psychological well-being of medical students should take social intelligent into consideration.

ABSTRACT. Universities today play a crucial part in achieving the goal of academic achievement and excellence. Studies have examined how certain students struggle to adjust to the distinctiveness and requirements of the academic surroundings and thereby get affected by stress and anxiety while there are certain students who get into the academic environment with cognitive and psychological resources that sustain them toward effective coping with the everyday challenges they face. The current study examines the relationships between Psychological Capital (PsyCap) and Wisdom and their impact on the Academic Adjustment of Undergraduate Students in Higher Education Institutions. This research study followed a survey research design (non-experimental and quantitative in nature). A google form comprising a consent form and questionnaires was designed and floated among relevant students eligible to participate. 178 undergraduate students second year onwards voluntarily participated in the study from universities prominently in India, and one from abroad. Three questionnaires were used to assess PsyCap (24-item Psychological Capital Questionnaire by Fred Luthans, Bruce J. Avolio, James B. Avey, 2007), Wisdom (40-item Self-Assessed Wisdom Scale by Jeffrey Dean Webster, 2003; 2007), and Academic Adjustment (Academic Adjustment Scale by Joel R. Anderson, Yao Guan, Yasin Koc, 2016) respectively. A moderate positive correlation is obtained between Academic Adjustment and Psychological Capital and Wisdom (Multiple R – 0.47). The regression analysis suggests that both Psychological Capital and Wisdom are statistically significant in predicting the Academic Adjustment of Undergraduate students. Based on the structural equation model, with the dependent variable of academic adjustment and independent variables of wisdom and psychological capital, the results show that psychological capital has a statistically significant positive relationship with academic adjustment (b=0.31, p<0.001), while wisdom does not have a statistically significant relationship with academic adjustment (b=0.01, p=0.787). These findings suggest that students who have higher levels of psychological capital may be more likely to experience positive academic adjustment, whereas the level of wisdom may not have a significant impact on academic adjustment. This study has implications for societal integration, social inclusion, and occupational success, which are grounded in academic success.

ABSTRACT. The importance of effective human interaction in various settings, be it industry, academia or society has always been primal in determining connections and building relationships among individuals. The mere existence of exchange may not guarantee healthy relations and a lot of research has been targeted toward understanding how one can bring positivity and strength to the connections one builds. In industry, organizations have been researching areas of building positive relationships, practices that foster strengthening conversations, and building effective teams. Similarly to this, academia also needs to relook at this subject and try identifying and developing opportunities to build and foster relationships and connections that are positive and high quality. Although research has shown how HQCs have a bearing on individual and organizational outcomes, through this paper, we try to look at the relationship between Ph.D. Mentor and Mentee through the lens of “High-quality connections”. The idea of choosing the context bears from the fact that relationships like that of a Mentor-Mentee are relatively long-term and may benefit from the attributes of “High-Quality Connections”. Through a thematic qualitative analysis of 3 semi-structured video-recorded interviews, we try to identify themes in a mentor-mentee relationship and connect the same with the existing literature on High-Quality Connections. Organizations greatly depend upon individuals to interact and form connections that facilitate achievement and enhance performance on goals. Connections developed in the workplace thus have a bearing on the individual per se by the virtue of time spent with these connections. The connections aren’t mere interactions but need to be defined through certain quality parameters. People's interactions have a great influence on the way they perform their roles and the delivery they bring to the table. Due to this, it is vital that individuals develop connections that not only foster individual well-being but also overall organizational wellbeing.

ABSTRACT. Background and aims Self-actualization, entailing the development and expression of the authentic self, is considered to be the highest level of well-being. Personal growth initiative refers to a developed set of skills for self-improvement, constituting a global inclination to intentionally improve one’s self across life domains. This research aimed to 1) disentangle the association between self-actualization, personal growth initiative and well-being (study 1) and 2) to investigate whether self-actualization mediated the association between positive emotions and well-being (study 2). The latter hypothesis was based on the broaden-build theory, stating that positive emotions broaden an individual's momentary thought-action, build personal resources and increase well-being by transforming the self. Design Study 1 encompassed a cross-sectional online survey in a general population sample (N=461, 68% female, mean age=45y (SD=17y)). The Short Index of Self-Actualization (SISA), the Personal Growth Initiative II (PGIS-II) and the Mental Health Continuum Short Form (MHC-SF) were used to measure the key concepts. Study 2 included a prospective design with three measurements (4-weeks interval) in a general population sample (Nt1=495; Nt3=314 (63.4%), 71% female, mean age=45y (SD=15y)). In addition to SISA, PGIS-II, MHC-SF, the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) was used to measure positive emotions. Results Results of the multivariate regression analysis showed that both self-actualization and personal growth initiative were positively associated with well-being (study 1). Results of the mediation analysis revealed that self-actualization mediated the association between positive emotions and well-being completely (study 2). Limitations Design of study 1 (cross-sectional) and non-representative samples Discussion/practical implication The desire to develop oneself as well as the skills to actively explore new possibilities contribute to well-being. Positive emotions fuel self-actualization. Therefore, it is important to create conditions in which positive emotions are experienced as well as in which developmental skills are learned and further refined.

ABSTRACT. Maslow’s needs theory proposes a hierarchy of needs and argues for their sequential satisfaction. The theory has been very influential in development studies, in the establishment of development priorities, in the design of policies and social programs, and in the role economic growth plays as central development instrument. This paper relies on a large and representative database from Mexico to empirically test four assumptions which are commonly associated to Maslow’s theory: that needs are satisfied sequentially, that income is a relevant resource in the satisfaction of relevant needs, that the hierarchy of needs is associated to their well-being contribution, and that Maslow’s proposed sequential path in the satisfaction of needs -beginning with the satisfaction of physiological ones and ending with the satisfaction of self-actualization ones- is the best possible one. Data on satisfaction of needs is used to address the first two assumptions, while a subjective well-being approach is used to deal with the last two assumptions. The four assumptions are rejected. In consequence, it is possible to think about strategies in the satisfaction of needs that do not follow the sequential satisfaction proposed by Maslow and which question the hierarchical order he proposed. The paper highlights the relevance of the needs of love and belonging and of esteem, and it argues for an integrated view of human beings and of their needs, as well as for following a balanced strategy in their satisfaction. Implications for development studies and for the design of sustainable development strategies and social programs are discussed.

ABSTRACT. Happiness and meaning in life have become popular research subjects in the last years among social scientists, as well as clinical and positive psychologists. Yet, despite numerous studies, researchers have yet to establish a clear difference between these two constructs. In the present project, we propose effort as a factor that differentiates the perception of an experience as happy and/or meaningful. Our main goal was to extend the existing knowledge by verifying how the perceived effort of a given experience influences its assessment in terms of happiness and meaning. In addition, we tested the relationship between effort, happiness, and meaning depending on whether the act's goal was to help others or to fulfill a personal goal. In three experiments, a total of 996 (N = 996) adult participants took part. In each study, the participant was presented with a story of an unknown person who either undertook a given activity to achieve a personal goal or for charity reasons. The described experience was also associated with high or low effort. Thus, all the studies were in a 2 (low vs. high effort) x 2 (social vs. personal goal) between-subjects design. After presenting the story, we asked the participants about how meaningful, happy, and socially useful the experience was for the individual. Across all three studies, we found that experiences involving higher effort and a social goal were rated as significantly more meaningful than experiences with less effort and motivated by a personal goal. Experiences related to a personal goal and lower effort were assessed as bringing more happiness but less meaning. Moreover, the results of the studies showed that greater effort could reduce the feeling of happiness during the experience but positively affects happiness after reaching the goal. All three studies showed that perceived effort could be the differentiating factor between the perceived meaning and happiness of an experience.

ABSTRACT. The linkage between effort and individual well-being had been the subject of contentious debate. Economic and some psychological models analyze effort as a cost or a disutility, while other philosophical and psychological theories argue that personal effort is a pivotal element for a flourishing life. These theories also distinguish between higher and lower pleasures. The current study seeks to contribute to literature by empirically investigating four questions: first, is effort in five life domains – work, leisure activities, friends, community, and health –associated with individual SWB? Second, are these efforts strongly correlated with each other? In other words, do individuals who exert effort in improving the quality of their work also choose to exert effort to improve their health and/or the quality of their relationships in the community where they live? The third question regards the gap between what people think about effort and what they choose to do. Do people who seeming know that happiness is a result of effort also deliberately choose to engage in activities that require this investment? Our fourth question regards people’s assessments of future happiness relatively to their current happiness. In general, the literature show that people tend to overestimate their future SWB, and so we ask if this tendency is related to the change in their personal effort relative to their current levels of effort? Do people who expect to change the efforts they invest in central happiness domains tend to be less realistic regarding their future happiness? To address these research questions, we conducted a survey of 1,954 working adults aged 25-65, representing the Jewish population in Israel. Respondents were asked about their individual, subjective assessments of the current and future levels of their overall wellbeing. To answer third question, we used the methodology, which asks respondents had to choose between different scenarios representing their actual behavior and estimate, for each scenario, the choice that would improve their happiness. The results contribute four key findings: (1) Effort in five life domains – work, leisure activities, friendship, community, and health – were found to be positively associated with all three components of an individual’s subjective well-being. (2) These efforts are not strongly correlated among themselves, implying that people can choose how to allocate their efforts among the various life domains. (3) The average respondent who reports that happiness is a result of effort also reports that they deliberately choose to engage in activities that require this investment, and (4) people’s future happiness assessments are positively correlated with their expectations regarding future effort. This result suggests that effort affects peoples’ well-being through the notion of hedonic capital accumulation.

ABSTRACT. In this paper, we quantify the causal effects of commuting time and working-from-home (WFH) arrangements on the mental health of Australian men and women. Leveraging sophisticated panel-data models applied to rich longitudinal survey data, our analysis yields several important findings. First, we show that commuting time does not have a significant impact on the mental health of most Australian men and women. An unconditional quantile regression (UQR) reveals that men with pre-existing mental health issues do respond negatively to increases in commuting time, but even among this group the effects are relatively modest. Second, we show that partial WFH arrangements can have large positive effects on the mental health of Australian women, provided that the WFH component is large enough. Also in this case, the largest effects are concentrated among respondents with pre-existing mental health issues. Third, to bolster the external validity of our findings, we show that the negative effects of commuting time in the UK are also driven by respondents who struggle with their mental health. Our findings have important public health implications. Apart from documenting the benefits of WFH arrangements, they highlight the importance of targeted mental health interventions and show that people’s responses to stressors are closely tied to their baseline levels of mental wellbeing.

ABSTRACT. This presentation focuses on the relationship between subjective well-being and productivity, two concepts that have gained significant attention in recent years. Subjective well-being refers to an individual's evaluation of their quality of life, while productivity is a key indicator of the performance of economic entities such as firms, industries, and national economies. The presentation provides a literature review of available evidence on the relationship between these two concepts, drawing from experiments, survey data, spatial studies, and individual, industry, country, and matched individual-firm level analyses. Preliminary results suggest a prevalent positive relationship between subjective well-being and productivity at all levels of analysis, with studies showing that happier and more content individuals tend to be more productive in their daily lives, and firms with higher levels of employee well-being tend to have higher levels of productivity and profitability. However, the relationship appears to vary when considering results from spatial analysis, with subjective well-being being less strongly associated with productivity for local territorial units. Prominent experimental studies provide causal evidence linking subjective well-being to productivity, but the conclusion is not robust to different research protocols and productivity measures. This highlights the need for more objective and reliable measures to accurately assess subjective well-being and productivity. The literature review emphasizes the importance of understanding the relationship between subjective well-being and productivity at various levels of analysis and provides an organized reading of the available evidence, emphasizing its strong and weak points. The presentation suggests directions for further research to improve the understanding of this relationship and promote well-being and productivity in individuals and economic entities.

ABSTRACT. Higher education and employment are two sides of a valuable life-altering coin. This applied interdisciplinary paper attempts to monetize the unhappiness of unemployment by estimating the value of non-monetary loss of psychological benefits of employment as compared to its monetary economic benefits. Investment in education improves the interrelated multidimensional quality of life domains of graduates through streams of returns from employment. Unemployment suspends and impairs dividends from education. This paper proposes calculating the Value of Statistical Employment (VSE) which is the sum of psychological and economic returns from higher education. Psychologists use subjective well-being survey data to quantify happiness. In measuring employment happiness, this paper’s complementary economic approach suggests using the objective revealed preference (government) data and the Value of Statistical Life (VSL) calculation methodologies. The monetary value of the psychological benefits of employment is imputed as follows: First, wealth-risk-reduction tradeoff between the revealed incremental willingness-to-pay for educational costs to reduce the probability of future unemployment rates among males in age-groups or premium unemployment rates are calculated; Second, the monetary value of VSE is estimated, i.e., capitalizing favorable future unemployment-rates (incremental percentages) in exchange for present educational costs; Third, the residual monetary value between the above VSE and all monetary economic benefits of employment is calculated. This residual is a monetary leftover that contains the monetized psychological values of employment. The results show that in 2019, for every $1 of economic benefits earned by an average (age, education) male college graduate, there was an additional companion gain of $0.57 from the psychological benefits of that employment (i.e., the average of $1 before age 45 and $0.145 after).

ABSTRACT. It is well-established that, compared with being unemployed, employment is advantageous for well-being, and not just because of the consequential gain in income. Yet, even though the effect of being employed could be expected to vary depending on a job’s quality, notwithstanding some notable exceptions, the relative importance of job quality alongside other factors for general well-being has not been widely considered within well-being scholarship or wider social science. Our aim in this paper is to systematically evaluate this relative importance, across a range of countries. Our intention is to situate the role of job quality within well-being research and well-being policy, and to consider whether it receives adequate attention and priority in evidence-gathering globally. Our research questions are: • To what extent is the overall variation among individuals in their well-being associated with variation in job quality? • Does the effect of job quality on well-being hold in longitudinal analysis that controls for fixed individual effects? • How do the marginal effects of shifts in job quality on well-being compare with the marginal effects of changes in other domains of life? • Is the effect of good and bad job quality asymmetric (that is, are there diminishing marginal effects?) within each domain and overall? This study draws on the UK Skills and Employment Survey, the UK Household Longitudinal Study, the US RAND Measures of Quality of Life Survey, the German Socio-Economic Panel, the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey, and the European Working Conditions Survey. We use cross-sectional data to explore the general impact of job quality on life satisfaction and mental health by comparing R2 from multivariate linear regression models, and then cross-validate these results against longitudinal analysis that controls for individual fixed effects. We compare the marginal effects of job quality with those of other life domains such as family and health. We find: • That the proportion of well-being explained solely by job quality variation in the three high-quality dedicated working conditions surveys is: 14% in the EU, 13% in the Republic of Korea, and 11% in the United States. • In all countries examined, this proportion is similar to the variation accounted for by health. • Yet the proportion of well-being accounted for by any one of several other key determinants as found in the well-being literature – household income, marriage, age, education -- is smaller by an order of magnitude. • Similarly, the marginal effects of high versus low job quality are greater than for most other conventional variables, other than the effects of good an bad physical health. • There is some evidence of asymmetry. Judging by the disposition of scholarly research effort, well-being analysts have not in general considered work quality to be an important determinant of well-being. Our evidence implies the need for a rebalancing of research effort by well-being analysts, while also highlighting the need for more adequate job quality data in the main workhorse social surveys serving the needs of national statistic offices and social science scholars.

ABSTRACT. Determinants of well-being such as income, health, and education illustrate the significant global well-being improvement achieved in the last two centuries (e.g. UN IGME 2023; UIS, 2023). Despite these developments, we are far from creating ‘the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people’. The average global improvements mask inequalities across demographic groups and poverty remains, with 1.2 bilion people still living in poverty. (UNDP & OPHI, 2022). In addition, there are rising concerns related to mental health. Globally, it is now the fourth most common cause of death for those aged between 15 and 29 (WHO, 2021). The scholarly literature has contributed to different perspectives in defining well-being and elucidating its main determinants and measurements. For instance, while welfare economists tend to investigate factors affecting welfare and then attach an often monetary value to this, sociologists and psychologists focus more on people’s self-judgment and measuring subjective well-being (SWB). The different approaches have led to different assessments of well-being and identified different well-being determinants (e.g. Kahneman and Deaton, 2010). Moreover, existing reviews of well-being measures tend to relate to one particular school of thought (e.g., Dolan (2008) on subjective well-being). As such, an interdisciplinary synthesis and integration of diverse ideas and approaches can provide a more robust and nuanced understanding of what defines and drives well-being, which is critical for further advancing well-being science.

Here, we will review and integrate different well-being theoretical frameworks including subjective well-being (SWB), hedonic, eudaimonic, and positive psychology, the hierarchy of human needs, welfare economics, capability approach, and biological psychology. In order to compare well-being measurements that relate to these theories, we will identify various well-being metrics such as the Human Development Index, Better Life Index, the U-index, and life satisfaction from the World Values Survey (WVS). We will analyze the correlation between the metrics to shed new light on the well-being determinants, i.e., higher overlaps between specific metrics will strengthen the underpinning of specific well-being determinants that constitute these metrics.

In addition, our review will add critical nuances to the existing literature by taking an intercultural approach. Existing studies indicated that culture could affect how objective determinants influence well-being (Li et al. (2021)) or influence the determinants themselves (Napier et al. (2014), Tabellini, 2010). Therefore, we take the cultural aspects into account and distinguish between determinants that affect well-being equally across cultures and those that have a varying impact on well-being. We will use micro and macro data from the WVS for a number of different countries to assess the impact of cultural aspects. Such nuances will increase the policy relevance of the analysis.

ABSTRACT. Currently, the world is still experiencing its greatest health pandemic, Covid-19. The pandemic has not only toppled economic and social systems but also challenged the world have emerged: social differences, inequality, the role and impact of digital technology, and the shift in universal values. Many calls are sent out by diverse governments and non-profit organizations worldwide for the transformation and social change needed for a new post-pandemic world, to improve the well-being of the population and leave no people behind. The well-being research comes in handy to inform which collective actions to perform toward fulfilling the future we envision with 8 billion people on this planet. It provides insight into the existing problems and is explained by an investigation into the values people hold in different cultures of what we consider the good life and recommendations for sustainable development. Culture is an invisible construct that is formed through socialization, and serves as an interlinkage element between social, economic, and environmental dimensions. We need to listen to specific human practices, local knowledge, and cultural beliefs that influence and are influenced by the land and seascapes of which human communities are a part. This study reports the literature review on the development, construction, and evolution of well-being indicators, from the early 1930s up to the most recent ones – digital well-being – shifting from measuring economic welfare to a more holistic approach in capturing the domain of human development. Selected well-being indicators are appraised for informing the current well-being, inequalities in well-being outcomes, and resources for future well-being. The observance of cultural approach in the design, resources, and interpretation of the indicators, are examined. The study analyzes the usefulness of a composite well-being index, which serves as a straightforward assessment tool to monitor if an indicator improves or deteriorates from one period to the next. The concept and inclusion of subjective and longevity-based indicators are reviewed, including the cross-cultural compatibility of well-being indices and the interplay between place and non-placed-based culture and well-being. We conclude the study with recommendations for assessing well-being indicators cross-culturally.

ABSTRACT. This presentation will put various aspects of well-being and quality of life into the cultural context focusing on culture as a pattern of values, beliefs and attitudes. Cultural differences are receiving more and more attention when explaining cross-country differences in various phenomena. However, for measurement of culture, there is an enormous amount of different sets of cultural dimensions offered in literature. Recently, attempts have been made to systematize various sets of dimensions of culture. In that spirit, I have published a system merging theoretically the most famous cultural models and as a follow-up, I have shown empirically how different two-dimensional cultural models are just rotations of each other. In this presentation I will use the framework including two most well-known modern cultural models as a background: Inglehhart’s model consisting of self-expression vs survival and secular-rational vs traditional dimensions and Minkov’s (revised Hofstede’s) model covering individualism vs collectivism and monumentalism vs flexibility dimensions. At that, it is important to acknowledge that many cultural dimensions are closely related to the societies’ general development. Similarly, some of the often used indicators of human development and quality of life – GDP per capita, life expectancy, level of education are very much correlated with the countries’ development level. Moreover, happiness, life satisfaction or the perception of the state of health in a population does not depend only on the objective characteristics, like GDP per capita or life expectancy. There is certainly a cultural component involved that has its own influence on how people feel about their quality of life. I will draw data from the World Values Survey about happiness, life satisfaction, and state of health and put those data on the background of cultural models as they are, but also as corrected by the level of GDP per capita and life expectancy. The latter indicators show whether people in a particular country over- or underestimate their situation. It appears that when analysing first the data about GDP per capita, life expectancy, level of education, then, second, the data about happiness, life satisfaction, and state of health, and then, third, the latter corrected by the level of GDP per capita and, fourth, by life expectancy, - those four aspects are all best correlated by different cultural dimensions, which I will demonstrate in the presentation. Hence, how culture really influences happiness and life satisfaction might not be seen at first sight. Moreover, there are many aspects of quality of life, that are not covered with the mainstream indicators of GDP per capita or life expectancy. I will include various indicators about various causes of poorer health or death, covering injuries, traffic accidents, homicide, suicide, alcohol and drug use, obesity, eating and mental health disorders into the analysis. I will demonstrate how those problematic aspects are scattered on the cultural map. It appears that those various aspects that hinder the quality of life in different ways, are correlated to different dimensions of culture: each culture has its own problems.

ABSTRACT. How can one conclude that well-being is higher in country A than country B, when well-being is being measured according to the way people in country A think about well-being? We address this issue by proposing a new culturally sensitive method to comparing societal levels of well-being. We support our reasoning with data on life satisfaction and interdependent happiness focusing on individual and family, collected mostly from students, across forty-nine countries. We demonstrate that the relative idealization of the two types of well-being varies across cultural contexts and are associated with culturally different models of selfhood. Furthermore, we show that rankings of societal well-being based on life satisfaction tend to underestimate the contribution from interdependent happiness. We introduce a new culturally sensitive method for calculating societal well-being, and examine its construct validity by testing for associations with the experience of emotions and with individualism-collectivism. This new culturally sensitive approach represents a slight, yet important improvement in measuring well-being.

ABSTRACT. If Dutch citizens are not fully able to participate in society, municipalities can provide social support under three local Acts, i.e. the Participation Act (e.g. income support), Youth Act (e.g. psychological and behavioural support for the young), and Social Support Act (e.g. social provisions such as domestic help). Previous research has, however, shown that a significant number of people are not reached by these provisions. In this study, we focus on the mechanisms and patterns which play a role in the (non-)use of local social support provisions. More specifically we are interested in the experiences of citizens in a (recent) crisis situation, who did not receive - apt or timely - provisions. What caused their non-use or not appropriate use of local social provisions, and what have been the consequences for their lives and their quality of life? Can we discern certain mechanisms which hampered the use of local social provisions? What main lessons can we learn from their life stories, in terms of better reaching citizens who are in (urgent) need of support? We interviewed fifteen citizens in three Dutch municipalities, using life story interviews in a narrative design. Participants varied in age and background, and experienced widely divergent crisis situations. The narrative design helped us to understand the daily ‘living world’ of citizens, a perspective often lacking in these type of studies. In a next step, results from this study were confronted with outcomes of a concurrent study among local policy makers, civil servants and local organisations, i.e. the ‘system world’ of local policy. What can local actors learn from these life stories, when trying to reach out for citizens in a crisis situation? Interviews were held in the summer and fall of 2022, and analysed using Atlas-ti 9. Results will be presented at the conference.

ABSTRACT. Violence against children in South Africa is a deep-seated and ubiquitous crisis. Children’s safety in this context is inextricably linked to their experiences of violence, and the historical antecedents of racism, prejudice, oppression, exclusion, and the discriminatory practices of apartheid. The intersection of the negative impacts of violence and threats to children’s safety thus need to be considered in relation to poverty, inequality, and social exclusion. We explore children’s constructions of safety through a discursive analysis of how they negotiate safe spaces in the Western Cape, South Africa, and how safety influences their subjective well-being. We use discourse analysis to analyse data from an in-depth qualitative study conducted with a group of 38 children between the ages of 12-14 years in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. We identified three key themes namely: Children’s safety and vulnerability, Normative views on childhood, and Influence of safety on children’s subjective well-being. Within these themes, six key discourses emerged that is ‘safety as a pervasive concern’, ‘vulnerability of children’, ‘children as agentic’, ‘fear and anxiety’, ‘desensitisation’, ‘helplessness’. We found that violence increases children’s vulnerability to numerous negative mental and physical health outcomes, such as depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder, which is exacerbated by inequality. We recommend that further child-centred qualitative participatory studies authentically engage children across South Africa to explore their constructions of violence across an array of contexts with younger children and older adolescents.

ABSTRACT. Exploring subjective wellbeing indicators has maintained popularity among social and health scientists. However, this subjective approach makes wellbeing susepptable to individual and social factors, more so in multicultural settings. The current study examines how wellbeing is understood concerning individual culture and circumstances, using the example of South Africa.

We conducted Fifteen focus group discussions with 66 participants in four Provinces of South Africa. The recorded focus groups were transcribed using the intelligent verbatim technique and analysed using a phenomenological approach. The data analysis was done stepwise using open, axial, and selective coding techniques.

The open coding technique for qualitative data confirmed 11 different subconstructs of wellbeing, mentioned 403 times during the 15 focus group discussions. Furthermore, wellbeing indicators vary based on participants' racial and demographic characteristics.

The findings confirm that individual circumstances and culture are significant when interpreting wellbeing. Furthermore, it supports Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, highlighting the movement from deficiency needs to growth needs after deficiency needs are met. This finding supports the adaptation of a more sociological approach to improving the accuracy of research on wellbeing.

ABSTRACT. Nowadays, as the Internet has acquired a relevant role in our daily lives, the focus of attention has widened to consider not only the economic effects but also the social ones resulting from ICTs integration in all aspects of individuals’ lives (communication, leisure, work, education, etc.), the so-called digital transformation, which will ultimately affect well-being. As the European Commission 2030 Policy Programme “Path to the Digital Decade” highlights, societal well-being is a main target of the digital transition (European Commission, 2021), which is aligned with Stiglitz “beyond GDP” framework (Stiglitz et al., 2009). The relevance of well-being and digital technologies have stimulated multiple academic contributions from various fields of knowledge. On the one hand, the literature on well-being has focused on identifying the factors that shape well-being and happiness at individual level. Perceived levels of well-being reflect personal characteristics, subjective and objective circumstances as well as contextual ones (Akay et al., 2017; de Pedraza et al., 2020; Kahneman & Sugden, 2005; Tella et al., 2001). Mayor events in life (divorce, the loss of some family member) and economic shocks (job loss, changes in household income) affect individuals’ well-being (Cummins, 2000; Diego-Rosell et al., 2018; Lucas & Donnellan, 2007; Moro-Egido et al., 2022). On the other hand, the diffusion of ICTs has gone along with increasing academic efforts to understand the patterns of use. Overall, research has shown that ICT adoption is clearly shaped by individuals’ socio-economic features (income, age, gender, education, occupation, habitat) (Helsper, 2021; Loos & Ivan, 2022; van Dijk, 2020; Watts, 2020). In this context, the aim of this paper is to disentangle the existing relationship between internet use and individuals’ well-being. We show how the intensity of internet use is related to different dimensions of individuals well-being as well as with individuals’ socio-economic and socio-demographic features. We provide evidence for Spain using microdata for 2016 and 2018 from the European Social Survey (ESS). We treat internet use as an endogenous variable by constructing a three-equation model which deals with the endogeneity while relates SWB variables with the intensity of internet use and individuals’ socio-demographic characteristics. The vast majority of previous studies consider the internet to be exogenous when analysing its relationship with well-being, however, the literature on the digital divide contradicts this fact. Our main findings show that the intensity of Internet use is negatively related with individuals’ happiness and life satisfaction but positively related with individuals’ participation in social activities. Overall, the relationship between individuals’ well-being and internet use depends to a large extent on the well-being dimension considered and on the socio-economic and socio-demographic characteristics of the individuals.

ABSTRACT. Despite great promises for productivity and flexibilization, the implementation of digital assistance systems at the workplace is accompanied by concerns regarding (undesired) effects on working conditions and employees’ well-being. Developments in the fields of communication, information, but also in other digitalized working conditions, have the potential to affect social integration at the workplace and the ways how employees interact – for better or worse.

Social integration is itself an essential dimension of well-being, but it is also directly related to other dimensions such as satisfaction and health. On the bright side, positive relationships provide emotional or instrumental support and recognition. The negative side can range between a lack of social support and the more extreme bullying by co-workers or supervisors.

With regard to digitalized work environments, some challenges are straightforward: For example, while the use of digital communication via e-mails, applications or digital platforms may help employees to be more flexible, misunderstandings are more likely due to less transparency of inclusion and exclusion, the invisibility of gestures, and a lack of direct feedback. It involves less informal exchanges and finally may lead to lower quality relationships and a higher risk of social isolation. A less clear and even contradictory example is the use of automated storage of process-produced data on employees’ work. It may leave less room for bullying because data stored by machines may be perceived as less biased than evaluations by humans. But it can result in the opposite, for example, if it is used for monitoring purposes and employees are unequally affected.

To deepen the understanding of how social integration at the workplace is shaped by digitalized work environments, we distinguish between different dimensions of digitalized work (e.g., digital communication, automated storage of data, digital monitoring), and look at the frequency of use as well as positive (e.g., more efficient and fair distribution of work, more flexibility) and negative perceptions (e.g., violation of privacy, loss of control). We compare the associations of these indicators with co-worker and supervisor relationships – either characterized by support and recognition or characterized by lack of support or even bullying.

Our analyses are based on a large German linked employer-employee panel study (LEEP-B3) representative of large work organizations and their employees. Results from multilevel linear regression models (accounting for organizational clustering) on a sample of about 4,500 employees in 160 organizations show that social integration at the workplace is indeed related to digitalized working environments. Digital monitoring, for instance, seems to be negative for social relationships in any case, but when monitoring is used for performance evaluation it is most strongly associated with less support and more bullying by co-workers and supervisors. If automatically stored data is perceived to provide higher efficiency, bullying is less likely and relationships are more supportive, but when it violates privacy, it is related to more negative relationships. In-depth analyses will disentangle whether the social integration of specific employee groups (e.g., by education or occupational status) is more or less strongly affected by specific digitalized work environments.

ABSTRACT. Past research has shown that high-quality social relationships are a protective factor against internet addiction (IA) among adolescents. However, there is a lack of studies empirically integrating and comparing social relationships in both family and school contexts, and a limited number of studies have probed into the mediating and moderating mechanisms. The present study attempted to examine the associations of four dyads of social relationships (mother-child, father-child, teacher-student, and student-student) with IA in late adolescence and to explore the mediation and moderation roles of two competing approaches of well-being (hedonic and eudemonic well-being indexed by life satisfaction and life meaning, respectively). A total of 1,974 high school students (mean age = 16.47 ± .87 years; 1,099 girls and 875 boys) from China completed a self-report battery that included measures of quality of social relationships, IA, and hedonic and eudemonic well-being. The results showed that 1) the quality of father-child, mother-child, and student-student (but not teacher-student) relationships could negatively predict IA; 2) both life satisfaction and life meaning served as mediators through positive associations with social relationship qualities and negative predictive effects on IA; 3) life satisfaction and life meaning also significantly moderated the negative association between quality of father-child relationship and IA but in different directions: life satisfaction enhanced the strength of association, while life meaning mitigated the negative relation. These findings delineate the pathways in which different social relationships are associated with adolescents’ IA and shed light on the potential distinct implications of life satisfaction and life meaning as indicators of hedonic and eudemonic well-being, respectively.

ABSTRACT. The outcome of economic growth is visualised as the well-being of citizens or human well-being (HWB). However it has been a great challenge to measure HWB. Though there are known reasons for considering GDP and its growth as a measure of overall development and progress of nations, yet mostly it is being used as a gospel indicator to compare nations and design appropriate policies. This paper is an effort to develop a comprehensive adjusted GDP to measure HWB through secondary data for thirty years (1990-91 to 2019-20) in India. We make thirty-five adjustments to net national income (NNI) to compute the adjusted national income (ANI) index based on the system analysis approach. The empirical findings show that the gap between NNI and ANI has been growing over time, and the ANI index shows an increasing trend. Through the analysis it is suggested that economic growth should be focused only if it improves HWB (full or partial). The paper attempts to make intervention into policy shift for improving HWB vis-à-vis happiness of people.

ABSTRACT. The wellbeing economy is a novel approach to decision-making that is aimed at achieving a sounder balance between social, economic, and ecological sustainability. Finland has pioneered in showcasing the approach but unlike some other countries still lacks a national steering mechanism for a wellbeing economy to set, monitor, and integrate wellbeing economy-based goals into key governance mechanisms and decision-making processes. Paths to a Wellbeing Economy project explored pathways for constructing a comprehensive wellbeing policy steering mechanism in public administration and the political decision-making process.

Using Iceland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland, Sweden, and Wales as reference countries we assessed the scope of governance and the strength of steering used in the existing models for steering mechanism. We also counted the number of monitored themes and indicators, identified the main tools and the involved governance levels of the steering model, and evaluated whether civil society had been involved in the development of the model. With the data collected we were able to create different profiles or categories of steering mechanisms. Finally, we mapped the opportunities and constraints for a wellbeing economy steering mechanism in Finland.

The result of the analysis were condensed into four different development trends suitable for the Finnish context: 1) steering within existing decision-making structures (the ownership of the steering would be with the government), 2) centralized model (designated area of government would oversee and promote the use of the steering model), 3) steering based on parliamentary mechanisms (e.g. the Committee for the Future or a parliamentary wellbeing economy committee would have the ownership), and 4) a model of humble governance (decentralized implementation by means of experimentation, civil society participation and continuous learning).

Our results emphasize the fact that the development of wellbeing economic steering mechanism should continue through dialogue between the government, regions and municipalities. It is also important to experiment with different development directions and to comprehensively bring together research data on social, ecological and financial sustainability. In addition, the participation of civil society in the development and operation of the steering model must be considered.

In the presentation we will share our results on existing wellbeing economy steering models as well as the framework for Finland to develop a wellbeing economy steering model.

ABSTRACT. The Nordic welfare states have managed to increase equality and life satisfaction, at least according to the international comparisons. Yet, their carbon and material footprints are at a high level and economic growth has been seen as a prerequisite for the capacity of the welfare state. Furthermore, population ageing challenges economic sustainability, especially in Finland due to its demography. Economic, social and ecological sustainability has to be combined in the welfare policies to proceed to sustainability transition. Therefore, it is necessary to understand how well-being is constructed and whether the current welfare policies actually recognise the factors that impact on well-being in the different population groups.

The paper draws from Manfred MaxNeef’s matrix on universal basic needs (subsistence, protection, affection, understanding, participation, leisure, creation, identity, freedom) and culturally dependent need satisfiers. The paper claims that the matrix can be utilised to understand relational well-being. The matrix also highlights social relations and their meaning for well-being. The research questions are: 1) How ordinary people define needs and their satisfiers in the Finnish welfare state? 2) How social relations are intertwined in the different dimensions of well-being?

Research material consists of the focus group interviews collected in 2022 and 2023. The themes were 1) well-being - what does it mean? 2) How is well-being constructed? 3) What factors or issues bring or diminish well-being? 4) Is it possible to separate needs and wants, especially considering well-being? The matrix was utilised in theme 2 by asking what the participants think about nine needs and what is the importance of fulfilling those needs considering well-being. The participants of the focus groups represent different population groups living in Finland (ethnicity, socio-economic background, age groups). As research material focus group interviews gave an overview how the participants opinions differed or were similar.

According to preliminary analysis, the participants emphasised somewhat different factors as essential for their well-being, partly depending on their personal life circumstances. However, in general, the matrix seemed to capture the dimensions of well-being. It enabled talk about social relations and their connection to the satisfiers. The preliminary results show that people themselves, in the interaction with others, define well-being in broad terms. The preliminary results challenge the current welfare policies which emphasise the material well-being. Qualitative research data does not enable comparisons between the different population groups. However, it shows that social relations are essential for well-being different ways. Preliminary results give a reason for pondering whether the resources of the welfare policies are utilised at the best possible manner.

ABSTRACT. Background

The relationship between modernity and happiness is a much-debated topic. Governments support modernization in most nations, such as by advancing education and technology and supporting values such as self-direction. The main aim of planned societal modernization is to provide citizens with a better life. On the other hand, social critics emphasize the problems in modern society and see rising misery, such as growing depression rates. Misgivings about modernity drive conservative restoration movements. The debate is highly ideological. In this paper, we seek empirical ground by answering the following questions.

Questions

1. Is happiness higher or lower in the most modern nations of this time? 2. What aspects of modernity in nations contribute the most to an individual’s happiness? 3. Are there any aspects of modernity in nations that reduce the happiness of an individual? 4. What kinds of people are profiting most from societal modernization happiness-wise? What kind of people are least profiting?

Method

We used the available empirical literature on ‘modernity and happiness’ and used the finding from these studies as the base for our analysis. These findings were added to the World Database of Happiness where each finding is described in a standardized format on a separate ‘findings page’ with a unique internet address. We use links to these finding pages, which allows us to summarize the main trends in the findings in a few tabular schemes.

Results

Overall, the findings provide strong evidence for the argument modernization results in ‘’greater happiness for a greater number”. Well-educated and psychologically autonomous people flourish best in the conditions of modern society.

ABSTRACT. Unemployment influences peoples’ life satisfaction beyond negative income shocks. A large body of literature investigates these non-pecuniary costs of unemployment and stresses the importance of social identity in these costs. We add to this literature by studying in how far these non-pecuniary costs can affect women. Drawing upon large scale German panel data from 1991 until 2019, we use the German division as a natural experiment to identify changes in unemployment induced identity utility loss for different cohorts of East and West German women and men. We hypothesize that living under different political regimes led to differences in social norms for the two parts of the German female population. Specifically, East German women were required to work full-time whereas West German women could alternatively focus on family care if they wanted to. We find that East German women suffer significantly more from unemployment than West German women. This difference is driven by a significantly worse unemployment experience for females exclusively raised in the former GDR. We do not find such diverging patterns for German men. We interpret these findings as evidence for the importance of social identity in the non-pecuniary cost of unemployment as well as for the policy-maker’s ability to influence social norms.

ABSTRACT. Studies on the consequences of income inequality on subjective well-being have mixed results. We argue that this is partly because extant studies fail to distinguish between actual and perceived inequality. We show that what really matters in shaping life satisfaction is not actual inequality but its perception. We rely on the data from the EBRD’s Life in Transition Survey III (2016) to estimate the individual-level relation between (mis)perception of income inequality and life satisfaction in 33 countries. Our unique data allows us to measure inequality perceptions based on responses to whether the gap between rich and poor has increased over the previous years. As expected, we find no association between actual inequality, measured by the country-level Gini coefficient, and life satisfaction. Conversely, we find a significant association between inequality perception and life satisfaction. Specifically, perceptions of inequality increases are linked with lower life satisfaction, while the perception of a decrease in inequality is linked with higher life satisfaction. The inclusion of actual inequality does not affect these findings, supporting our argument that only perception is relevant as determinant of life satisfaction. To better understand the drivers of this relationship, we distinguish between individuals that correctly perceive the change in actual inequality from individuals who misperceived it. We find that misperception significantly correlates with life satisfaction. The association is negative for people who incorrectly expected an increase in inequality and negative for people who incorrectly expected a decrease or no change in inequality. The results are robust to a series of checks, including different measures of actual inequality and methods to construct the misperception variable. This paper is the first to examine how perceived inequality and the gap between perceptions and real inequality shape life satisfaction. As such, we highlight a new determinant of life satisfaction. Consequently, the paper also contributes to strengthening the role of perceptions as key indicators to be added to more classical observed economic factors in economic research. Finally, the paper can help policymakers better understand the reasons behind the demand for redistribution.

ABSTRACT. The study seeks to explore how individuals’ perception of a country’s opportunities for social mobility (“perceived social mobility”) is related to their subjective well-being (SWB), and to what extent income inequality moderates this association. In particular, while perceived social mobility is expected to be positively related to SWB, this association may diminish with high levels of income inequality. The analysis employs data from the Gallup World Poll and the World Bank, resulting in a final sample collected over nine years of over 466,000 individuals in 99 countries. SWB is assessed by two measures: one for life evaluation and one for emotional well-being. OLS regression analyses with standard errors clustered at the country and year level reveal that perceived social mobility has a positive association with SWB. We repeated the analysis for different income quintiles to investigate whether this relationship differs between high and low-income groups, and we found that this positive association is stronger in lower-income countries. The Gini coefficient, our measure of income inequality within a country, moderated the relationship between individual perceived social mobility and SWB. The negative coefficient of the interaction term suggests that the positive association between perceived social mobility and subjective well-being is diminished in countries with higher levels of income inequality. This research fills a gap in our understanding of inequality-justifying beliefs, and the difference between income groups in an unequal world.

ABSTRACT. In recent years, much scientific attention has been focused on the important role of subjective aging and time perceptions for older adults’ physical and psychological well-being. The effect of priming on subjective aging measures have also been assessed to some extent, although typically these concepts are assessed within a given culture and not in a cross-cultural manner. Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, the effect of priming quality of life levels on subjective views of aging was not hitherto explored. Accordingly, the current work examines whether priming quality of life in old age may impact one’s subjective nearness-to-death. We further wished to examine if such priming effects would be sensitive to ethnic background. Data were collected from community-dwelling Jews (N= 89, 43.8% male, age range= 60-86) and Arabs (N= 112, 45.5% male, age range= 60-85), who were divided into two experimental conditions. The first consisted of priming a speedy recovery following surgery due to enhanced previous quality of life, whereas the second primed an abrupt decrease in quality of life following the same enhanced previous level of quality of life. Results demonstrated a significant condition × culture interaction, which revealed that among Arab participants, positive/negative priming reduced/increased subjective nearness-to-death, an effect not found among Jewish participants, respectively. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed as well as the important role quality of life may play across different cultures within a given society.

ABSTRACT. Social Inequality has been shown to persist through generations, and it continues through one’s lifetime and further to their final days. Will seniors who are better prepared for the final days provide benefits or comforts to them? In modern societies, elders often go through series of medications in the hospitals during their final days. While the recent introduction of the Patient Autonomy Act provides elders more choices of end-of-life (EOL) plans, it nevertheless requires more knowledges about medicine and medical systems to make the decisions. For those who are better knowledgeable about hospital operations and have more cultural health capital (Shim 2010) to deal with medical professionals and are better informed about medications might be better prepared for their EOL plans. This paper aims to address the question: if seniors who are more open to EOL plans have a happier life? We use the informal discussion of EOL plan and attitudes to adopt formal EOL plans as indicators to predict one’s subjective well-being (SWB). This paper presents two major hypotheses. First, we hypothesize (1) that seniors who are willing to discuss EOL plans, including medical treatment, are more optimistic and have a better quality of life. Second, we hypothesize (2) that elders who are well knowledgeable about medicine and have the capacity to communicate with medical staff tend to be more confident about life and hence have a happy life. To examine these relationships, we employ two datasets in Taiwan. The Taichung Survey of Aging (2017) collected information of seniors’ discussion of their EOL plans with their family members. The Taiwan Social Change Survey (TSCS, 2022) interviewed elders if they would like to have an Advance Care Planning (ACP) and an Advance Decision (AD), legal actions and decisions for their final medical treatment. The dependent variables are three SWB-related measures: life satisfaction, happiness, and self-rated health. A series of regression models, controlling for a series of demographic and socioeconomic variables, analyze factors related to medical arrangement such as informal EOL plan, formal EOL plan (ACP and AD), and cultural health capital. Our preliminary findings show that older cohort’s (71-85 years old) informal discussions about EOL plans lead to a positive effect on SWB, while younger cohorts do not have the effect. Regarding formal EOL plans, the likelihood of accepting formal consultation with medical staffs such as ACP affect positively the degree of happiness and self-rated health, while AD does not have a significant effect. Formal rather than informal discussions of EOL plans provides more benefits to the elders. Finally, cultural health capital is important for elders as it increases the quality of life of the elderly. Older adults who have sufficient medical knowledge and are more confident to deal with medical systems is likely to have a happier life. These findings suggest that while it used to be a taboo for many elders to discuss about death, the reason could be partially their lack of medical knowledge and the capacity to communicate with the complex and formidable medical systems.

ABSTRACT. Personal insecurity, such as financial stress and inability to meet basic needs, leads to feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. Community insecurity, such as crime and violence in the streets, can also lead to decreased feelings of safety and social connections. With the aim of shedding light on security's role in promoting individuals' overall well-being, this study examines the effects of personal and community insecurity on individuals' life satisfaction. As different age groups have different coping mechanisms and support systems, this study further examines if the effect of insecurities on life satisfaction differs for different age groups. The multivariate analysis indicates that both community insecurity and personal insecurity are associated with lower levels of life satisfaction. However, the effect of personal insecurity is much stronger than that of community insecurity. The results suggest that personal insecurity has the strongest effect on life satisfaction for seniors (55-74) and the elderly (75-90), likely due to their heightened vulnerability. Meanwhile, young adults (25-34: an age group in the developmental stage of exploring their place in the world and forming relationships) experience the strongest impact from community insecurity. Overall, the results suggest the necessity of creating safer and more inclusive communities and increasing support and resources for the elderly to address their heightened vulnerability to personal insecurity.

ABSTRACT. Childhood Sexual Violence Exposure and Overall Quality of Life: Experiences of Adults in Gauteng, South Africa 2020/2021.

S. Miles-Timotheus¹, P. Du Preez, P. Ndagurwa ¹ and S. P. Mkhize ¹

Gauteng City-Region Observatory (the University of the Witwatersrand and University of Johannesburg).

*Corresponding author: E-mail: shamsunisaa.miles-timotheus@gcro.ac.za

Quality of life (QoL) is a measure of an individual’s physical, emotional, and mental of well-being. At any given time, the determinants of QoL may originate in the recent past while others are from distant past experiences which have long-term implications. One of the factors with long-term implications on adulthood individual outcomes is the experience of childhood sexual violence (CSV). In South Africa, CSV remains a public health problem with adverse health, socioeconomic and well-being effects on victims. Some studies have reported that individuals who experience childhood abuse tend to be found in households with low socioeconomic status and rank lowly on different well-being measures. Understanding the long-term implications of experiencing CSV thus remains germane. This study aims to investigate the relationship between the experience of CSV and quality of life as an adult for the period of 2020/2021. The study employs bivariate and multivariable linear regression modelling to analyse data from 7 925 adult respondents interviewed in the QoL 6 survey (2020/21) in the Gauteng province of South Africa. The study found a mean QoL score of 60.12. Those who experienced CSV had an average QoL score of 57.69 [95% CI: 56.82-58.60] which is significantly lower than that for those who did not experience CSV (60.62; 95% CI: 60.16-61.07). The multivariable results showed significant adjusted net association between CSV and QoL. Experiencing CSV interacts with education and household income to significantly reduce QoL in adulthood. The findings of this study therefore call for the intensification of the fight against CSV for the current generation of children to enable the achievement of better QoL outcomes.

Keywords: Childhood Sexual Violence, Childhood Trauma, Children, South Africa, Quality of Life.

ABSTRACT. Household in low-income communities are often more exposed to polluted environments than households that can afford the technologies and services needed to avoid or manage pollution. This is specifically the case when it comes to air quality: not only are low-income households regularly on the fringes of cities closer to industrial areas where the risk of exposure to harmful emissions is higher, but these households are likewise more exposed to emissions that originate from within these communities themselves. Such sources include emissions from dirty domestic energy carriers such as coal, wood, and paraffin, as well as waste burning, and vehicle entrained road dust. The paper draws on work done by the Nova Institute in programmes aimed at improving air quality and quality-of-life in the low-income context in South Africa. Although the programmes were all conducted in South Africa, it is believed that the results could have broader application to similar environments globally. It is argued that quality-of-life indicators and impact assessments should be vital components of trans-disciplinary efforts to improve air quality in low-income settlements. Various tools and indicators that Nova uses to assess energy patterns and quality of life in low-income households and communities, are introduced. Specific reference is made to a novel hermeneutic tool to assess particular-impact-on-quality-of-life that Nova applies in air quality programmes. Results from several programmes are included to illustrate the way in which quality-of-life indicators and impact assessments are used to support air quality improvements in dense low-income settlements in South Africa.

ABSTRACT. Literature linking human development indicators and climate change risk is growing but is largely concentrated at the aggregate level. We mesh consumer expenditure microdata from Brazil (2017), Ghana (2017) and India (2011) with a spatial climate exposure dataset to identify intersecting multi-dimensional inequities across the income distribution and across space. This is an advancement in understanding which segments of the population and which regions of the country are especially vulnerable to climate change and require adaption policy support from a multi-dimensional perspective.

Our work builds on the decent living standards (DLS), a multi-dimensional framework of energy and material requirements for human wellbeing (Rao & Min, 2018). The DLS represent an important methodological advancement in capturing heterogeneity in material requirements for human wellbeing at the lower income deciles. Similar advances are evident in the demographic literature with respect to measuring years of good life (YoGL) which encompass elements of income poverty and health and educational dimensions of DLS (Lutz et al., 2021).

First, we operationalize the DLS using a set of heuristics that reflect our attempt to capture the intention of the original framework in quantitative terms given the microdata available. Our set of heuristics is extensive but not complete, as data limitations prevent us from drawing conclusions on access to decent clothing, nutrition, and roads. We apply this approach to describe access to selected DLS relevant to climate resilience, identify more granular deprivations among poorer households than absolute levels of poverty can describe. This analysis provides a starting point for our work.

Secondly, we merge the microdata with spatially explicit modelled climate change exposure risks across the water-energy-land nexus faced by this population in 2030 (Byers et al., 2018). We then contrast the shares of population in each decile at risk of one of the suggested climate change exposure indicators and their DLS deprivation. Finally, we consider the geographic distribution of intersecting inequities in DLS deprivations and climate exposure risks. In doing so we identify acutely vulnerable populations requiring climate adaptation policy support, both by geographic location and by income decile.

Our work serves to identify particularly vulnerable populations lacking access to DLS and likely to face significant climate risks in the near term. Given the granularity of our approach, this can help provide valuable insights for the design of targeted policy measures to help those groups adapt to climate change and increase their wellbeing.

ABSTRACT. Examination of factors related to subjective well-being is gaining more and more importance in research on school-age children. Since children spend a lot of time in school with their classmates, their happiness and satisfaction depend largely on the climate and circumstances, they experience there. Communication and interaction, interpersonal relations with teachers and classmates play crucial role in how well children feel in school. The care and attention of teachers and classmates, or the opposite, abuse and neglect committed by them significantly affect children’s subjective well-being. Typical and frequent indicators of child maltreatment at school are the physical and emotional abuse such as being hit by other children, being called unkind names, or being regularly left out by other children at school. Bullying is a daily experience for many children and makes their school life miserable. This situation is even more serious if the child feels to be left alone without any help from teachers or other children at school. Maltreatment and neglect are likely to cause serious deficits in children’s satisfaction with school and happiness.

Data employed in this analysis come from the 3rd wave of The International Survey of Children’s Well-Being (ISCWEB), conducted in 2019 in schools among pupils aged 10 and 12 years old, with paper-pen method. The questionnaire includes items on children’s subjective well-being at school (satisfaction with life as student, satisfaction with classmates) as well as more general SWB items; these serve as dependent variables in the study. As for independent variables, items of maltreatment and neglect by teachers and classmates are taken from the questionnaire. First, a descriptive analysis is carried aiming (1) to examine the international variation in children’s maltreatment and neglect at school; and (2) to show the bivariate negative associations between these variables and children’s subjective well-being in a selected group of countries representing different educational systems (Belgium, Croatia, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Norway, and Wales). Then, a multivariate model is developed to explore the details of the process how maltreatment and neglect undermine children’s satisfaction and happiness in the various countries. The study also considers the variation by gender and age group by applying interaction terms.

Investigation of children’s maltreatment and neglect is a very topical subject. Information on these questions is frequently unreliable as the related events are often underreported as shown by studies on the reporting activities by school staff. An advantage of this paper is that the answers come directly from school children and may provide more trustworthy data on the true prevalence of such cases. Experts dealing with child protection in schools as well as policy makers can benefit from the results of the analysis.

ABSTRACT. In the current paper, the empirical findings of C.W.-SMILE regarding energy for the period 2010–2023 are presented. In particular, the successive crises in Greece over the last few years have had a negative impact on society as a whole. Nowhere are these effects more evident than in the rapid increase of children’s inequalities in the same time period. This paper focuses on aspects of children's energy inequities. Taking this into account, the research question on which this presentation is based deals with the state of children’s inequalities in the region of Attica, Greece, in light of energy poverty. The main aim of this paper is to present and discuss the results of the quantitative research of C.W.-SMILE regarding energy in all rounds of the research. Its secondary aim is to propose specific policies.

ABSTRACT. As a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, social-distancing measures have been implemented worldwide, including lockdowns and school closures, causing major changes in children’s everyday routines. There is lack of evidence how the impacts of the pandemic reflect in children’s overall subjective well-being (SWB) assessments. Moreover, as the stringency of social-distancing measures varied between countries, it is important to study the impacts of the pandemic on children’s SWB cross-nationally. In this paper, by taking the ‘profiles of change’ approach, we aim to explore how COVID-19 pandemic has affected children’s overall SWB, including the role of Coronavirus and school anxiety, social distancing experience, and psychological needs fulfillment in this. We use up to 21,646 primarily 10–13-year-old children’s data from 20 countries (Germany, Turkey, Bangladesh, Italy, Albania, South Africa, Romania, Chile, Wales, Colombia, Taiwan, Belgium, Algeria, Israel, Russia, South Korea, Indonesia, Estonia, Finland, and Spain) across the globe collected in 2021 as part of the International Child Well-being COVID Supplement Survey. The data was collected mostly between the peaks of the second and third wave. Overall SWB and its’ ‘profiles of change’ are based on children’s retrospective ‘before the pandemic’ and during the pandemic assessments about their overall happiness. Several data analysis methods are used: descriptive statistics, Kruskal–Wallis and Mann–Whitney’s U tests, logistic regression. Our analysis shows that in almost all countries ‘decliners’ was the most common profile of change, followed by ‘no changers’ as the second most common and ‘gainers’ as least common profile of change. The decrease was most notable in Turkey, but also in Germany, and Bangladesh, where overall SWB decreased for approximately 3 out of 4 children, and least notable in Russia where it decreased for 3 out 8 children. In some but not in all countries, we found differences in SWB change by gender, socio-economic status, social distancing experience, Coronavirus and school anxiety, and psychological needs fulfillment. Among different factors, school anxiety was the most country-universal factor related to children’s SWB decrease - only in Albania, Bangladesh, Colombia and Italy, it did not play a significant role. Our study seems to confirm the importance of keeping schools open to save children’ mental health and well-being.

ABSTRACT. To promote family resilience in families in Hong Kong under the pandemic, we have launched a project entitled “Promoting Family Resilience Project” with the financial support of the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust. In this project, we have developed four community-based family resilience programs based on the Family Resilience Model of Froma Walsh that highlights the importance of family belief systems, organization patterns, and communication processes in family resilience. These four community-based intervention programs are adventure-based counseling (ABC), expressive arts, mindfulness, and family photo programs, which were designed by university professors in collaboration with social workers in four social welfare agencies. To understand the impact of the programs on the service recipients, we have used quantitative and qualitative evaluation strategies to evaluate the programs. In this presentation, we focus on the effectiveness of these programs based on the responses of 1,166 participants (631 parents/guardians and 535 children) using objective outcome and subjective outcome evaluation strategies.

For objective outcome evaluation, we adopted a one-group pretest-posttest design. The participants responded to the Chinese Depression Anxiety Stress Scale – 21 (DASS21) and Chinese Family Resilience Scale (C-FRS) at pretest and posttest. For the Adventure-based Counseling Program (N = 83), participants showed significant increase in family resilience and decrease in anxiety and stress. For the Expressive Arts Group (N =107), participants showed significant increase in life satisfaction and decrease in depression and stress. Regarding the Mindfulness Group (N = 135), participants showed significant increase in family resilience and decrease in depression and stress. Finally, participants in the Family Photo Program (N = 61) showed marginally significant increase in life satisfaction. Generally speaking, the objective outcome evaluation findings showed that the participants changed in the positive direction after joining the programs.

For subjective outcome evaluation, the participants (N =431) responded to a 33-item client satisfaction scale after completion of program. For each item, the respondents responded to a 6-point Likert scale. The mean scale ratings ranged from 1 to 6. Results showed that the participants had positive perception of the programs (mean scale ratings ranged from 5.25 to 5.36 for the four programs), implementers (mean scale ratings ranged from 5.45 to 5.56) and effectiveness (mean scale ratings ranged from 4.97 to 5.08).

Taken as a whole, objective outcome evaluation and subjective outcome evaluation findings showed that the participants changed in the positive direction and they had positive perceptions of the program effects. These findings provide evidence for the effectiveness of this project in promoting family resilience and reducing psychological morbidity (depression, anxiety, and stress) among family members in Hong Kong under the COVID-19 pandemic.

ABSTRACT. Family resilience is an important protective factor that can help families cope with adversity. Unfortunately, validated programs on family resilience are rare, particularly in different Chinese societies. Under the pandemic, as social distancing and community lockdown have created hurdles for families to join family resilience programs, there is a need to develop online family resilience programs to help families in the midst of adversity.

As such, we developed a 10-module e-learning educational program for parents to promote their knowledge about family resilience and to strengthen their related capacity in different domains of family resilience. In our program, we used the conceptual framework of Froma Walsh that highlights the importance of belief systems (meaning-making, positive outlook, and transcendence and spirituality), organizational processes (flexibility, connectedness, and social and economic resources), and communication processes (clarity, emotional sharing, and collaborative problem solving). Besides developing the online program, we also evaluated the effectiveness of the program via different evaluation mechanisms. In this paper, we present the evaluation findings based on objective outcome evaluation, subjective outcome evaluation, and learning experience sharing in 88 Hong Kong Chinese parents who completed the 10 modules (Mage = 37.10, SD = 10.22, 23.90% male).

For objective outcome evaluation, we adopted the one group pretest-posttest design to examine changes in the participants. Based on validated measures of family resilience and psychological morbidity, results showed that the participants showed a significant increase of family resilience qualities and a reduction of depression and anxiety symptoms after completing the online modules.

For subjective outcome evaluation, participants responded to a 16-item evaluation scale. Results showed that the participants viewed the modules positively in terms of gains in knowledge on family resilience concepts (percentage of positive responses: belief systems = 98%; organizational processes = 96%; communication processes = 97%), gains in knowledge on recognizing family’s strengths and weaknesses (percentage of positive responses: belief systems = 96%; organizational processes = 99%; communication processes = 98%), gains in attitude (percentage of positive responses: belief systems = 97%; organizational processes = 98%; communication processes = 97%), gains in family conditions (percentage of positive responses: belief systems = 97%; organizational processes = 98%; communication processes = 98%), and gains in behavior (percentage of positive responses: belief systems = 97%; organizational processes = 98%; communication processes = 99%).

ABSTRACT. Research shows that the COVID-19 pandemic is stress-inducing which would intensify psychological morbidity. As such, there is a need to examine protective factors that may buffer the adverse effect of stress arising from the pandemic. Based on Walsh’s family resilience framework and the ABC-X model of family stress and coping, we examined the moderating role of family resilience in the association of COVID-19 stress with psychological well-being (indexed by hopelessness, anxiety, and depression) using data collected from different family members. We recruited 1,020 Chinese families with fathers (Mage = 51.2), mothers (Mage = 46.6), and adolescents (54.5% girls, Mage = 16.4) in Hong Kong as the participants. We hypothesized that family resilience would moderate the predictive relationship between COVID-19 stress and psychological morbidity based on the perceptions of different family members.

Findings showed that COVID-19 stress was positively associated with hopelessness, anxiety, and depression in fathers, mothers, and adolescents. Moderation analyses indicated that perceived family resilience by fathers buffered the influence of perceived COVID-19 stress on paternal anxiety, as well as the impact of COVID-19 stress and hopelessness in adolescents. Besides, family resilience perceived by mothers buffered: a) the influence of COVID-19 stress on anxiety and depression reported by mothers, b) the influence COVID-19 stress and hopelessness reported by fathers, and c) predictive relationship between COVID-19 stress and hopelessness perceived by adolescents. Finally, family resilience perceived by adolescents also buffered a) the predictive relationship between COVID-19 stress on anxiety and depression reported by adolescents, and b) the influence of COVID-19 stress on hopelessness reported by fathers.

The present findings provide support to the family resilience literature that family resilience protects an individual from the harmful effect of COVID-19 stress. The present study also provides support to the “spillover hypothesis” that the effect of family resilience perceived by a family member would spill over to the stress-well-being relationship in other family members. Practically speaking, our findings underscore the importance of promoting family resilience to protect Chinese families from the harmful effect of COVID-19 stress on psychological morbidity.

ABSTRACT. Single motherhood and poverty have brought detrimental impacts to family wellbeing. When adapting to family changes, adolescent children need to take up more filial responsibilities. Typically, there are two types of filial responsibilities: instrumental and emotional. While instrumental filial responsibility refers to the fulfilment of household chores and daily caregiving for the siblings, emotional filial responsibility is the support for the emotional needs of parents and siblings. Family systems theory suggests that filial responsibility may result in “parentification” (i.e., children take up developmentally inappropriate parental roles in performing family responsibilities) which may hamper adolescent wellbeing. In contrast, social identity theory argues that filial responsibilities enhance adolescent wellbeing by demonstrating family devotion and establishing connectedness with family members, particularly in Chinese communities where familism and interdependence are emphasized. Moreover, mothering style is an important family condition that may alter the relationship between filial responsibility and adolescent wellbeing. When adolescents perceive more maternal warmth, they are more willing to contribute to the family as a gratitude to their mother’s love and care, and recognize their worth in taking up the filial roles.

Based on the quantitative data of 325 adolescent children growing up in poor single-mother families in Hong Kong, the relationships between filial responsibilities and adolescent wellbeing (indexed by life satisfaction, anxiety and depression) and the moderating effect of maternal warmth in the relationships were examined. Moreover, whether adolescent gender and age would make a difference in the moderating effect of maternal warmth were assessed.

Results showed that while adolescents’ instrumental filial responsibility was positively associated with their life satisfaction, emotional filial responsibility was positively related to adolescent life satisfaction and negatively associated with depression. Moreover, maternal warmth moderated the relationship between emotional filial responsibility and life satisfaction among adolescents. When adolescents perceived more maternal warmth, adolescents performing more emotional filial responsibility demonstrated greater life satisfaction than those who performed less. Furthermore, the moderating effect of maternal warmth in the association of instrumental filial responsibility with adolescent life satisfaction was different between adolescent boys and girls. When boys perceived more maternal warmth, they reported better life satisfaction if they performed more instrumental filial responsibility. But the moderating effect of maternal warmth in the relationship was not significant in girls. Lastly, adolescent age moderated the moderating effect of maternal warmth in the association of emotional filial responsibility with adolescent anxiety. When older adolescents perceived more maternal warmth, they reported less anxiety if they performed more emotional filial responsibility. However, the moderating effect of maternal warmth in the relationship was not significant in younger adolescents.

The findings suggest that filial responsibilities may not necessarily hamper adolescent wellbeing. Maternal warmth serves as an important family condition that determines the associations of filial responsibilities with adolescent wellbeing. The findings provide important insights for family scholars and practitioners to design supportive services in improving quality of life of Chinese adolescents in poor single-mother families.

ABSTRACT. Family functioning plays an important role in the socio-emotional development of adolescents. However, few studies have explored the mechanisms underlying the influence of family functioning on adolescent developmental internalizing behavior (e.g., depression) and externalizing behavior (e.g., problem behavior) among adolescents in rural China. This study examined the impact of family functioning on depression and problem behavior of Chinese adolescents, with positive youth development attributes as a hypothesized mediating factor. A total of 3,699 adolescents (1,973 boys and 1,726 girls, Mage=14.67±1.11) in rural China responded to validated measures of family functioning, depression, problem behavior and positive youth development attributes. Results showed that while family functioning positively predicted positive youth development attributes, it negatively predicted adolescent depression and problem behavior. Besides, positive youth development attributes negatively predicted adolescent depression and problem behavior. Mediation analysis showed that positive youth development attributes significantly mediated the impact of family functioning on both adolescent depression and problem behavior. These findings contribute to theories on the relationships amongst family functioning, positive youth development, adolescent depression, and adolescent problem behavior, particularly with reference to the Chinese rural context. The practical implication of the finding is that through strengthening family functioning and positive youth development attributes, practitioners can promoting adolescent well-being and reducing adolescent problem behavior.

ABSTRACT. This presentation is based on my recent book (The Balanced Life: Using Strategies from Behavioral Science to Enhance Wellbeing; Cambridge university Press, 2022; https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/psychology/health-and-clinical-psychology/balanced-life-using-strategies-behavioral-science-enhance-wellbeing?format=PB#contentsTabAnchor). The balanced life is a state of equally moderate-to-high levels of satisfaction in important and multiple life domains that contribute to overall life satisfaction.

Specifically, the balanced life can be achieved through a set of inter-domain strategies involving individual thought and action. Two sets of inter-domain strategies will be discussed, namely strategies to prompt greater participation of satisfied domains to contribute to life satisfaction and strategies to increase domain satisfaction and decrease dissatisfaction.

Inter-domain strategies designed to prompt greater participation of satisfied life domains to contribute to life satisfaction include: (1) engagement in social roles in multiple life domains (explained by the principle of satisfaction limits), (2) engagement in roles in health, safety, economic, social, work, leisure, and cultural domains (explained by the principle of satisfaction of the full spectrum of human development needs), and (3) engagement in new social roles (explained by the principle of diminishing satisfaction).

Inter-domain strategies designed to increase domain satisfaction and decrease domain dissatisfaction include (1) integrating domains with high satisfaction (explained by the principle of positive spillover), (2) compartmentalizing domains with low satisfaction (explained by the segmentation principle), (3) optimizing domain satisfaction by reallocating resources across domains (explained by the compensation principle), (4) stress management (explained by the principle of role conflict reduction), and (5) using skills, experiences, and resources in one role for other roles (explained by the principle of role enrichment).

ABSTRACT. Cost-wellbeing analysis makes use of measures of subjective wellbeing to value non-market outcomes within the context of cost-benefit analysis. Typically cost-wellbeing analysis takes an estimate of the impact of a non-market outcome on an evaluative measure of subjective wellbeing – such as life satisfaction – and compares this with the impact of income on subjective wellbeing. This allows for the calculation of a marginal rate of substitution between the non-market outcome in question and income, and hence for the estimation of a dollar value for the non-market outcome. While this approach has opened up the ability to produce meaningful valuations for non-market outcomes more quickly and at lower cost than is the case for more traditional valuation techniques (such as contingent valuation surveys), it also faces a number of limitations. One key challenge is estimating values for non-market outcomes where the choice to engage in the outcome is endogenous to taste or preferences, has only a small impact on wellbeing, or where the outcome is difficult to match spatially or temporally with measures of subjective wellbeing.

Experienced wellbeing measures, which capture how a person felt at a particular place and time offer a potential way around the limitations faced by cost-wellbeing analysis using evaluative measures of subjective wellbeing. This paper considers the challenges in using experienced wellbeing measures in cost-wellbeing analysis and proposes a method for obtaining cost-wellbeing valuations from experienced wellbeing measures that addresses these challenges. The paper first reviews different approaches to conceptualising utility and the link between these and different measures of subjective wellbeing. It then outlines the standard approach to cost-wellbeing analysis and considers how this could be adapted to use measures of experienced wellbeing. Key challenges involved in estimating experienced wellbeing values are identified and a methodology is proposed that addresses these.

ABSTRACT. The idea of subjective wellbeing (SWB) is that humans are well when they feel good and are satisfied with their lives. Proponents of SWB maintain that the approach accounts for all aspects of people's feelings and judgments of important life values. We oppose this claim and rather argue that SWB is unable to fully capture the richness of feelings and engaged agency people pursue in their lives. SWB research is basically capturing pleasant feelings and easily accessible satisfactions. We ask if these limitations affect people-first policies in a negative way and believe that they do. Instead, we suggest that a eudaimonic approach it more fit for the task. In our interpretation, eudaimonic wellbeing (EWB) suggests that the good life consists in actively pursuing goals that provide us with the right feelings for the right reasons. Since this is an unattainable ideal of human functioning, EWB must be seen as a continuous process of growth and improvement. Some empirical support for the claim that EWB is a more appropriate perspective for a people-first policy than SWB come from two surveys. In the first (Norwegian convenience sample, N = 183), we found that participants prioritize solidarity values above SWB values. Moreover, an experimental group comprising a randomized half of the participants were exposed to a set of solidarity values before writing down the most important values in their lives. Compared with the control group that completed the procedure in the reversed order, the experimental group reported a significantly higher number of eudaimonic values. A second study (international commercial sample, N = 302), found that participants did not prefer to maximize positive affect or minimize negative affect. Neither did they want to maximize life satisfaction. An exploratory factor analysis showed that hedonic and eudaimonic indicators of wellbeing constituted two different dimensions. The findings suggest that SWB has a utilitarian bias, which is discussed and contrasted to a EWB model grounded in solidarity values, human rights, and the notion of contributive justice.

ABSTRACT. Co-benefits represent situations in which both well-being and environmental protection are met. Typical examples are active mobility and conscious eating. Some of these co-benefits stem from individual behaviors but other depend on macro and meso factors. This presentation will provide a theoretical framework to make sense of the existing evidence and a critical review in order to explore future venues of research in joining well-being and sustainability.

ABSTRACT. With the growing dissemination of digital technologies in the workplace, technologies itself and related factors are increasingly discussed as an additional source of work stress potentially impairing employee well-being. The technostress model and its extensions (Tarafdar et al. 2007; Dragano & Lunau 2020) identify different dimensions of technology-related stressors at work: techno-overload, techno-complexity, techno-insecurity, techno-uncertainty, techno-invasion, techno-unreliability, technological workplace surveillance and stress in human-machine interaction. First empirical studies – especially exploring techno-overload and techno-invasion – indicate that technostress relates to adverse health and impaired employee well-being (for review, see Baumeister et al. 2021; Borle et al. 2021). However, possibly due to limited data availability, empirical studies are still scarce and mostly rely on small and specific samples, making it difficult to generalize the results for the working population. Moreover, some dimensions of technostress have so far received little attention, such as techno unreliability, i.e. stress induced by breakdowns or technical errors (Dragano & Lunau 2020). In this paper, we thus make a first step to empirically explore whether techno unreliability is associated with adverse employee well-being and base our analyses on a large representative sample of employees. Moreover, we explore several moderating factors related to coping behavior that might buffer (or strengthen) the relationship. We draw on the German telephone survey "Digitalization and Change in the World of Work (DiWaBe)" conducted in 2019 (see Arntz et al. 2020) including approx. 8,000 employees from about 2,000 German manufacturing and service companies. For the analyses, we restrict the sample to currently employed individuals up to the age of 65 with valid information on the main variables included. We distinguish between employees predominantly working with ICT (n=4,702) and those who mainly work with tools, equipment or machinery (n=1,952), as technology-related stress likely differs across workplaces. As outcome we focus on burnout, as the data include a screening scale for burnout symptoms based on the established COPSOQ capturing the dimension of exhaustion. Based on three items we generate a sumscore [0;9] with higher values corresponding to stronger burnout symptoms. Regarding technostress, we use technology-related interruptions as an indicator of techno unreliability. As potential coping factors, we consider individual factors (affinity for technological interaction, self-efficacy) as well as workplace or job-related factors, such as social support (colleagues, supervisor) or job autonomy. All analyses control for gender, age, qualification, occupation and a dummy whether the respondent is full-time or part-time employed. We perform ordinary least squares regression (OLS) with robust standard errors clustered at the company level. To examine whether certain (workplace-related) factors might buffer or amplify the relationship, we include interaction terms between the techno-induced interruptions and the moderator variables in additional analyses. First results indicate that technostress seems to be crucial for mental health: The more frequently employees experience technology-induced interruptions, the stronger the burnout symptoms. This holds for both, ICT users as well as tool users. The interaction models indicate that social support and job autonomy might partly buffer the negative relation between techno-induced inter-ruptions and burnout.

ABSTRACT. Happiness is an important global goal, and a central social-economic indicator; legislation, policymaking and reporting procedures have been created for its advancement. The business sector is gradually, if partially, adopting the pursuit of happiness as a value, as stakeholders’ awareness of its importance increases. However, the business sector’s official responsibility to promote Gross National Happiness (GNH) remains unclear, despite its central role in society. Furthermore, a firm’s choice to increase happiness may have a negative impact on its short-term financial profit, thereby decreasing its propensity to invest in happiness. We construct a theoretical model to present the concept of Corporate Happiness Responsibility as a framework for promoting happiness in the business sector. The model illustrates the contradictions between profit maximization and contribution to GNH and proposes using tax benefits as an incentive to close the gap. Our theoretical framework makes a significant contribution to the advancement of happiness by supporting the business sector’s increased responsibility for national happiness. Our model elucidates the circumstances under which firms would independently operate to increase happiness and invest in happiness. We also present the way the government can use financial incentives to promote investment in happiness, thus, improving the overall GNH impacted by the business sector. We suggest that a market failure as it relates to achieving required level of corporate happiness contribution might be expected in many industries, especially since it has an ambiguous and risky implication on revenue streams, while the required costs are determinant. Solving the market failure using financial incentives can help firms rip its benefit in the long run, with consequent positive implications of happiness as it is related to public image, reputation, and employees’ loyalty among other factors. We conclude that policy makers need to make sure they define the goals for happiness in accordance with their national priorities and the nation needs. They need to inspect the main industries and business sector to measure their happiness related attributes and contribution to national happiness – CNH. While analyzing these gaps, the policy makers need to consider the costs associated with improving happiness and aim at providing a taxation framework that provides tax benefits aiming at bridging the gap between profit maximization and happiness-goal-achievement. This kind of specific, happiness oriented, financially based policy making incentive framework will allow increasing happiness over time by creating a long-term happiness-oriented workplace, further improving national gross national happiness and cementing happiness goals.

ABSTRACT. Delhi Government introduced Happiness Curriculum in its schools in the year 2018. The teachers were given orientation to teach the curriculum which included building and improving psychological capital of students. The students up to the age of 14 years had 45 minutes class daily having learner centric approach. The curriculum had components of value education, mental exercises and life lessons of great personalities including meditation sessions. The objective of this study was to examine the life satisfaction, job satisfaction, and self-efficacy of the teachers teaching in the government schools in Delhi. Further we explored the difference in these variables among the teachers who were involved in teaching happiness curriculum (n=150) with the teachers who were not involved (n=138) in the delivery of happiness curriculum. The sample included 288 valid samples mostly (more than 70%) having permanent job. Standard tools were used and the internal consistency through Cronbach’s alpha was found to be more than .90 for each scale. We report that there is close relationship between life satisfaction and job satisfaction. It was also found that teachers’ satisfaction and efficacy levels were significantly dependent on the fact that they teach happiness curriculum or not. Though teaching happiness curriculum improves overall satisfaction of teachers, yet it is also found that it does not have significant effect on their life satisfaction.

ABSTRACT. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the relationship between working from home (WFH) and the quality of life had been of minor scientific and political interest, mainly because WFH was restricted to small and highly selective groups of the working population and a concession to privileged employees. Especially in Germany, there were considerable reservations among employers and employees that WFH could work without significant losses in productivity and job quality. Since the beginning of the pandemic, however, WFH has become indispensable for many employees and companies. Though the previously existing reservations have been considerably reduced in the course of the massive but sudden increase in WFH among large parts of the working population, research is needed to clarify the implications of WFH for different indicators of well-being.

Studies on the effects of WFH during the pandemic provide a largely mixed picture and replicate similarly contradictory findings as in pre-COVID-19 times. Some of the studies find reduced satisfaction with work, which then has an impact on family well-being, especially for parents. Some authors find more work-family conflicts, but others find even fewer conflicts and a better work-life balance. In the case of working from home full-time, the risk of social isolation is highlighted in particular.

In our contribution, we aim to present empirical research that systematically analyses WFH against heterogeneous organizational contexts, individual living conditions, and with regard to different indicators of well-being: (mental) health, work-life integration, work-life conflicts, satisfaction with life, and fairness perceptions. A special focus is on the interactions and collaborations with co-workers and supervisors. By doing so, we aim to not only add to existing research on WFH during the extraordinary pandemic situation but also provide more practical implications of what criteria are important to successfully organize WFH in the longer run.

We use data from a linked employer-employee study conducted between March and June 2021 in Germany. The study consists of guided expert interviews with 19 small-, medium- and large-sized organizations across various economic sectors, and a quantitative survey of over 2,000 employees from these organizations. By conducting multivariate within- and between-organization comparisons, we are able to link different indicators of well-being to different WFH conditions in organizations. The results show that internal relationships and interactions within organizations are those aspects of WFH that are important for all analyzed indicators of well-being. Supportive and understanding relationships with co-workers and supervisors are related to better health, higher satisfaction, better work-life integration, and fewer work-life conflicts. On the one side, a higher share of employees who work from home seems to increase the normalization of WFH within the organization indicating fewer negative implications for well-being. On the other side, the results indicate that individual contributions in the home office should be made transparent because if employees perceive their co-workers to be less productive when WFH, this is related to lower well-being and fewer ambitions to continue WFH. Finally, informal exchange between employees should not be neglected because if it suffers due to WFH, all indicators of well-being are negatively affected.

ABSTRACT. The level of people's satisfaction with their lives in general in Kazakhstan throughout the time of reforms in the 2000-2020s was related to external socio-economic circumstances of life. During the deterioration of the economic situation, the average satisfaction with life in the country decreased, and with the improvement of the general state of the economy and stabilization of the situation, it rose again. But it is necessary to find out what factors and to what extent they influence the level of life satisfaction of citizens of Kazakhstan. Based on correlation results, presented in the research of 2021 in Kazakhstan, which is devoted to the questions of perception and attitudes of Kazakhstani people, we will identify some factors that affect the satisfaction of Kazakhstan's people with their lives at high or low levels. This study involved 1,500 respondents, and the research method used was a questionnaire that included socio-demographic, socio-economic, and socio-psychological questions. Correlation analysis revealed a positive correlation between happiness and life satisfaction in many of the areas studied. The following factors are positively significant for the feeling of happiness by Kazshakstan residents: health (r=+.163), economic situation (r=+.163), the situation in the country (r=+.134), living conditions (r=+.121), professional realization (r=+. 114), personal security (r=+.107), own qualities (r=+.105), family attitude (r=+.100), government work (r=+.098), (spiritual well-being (r=+.076), belief in religion (r=+.074), attitude with friends (r=+.064). Kazakh women are happier than men. The rural population in Kazakhstan is happier than the urban population. The older a person is, the more their happiness decreases. Although religiosity is positively significant for Kazakhstanis in subjective feelings, relations with religious communities are not so important. Happiness correlates negatively only with age and with the self-esteem of social status. All the above trends are compared with the picture of happiness in the most developed countries of the world.

ABSTRACT. Background: In order to explore well-being in the United States, Gross National Happiness USA (GNHUSA) conducted a survey asking 5,000 Americans about their life satisfaction, happiness, anxiety, and the extent to which they believe they are leading worthwhile lives. To our knowledge this is the first grassroots nationwide survey in the United States to pose this set of questions, which has been regularly polled among citizens of Great Britain since 2011.

Methods: The study was conducted in the late summer of 2022 using a paid panel of survey respondents, with 100 responses collected from each state in the United States. The questionnaire consisted of a series of 0-10 scale questions, a series of yes/no actions by wellbeing domain questions, a single open-response question: “In a few words, what makes you happy?”, and a demographic set.

Findings: In response to the open-ended question, "What makes you happy?", family was mentioned in 45 percent of responses, making it by far the most common factor to which respondents attributed their happiness. Other common topics such as health, finances, and religion were mentioned by less than 10% of survey respondents.

The survey also found that younger adults in the US are experiencing lower happiness levels than older adults, producing a linear trend rather than the expected parabola. Individuals aged 18-24 years had an average life satisfaction score of 6.1, which was the lowest of any age bracket. Each subsequently older bracket was slightly happier than the preceding, maxing out at a score of 7.3 for the 65 and older age group.

Discussion: The 'u-shaped curve' is perhaps the most well-known concept in the study of wellbeing. This is a widespread and replicable finding: one 2020 study observed the u-shaped curve in datasets from 145 countries. Our survey data show the youngest respondents are reporting some of the lowest life satisfaction scores on average.

While this finding contradicts plenty of well-being literature, we are not the first to find lower levels of happiness among young adults. This is perhaps yet another consequence of COVID-19, especially given that younger Americans have been more likely to report feelings of loneliness throughout the pandemic.

ABSTRACT. Introduction: Norwegian counties are mandated by law to monitor public health status in their respective counties. The Norwegian Counties Public Health Surveys (NCPHS) are recently established (2019) and aim at providing public health relevant measures not covered by other registries. A newly developed national Quality of Life (QoL) instrument is a central component of these surveys. This instrument builds on existing international guidelines from OECD and others. QoL relevant topics (e.g., loneliness and satisfaction) and information on living conditions has been collected in large national surveys in Norway since the 1970s. However, a report commissioned by the Ministry of Health in 2016 recommended several steps including better coordination of measurement tools and methods, and substantial improvements in the national data collection system, particularly to provide information on a regional and municipal level. Aims: Describe different aspects of QoL on a regional and municipal level, i.e., mapping QoL in Norway.

Methods: NCPHS is an internet-based survey, and invitations are sent by e-mail and SMS. Stratified sampling provides reliable results at the municipal level. On average 25 % of the adult population is invited to participate in the NCPHS.

Results: Currently, 16 of 20 counties have conducted NCPHS (old county structure) and responses from more than 300,000 respondents aged 18 and over are in the database. Mean satisfaction with life, for all age groups on a 0-10 scale, range between 7.23 and 7.59 across counties and time (2019-2022). For positive affect the last 7 days (0-10 scale), scores range from 6.76-7.00. On a municipal level, e.g. satisfaction with life ranges from 5.77 to 7.46 for the age group 18-24 and from 7.80 to 8.11 for age group 65+. Belonging ranges from 7.18 to 7.60 at the county level. In Viken, Norway’s largest county, with 51 municipalities, belonging ranges from 6.70 to 7.88. Analysis of loneliness shows a small, but significant difference (0.2 on a 0-10 scale) between urban and rural areas (Cohens d = 0.05). Conclusion: QoL seems to be geographically evenly distributed in Norway. Regional differences are small, whilst at a municipal level, there is more variation, mostly due to differences in population composition. We also see the same gradients of age, sex and education. Overall, Norwegian policies and welfare system, is fairly successful in providing for good QoL for the whole of the country. In combination with other items in the surveys or linked to registry data, QoL data from NCPHS is an important policy steering tool for counties and municipalities and an important basis for interventions aimed at improving QoL, or aspects thereof such as loneliness. Although NCPHS can provide a comprehensive picture of QoL in Norway, there are some known selection and non-response biases (immigrants, elderly, those with low education).

ABSTRACT. The Philippine government’s response to COVID-19 has been described as one of the world’s longest and strictest lockdowns ever implemented. On March 2020, Metro Manila and the entire island group of Luzon were put under “enhanced community quarantine” (ECQ). Soon after, major cities were also put under lockdown. Under ECQ, school and university classes were suspended, mass gatherings were prohibited, government offices were run with a skeletal workforce, businesses were closed except for those providing essential goods and services, mass transportation was restricted, and people were ordered to observe social distancing measures and to stay at home. In November 2021, the Alert Level System (ALS) replaced the old quarantine system and has since then been in effect to this day. By July 2022, most of the provinces, highly urbanized cities, and municipalities in the Philippines were placed under Alert Level 1, the most lenient alert level classification. In this alert level, all establishments, persons, or activities, are allowed to operate, work, or be undertaken at full on-site or venue/seating capacity provided it is consistent with minimum public health standards. Face-to-face classes for basic education are also allowed subject to prior approval of the national government.

How did the Filipino people fare during the first two years of the pandemic? What were their attitudes toward the government’s COVID-19 response? How was their quality of life affected?

Social Weather Stations (SWS), a private, non-stock, non-profit, and non-partisan social research institution engaged in public opinion polling in the Philippines, conducted nationally representative surveys to look into people’s attitudes toward the lockdowns, their essential activities, the stress caused on them by the pandemic, their vaccine skepticism, their fear of catching the virus, and their outlook on the COVID-19 crisis. SWS also conducts nationally representative surveys to monitor quality-of-life indicators such as poverty, hunger, past and future assessments of personal quality of life, and joblessness, among others.

Results on these topics will be presented and analyzed by Filipinos’ basic demographics (such as sex, age, civil status, and educational levels) and quality-of-life indicators.

ABSTRACT. During COVID-19 many informal caregivers experienced increased caregiving load while access to formal and informal support systems and coping resources decreased. Little is known about the psychosocial costs of these challenges for an essential yet vulnerable and “hidden” frontline workforce. This study explores and compares changes in psychosocial well-being (psychological well-being, psychological ill-being, and loneliness) before and across up to three stages of the COVID-19 pandemic among caregivers and non-caregivers. We also examine predictors of psychosocial well-being among caregivers during the peak of the pandemic. We use longitudinal data collected online in the Norwegian Counties Public Health Survey (age 18–92) in four countries and up to four data points (n=23,000). Findings show that levels of psychosocial well-being first remained stable but later dropped markedly during the peak stages of the pandemic. Caregivers (the 13−15% that provide care ≥monthly across all data points) report lower psychosocial well-being than non-caregivers both before and during the pandemic. Caregivers seem especially vulnerable in terms of ill-being, and during the peak of the pandemic caregivers report higher net levels of worry and anxiousness (OR = 1.23, p< .01) than non-caregivers. As expected, impacts are graver for caregivers who provide more intensive care and those who themselves have health problems or poor access to social support. Lessons learned about the nature and distribution of the psychosocial impacts of prolonged health-threats and unintended consequences of social distancing measure provide valuable knowledge for interventions to support caregivers during this and future pandemics.

ABSTRACT. The present study examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental well-being using data from two online panel surveys carried out subsequently in Japan from June 2020 to March 2022. Based on this data, we monitor changes in well-being over the course of two years, following a curve of deterioration and later, recovery, with a special focus on the social gradient of this development. Results from our first online panel survey (three waves from June 2020 to March 2021) indicate that the pandemic amplified pre-existing socioeconomic inequality by disproportionally affecting socially vulnerable groups, who were already disadvantaged in the labor market prior to the pandemic. In addition, we find that the pandemic has had detrimental effects not only on socioeconomic conditions, but also on mental well-being. Over the course of the first year of the pandemic, while mental health deteriorated overall, this effect was especially strong among respondents with low socioeconomic status. With social distancing orders in place to curb the spread of infection, social capital—usually an important coping resource in times of disaster—could not function to counterbalance these negative effects. Instead, an increase in distrust and loneliness further deteriorated the mental well-being of individuals (Kanbayashi, Hommerich & Sudo 2021).

Following up on these results, we use data from the second online panel survey (four waves from March 2021 to March 2022) to investigate to what extent levels of mental well-being recovered, as the threat of COVID-19 weakened due to vaccine availability and the gradual reduction of infections up until the omicron wave. We find that the stratified disparities in mental well-being that had become amplified throughout the pandemic were reduced, especially due to a strong recovery in mental well-being among respondents of lower socioeconomic status (who had experienced the greatest drop in mental well-being). However, their levels of mental well-being remain significantly lower than that of respondents of higher socioeconomic status. Overall, social capital functions as a facilitator for mental well-being recovery. Here, we observe a gender difference in the well-being enhancing effect of different types of social capital.

Reference Kanbayashi, H., C. Hommerich, & N. Sudo. 2021. “Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Household Income and Mental Well-Being: Evidence from a Panel-Survey in Japan.” Sociological Theory and Methods 36(2): 259-277.

ABSTRACT. The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the lives of large population segments. Studies indicate, for example, that the rapid changes in the spheres of work and family life have especially affected individuals in the low-wage sector, women and single mothers, as well as healthcare workers (Escudero-Castillo, Mato-Díau & Rodriguez-Alvarez 2021; Nieuwenhuis & Yerkes 2021; Hummel et al. 2021; Möhring et al. 2021; Nivakoski & Mascherini 2021). Thus, it becomes evident, that some have been affected by strains, decreases in wellbeing and deteriorations in mental health more severely than others and that responses to the various challenges during the pandemic may have varied between social groups (Gibson et al. 2021; Kuhn et al. 2021; Shevlin et al. 2021). These findings are mostly in line with theoretical perspectives from wellbeing research and the sociology of health such as sociological stress-research, which centers around the idea that vulnerable groups are exposed to a higher number of social stressors and possess fewer stress-mediating resources than non-vulnerable groups (Pearlin 1989; Aneshensel 2009; Thoits 2010).

Our quantitative study takes a closer look at subjective wellbeing, and its determinants among the Austrian residential population between 2020 and 2022 using Data from the Austrian version of the “Values in Crisis” survey (Aschauer et al. 2021). In Austria, each of the three waves reached a sample size of about 2000, of whom a total of 747 individuals have participated in all three waves of the survey.

We address three central issues: (1) Our first goal is to show how various social groups (e.g., unemployed, COVID-19 risk groups, individuals who are living alone, …) differ from each other in terms of subjective wellbeing and life-satisfaction and whether differences in time-specific dynamics can be observed. (2) We analyze the influence of specific social and material resources (e.g., social contacts, income), as well as perceptions of the future on wellbeing and life-satisfaction at different points in time by applying structural equation modeling. In addition, we hypothesize that the effect of these specific resources on wellbeing outcomes is mediated by their subjective appraisal. (3) Using longitudinal multilevel models, we aim to show how predictors of wellbeing and life satisfaction vary between social groups and over time.

ABSTRACT. Donella Meadows, lead author of the iconic 1972 “Limits to Growth“ study of the Club of Rome, has in her later writings introduced the important distinction between intermediate ends and ultimate ends in terms of reaching long-term human wellbeing while maintaining the essential natural life support systems on this planet. Blended with the approach of the 1987 Brundtland Report that introduced the notion of sustainable development in trying to bring together the conventional economic development agenda with the newer environmental protection agenda, this introduces some hierarchy of priorities into the currently dominating discourse around the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and its 169 more specific targets as defined by the UN “Agenda 2030” in 2015. While under Donella Meadows’ distinction most of the SDGs and their more specific targets can be classified as intermediate ends – in the sense that they help on the way to reach certain ultimate ends – only very few of them which directly address the constituents of human wellbeing could be classified as ultimate ends in their own right. The newly emerging scientific field of “Sustainability Science” has at its center a comprehensive equation that has also been labelled a “well-being production function”: W = f( C(i), I, K), where W refers to human wellbeing, C (i) refers to several capitals including, human, natural and economic capital, I refers to Institutions and K to Knowledge. While most of the research in sustainability science has so far focused on studying the relationships of the variables on the right-hand-side of the equation and developing new concepts in this fields such as the influential notion of inclusive wealth, little effort has been put into measuring the W on the left-hand-side directly. This task of defining a quantitative indicator of human wellbeing, W, that can be viewed as the ultimate end and hence in its development over time as sustainability criterion, is the focus of this paper. Existing indicators and new tailor-made ones are being assessed with respect to meeting six specified criteria which include separate applicability to sub-populations, avoidance of arbitrary weighting schemes, cross-cultural applicability and others. Only one new tailer-made indicator has been assessed as meeting all these criteria.

ABSTRACT. As part of a European Research Council (ERC) funded project titled “Empowered Life Years”, a new indicator of human well-being, called “Years of Good Life (YoGL)” was developed to study sustainable development priorities (Lutz et al., 2021). Literature shows that well-being indicators have evolved, shifting from solely measuring economic welfare to a more holistic approach, such as the inclusion of subjective indicators and the importance of considering heterogeneity at the sub-national level and developing local or social group-specific indicators of sustainability. As such, this indicator builds on the length of life (i.e. average life expectancy), but since mere survival is not considered enough, it also incorporates four central constituents of human well-being: being out of absolute poverty, having good physical health, having good cognitive health, and having a subjective life satisfaction above a minimal level.

The validity and universal applicability of this new indicator to be used as a global sustainability criterion have been tested using various methods. One such method has used structured focus group discussions to test the inter-cultural acceptability of YoGL across a range of settings in Nepal and South Africa. A total of seven groups from the two culturally distinct countries included experts, urban or rural residents, as well as people of native and immigrational communities, various ethnicities and different educational and socio-cultural backgrounds. Results indicated two primary findings present across all seven group discussions. Firstly, the four constituents of YoGL were deemed to be essential for a human well-being indicator. Secondly, however, these four constituents were not considered enough. All groups unanimously brought up the dimensions of social connections and personal safety as aspects just as vital as YoGL’s four constituents to include in the indicator. It is concluded that while the dimensions of YoGL are deemed to be universally essential as a measure of human-wellbeing, it is recommended to consider the inclusion of more constituents measuring the presence of social connections and further test whether they are of comparable importance in the context of highly developed and individualized societies.

Reference: Lutz, W., Striessnig, E., Dimitrova, A., Ghislandi, S., Lijadi, A., Reiter, C., Spitzer, S., & Yildiz, D. (2021). Years of good life is a well-being indicator designed to serve research on sustainability. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(12), e1907351118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1907351118

ABSTRACT. The seminal work carried out by the Club of Rome has sparked a long-standing tradition of using systems dynamic modelling for understanding the implications of world development trends and the sustainability of environmental systems, including the biosphere and climate systems, the world population as well as various man-made systems such as the economic and energy systems. While systems dynamic approaches are careful of capturing the nexus of interrelationships between the various systems and, thereby, capture the trade-offs, synergies and spillovers that drive systems dynamics as well as a variety of different outcomes, most of them do not relate to human well-being as the ultimate end of sustainable development. To date, most of the models refer to GDP and some refer to the Human Development Index, but typically these measures remain focused on economic performance or at best aggregate indicators of education and health/survival but do not relate these to human well-being. In this project we extend the “Full of Economic-Environment Linkages and Integration dX/dt” (FeliX) systems model (Moallemi et al., 2022) to implement the Years of Good Life (YoGL) indicator (Lutz et al., 2021) as a well-being measure that is based on life expectancy and meeting minimum standards in income, health, cognition, and life satisfaction. We study how YoGL as measured for the world population emerges endogenously over time under different development scenarios. Insights from this allow us to gauge the impact of environment- and climate-oriented as well as population-oriented policies, e.g. a fostering of education or redistributional measures, on well-being. Such an analysis also allows to understand trade-offs in well-being across generations and over time and how sustainable development can be measured directly in terms of changes in YoGL over the long run. Our findings will complement and contextualise insights from earlier systems dynamic studies of sustainable development.

Reference: Lutz, W., Striessnig, E., Dimitrova, A., Ghislandi, S., Lijadi, A., Reiter, C., Spitzer, S., & Yildiz, D. (2021). Years of good life is a well-being indicator designed to serve research on sustainability. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(12), e1907351118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1907351118

Moallemi, E. A., Hosseini, S. H., Eker, S., Gao, L., Bertone, E., Szetey, K., & Bryan, B. A. (2022). Eight Archetypes of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Synergies and Trade‐Offs. Earth's Future, 10(9), e2022EF002873.

ABSTRACT. Since subjective wellbeing (SWB) is one of the ultimate goals in life for at least most of human beings, a good argument can be made that fostering SWB constitutes a natural target for successful transition towards sustainability as well. In addition to its centrality in life, it will act as a feasibility constraint: no transition plan will be successfully implemented which is not compatible with it. However, this is hardly reflected in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, at least not beyond “mental health” and the indicator suicide rate. This is due to the difficulties in assessment on the one hand (Costanza et al., 2016, Ponocny et al., 2016), but still to a lack of conceptual workability (see also Bach & Reardon, 2016). “Curiously enough, although wellbeing is the ultimate goal of human action, in the last decades, the concept itself has not been given very much attention” (Helne & Hirvilammi, 2015, p. 170). As a consequence, no clear directions are set towards which sustainable development should go from a human perspective, and accordingly there is no established narrative about the precise societal transition we need to undergo. The present contribution will discuss different wellbeing approaches such as Sen’s capability approach and human needs theories, and identify some open questions, in particular about the conversion from needs satisfaction into happiness. At the end, an alternative theoretical concept is proposed: a systematic description along a classification of circumstances and of possible emotional reactions interacting with them. Apart from its higher granularity, it may also circumvent the problem of vagueness which limits the interpretability of self-ratings about satisfaction with life or life domains so much. Finally, it will be discussed how this classification can contribute to the setting of sustainability goals.

References: Bache, I., & Reardon, L. (2016). The politics and policy of wellbeing: Understanding the rise and significance of a new agenda. Edward Elgar Publishing. Costanza, R., Daly, L., Fioramonti, L., Giovannini, E., Kubiszewski, I., Mortensen, L. F., ... & Wilkinson, R. (2016). Modelling and measuring sustainable wellbeing in connection with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Ecological Economics, 130, 350-355. Helne, T., & Hirvilammi, T. (2015). Wellbeing and sustainability: A relational approach. Sustainable Development, 23(3), 167-175. Ponocny, I., Weismayer, C., Stross, B., & Dressler, S. G. (2016). Are most people happy? Exploring the meaning of subjective well-being ratings. Journal of Happiness Studies

ABSTRACT. Rural women in developing nations are especially vulnerable to higher health risks due to environmental pollution exposure and are more likely to experience poorer health outcomes. Using data from the 2013 China General Social Survey CGSS2013, this study empirically examines the relationship among environmental knowledge (EK), pollution, health investment, and health status of women residing in rural regions in China. We employ a nationally representative sample of 1,930 female individuals for our analysis. Our results show that the level of EK for women in rural China significantly impacts their self-reported physical and mental health. In order to account for potential endogeneity due to mutual causality, this study employs television usage and network usage as two instrument variables (IVs) of EK. We performed an IV-probit method to correct the estimated errors due to endogeneity. Additionally, to assess the reliability and robustness of our results, we evaluate our model by replacing health status with the variable Body Mass Index (BMI). The results are consistent, providing evidence of robustness. Additionally, we examine the relationship between health investment (that is, holding and purchasing a public health insurance policy, engaging in frequent physical activity, and acquiring commercial insurance) and health status. Our results indicate that the level of EK has no significant impact on purchasing public insurance, such as participating in the new rural cooperative medical system. However, the preference of purchasing commercial insurance is positively impacted by EK, though it does not have a direct impact on the health condition. Conversely, an increase in EK and pollution is associated with a greater likelihood of engaging in physical exercise, which could, in turn, improve overall mental health.

ABSTRACT. The economics of happiness encompasses a vast literature in which the main relations between economic variables and happiness are explored (see Easterlin (2021) for a contemporary review), with the empirical verification of the diminishing marginal utility of income, alongside with the importance of non-market dimensions of social and economic life being put forward since the pioneer results from Easterlin (1974). In this paper, we want to explore the main links between the economics of happiness and the economy of care, given the particularities of the latter: the heavy weight of informal production and the special relevance of extra monetary dimensions. In particular, we will make the case that the very nature of the economy of care is especially suitable for a happiness framing. That is to say that producing and receiving care are activities where monetary and market price valuations tend to fall short (see Himmelweit (2007)): not all care can be bought in the market and many care is undervalued (care professionals tend to be poorly paid in several countries and informal caregivers tends to be disregarded). Additionally, many market activities cause a deterioration in care (ex. excessive workloads or excessive labor geographic mobility put family care into question). That is, the care economy bears a lot on relational goods and relational goods may be crowded out by markets as in Graafland (2010). Furthermore, caring is an essentially humanistic activity where the enhancement of the happiness of both caregivers and caretakers fits well as a goal. Regarding policy implications, the economics of happiness framework might serve the purpose of reshaping the care sector (redesigning it placing happiness as the priority) and put forward new policies that limit market externalities and balance the price incentives with the preservation of relational goods fundamental to care. All this analysis might be applied by policy makers, as well as by managers of organizations of the care sector, let it be in the profit or nonprofit economy. Furthermore, there is room for happiness theories and empirical results to be transmitted via education to those working on that sector.

ABSTRACT. Aims There is a wide literature on measuring well-being and many types of instruments exist for this purpose. However, there are few multi-attribute instruments measuring subjective well-being comprehensively, and their theoretical basis and validity are not always clear. Recently, a new instrument aiming to comprehensively measure subjective well-being in the adult population has been developed, the 10-item Well-being instrument (WiX). Thus far, this instrument has been validated in the Netherlands. Therefore, it is unclear whether the instrument is also valid for countries where the economic, political, and cultural environments differ from those in the Netherlands. It might be the case that, in such countries, certain domains to capture well-being would be missing from and/or are redundant in the instrument. This study aims to investigate the content and construct validity of the WiX for measuring well-being in the adult US population. Methods To assess the content and construct validity of the WiX, an online survey among adult respondents, quota-sampled on age, sex, and education level to be representative of the US general population will be conducted in February 2023 (n≈1000). Respondents will be asked a set of demographic questions and to fill in several well-being instruments (Cantril ladder, Satisfaction with Life Scale). Additionally, respondents will be asked to score themselves on the WiX and to answer several questions related to the content and construct validity of the instrument. Data will be analyzed using descriptive, correlation, factor and regression analyses, following the COSMIN framework. Results During the conference, we will present reference scores for the WiX and its items in the adult US population, show whether all items of the instrument were relevant or perhaps domains important to well-being for the US adult population were missing and share findings from the comparison of the WiX and its items to other subjective well-being instruments. In addition, we will compare item and overall well-being scores on the WiX with those available from other countries. Conclusions Throughout the conference, we hope to receive feedback on the findings of this study, but also on the usefulness of this new instrument more in general, both in the US and elsewhere. In addition, we hope to connect to others with similar interests and explore possibilities for collaboration. Further validation and valuation of the WiX is required, and ultimately utility weights need to be developed.

ABSTRACT. Background: Insulin pump therapy represents an alternative to multiple daily injections in type I diabetes mellitus (T1DM) patients but has pros and cons regarding patients’ quality of life (QOL).

Purpose: To investigate quantitatively and qualitatively the QOL of T1DM patients that use insulin pumps and multiple injections.

Materials and methods: Thirteen of 67 insulin multiple injections-users and eight of 20 pump users that participated in the quantitative part of the study agreed to the qualitative interviews using three-dimensional (diagnosis-related, daily self-control, life with T1DM) semi-structured interviews. Patients were invited to participate using a dedicated digital platform. QOL was assessed quantitatively using special questionnaires adopted for the Latvian population, and multiple logistic models adjusted for personal covariates were built for the association between the insulin administration method and patients’ QOL.

Results: The most important factor that increased patients’ QOL according to the multiple logistic regression were lower T1DM-related expenses (odds ratio, OR=7.02 [95% confidence interval 1.29; 38.0, p=0.02]. In qualitative interviews, for most participants, the decision to use the pump was related to costs (“It would be completely unrealistic for a student. Then you would have to think of another scenario — either your studies would fail, and you would have to look for a job”); some of them switched from the pump to injections because of financial problems (“I used to have insulin pens, but then my mom saved money so I could have the pump. After that I had to switch back to insulin pens because I was in big financial trouble”). Method of administration was not significantly associated with QOL (OR = 7.38 [0.87; 62.9, p=0.07]. In qualitative interviews, some participants mentioned QOL as the reason to use pumps (“The pump gives much more control to both the doctor and the patient if a person understands how the pump works”), but others stressed positive aspects of injections (“It is not practical for me to have a foreign object that is always present at my waist area”).

Conclusions: Qualitative data supported quantitative results and gave a more complete comprehension of insulin administration of T1DM patients.

ABSTRACT. Using the non-reversal condition of Kaiser and Vendrik (2022), we estimate the extent to which the wellbeing literature is really plagued by the threat of reversal (Bond and Lang, 2019). To do so, we first replicate the universe of the estimates coming from the linear life-satisfaction regressions published in top Economic reviews between 2010 and 2022. We show that the threat of reversal is very limited since only 10% of the universe of the wellbeing literature can be plausibly reversed. We find similarly low reversal risks on the literature documenting a U-shape curve in age, a female penalty, a negative effect of unemployment and positive effect of income. Last, we try to find the best research design to reduce the reversal risk. Early results suggest that exogenous independent variables are the least prone to reversal.

ABSTRACT. Two reasonable hesitations about global comparisons of life satisfaction reports, such as the Gallup World Poll's “life ladder” measure used in the World Happiness report, relate to cultural differences. One is that values and conceptions about what constitutes a "good life" may vary across cultures. So far, this has been assessed as a relatively minor issue because the same, largely social, determinants appear to be important in the same ways around the world. The second reasonable hesitation is the possibility that cultures may differ in their preferences over elements of the response scale used to answer a life satisfaction question. For instance, a culture could be generally predisposed against giving the top answer because it is immodest, or predisposed to give the middle answer, or to avoid a numerologically “unlucky” number like 4.

Although little attention has been given to such effects, I provide compelling evidence of each of the aforementioned patterns, along with other variation in qualitative distributions. Sometimes, distributions of life satisfaction responses and their use of focal values even vary qualitatively across regions within a country.

I review the econometric methods I have developed for dealing with this kind of problem, and apply them to two datasets from China, where 8 is lucky and 4 is unlucky. I show how to quantify “focal value” problems and how to estimate the bias introduced by these kinds of response behaviors in typical inference using subjective wellbeing data.

I then undertake a comparison of distributions of 150 countries and analyze cultural patterns in the use of focal values and in the biases introduced by that usage. I will report on the implications for the ranking of countries by their subjective wellbeing, such as those featured prominently in the annual World Happiness Report.

ABSTRACT. The wording of single-item subjective well-being (SWB) measures, such as life satisfaction and happiness, differs between commonly used surveys. The aim of this study is to provide a better understanding of whether, and if so how, people’s responses are affected by the wording of SWB-measures. Using experimental data from over 1,000 respondents, our findings show that the wording, and primarily the tone, of the measure have a limited though non-negligible impact on SWB outcomes (predictors, means, and distribution). We attribute these differences to framing, anchoring, priming, and norm effects. Our findings have important implications given that what and how you measure affects what you do.

ABSTRACT. Using cross-country data for the period 1981-2020, this study explores the relationship between social trust and happiness inequality. The regression results for a sample of 84 countries show that higher levels of social trust lead to a more even distribution of happiness across societies. We also find that GDP per capita and economic freedom are negatively related to happiness inequality. The results remain robust for a wide range of sensitivity tests.

ABSTRACT. Until now, much attention has been paid on the impact of social capital, such as social trust, on subjective well-being. By contrast, in international comparative research, recent studies have also regarded social policy as a crucial factor in subjective well-being. Although these areas of study have contributed to our understanding of the determinants of subjective well-being, we still have much to learn. First, little is known empirically about how social policy varies the association between social trust and subjective well-being. Second, in the well-being study, while previous studies have mainly adopted social expenditures and the decommodification index as proxies for social policy, these measures may confound the levels and distribution of welfare provisions. Against this backdrop, by shifting the attention from the main effect to the interaction effect, this study utilizes several indicators of welfare transfers, such as transfer share, low-income targeting, and universalism, as proxies of social policy and examines the cross-level interaction effects of welfare transfers and social trust on subjective well-being. For the analysis, this study employs pooled data from the World Values Survey and the European Values Study with multiple rounds and the two-way fixed-effects model. In this analysis, the dependent variable is the score of subjective well-being based on life satisfaction and happiness. The individual-level independent variable is the dummy for social trust and the macro-level moderator variables are transfer share, low-income targeting, and universalism derived from the Luxembourg Income Study Database. This analysis utilizes several individual and macro-country characteristics as controls. Via an international comparative analysis, the present study revealed that the cross-level interaction of universalism and social trust on subjective well-being is significant and positive. This result means that universal social policy facilitates the association between social trust and subjective well-being. These results may suggest that it is helpful to divide several aspects of welfare transfers for understanding the mechanisms of how social policy varies the meaning of social capital.

ABSTRACT. Little is known about how political accountability works in authoritarian regimes where real election is absent. The broad and important impacts of political trust make it an ideal alternative mechanism in such circumstances. Drawing on the social contract theory, we suggest that citizens will change their political trust in response to variations in their own well-being, as a means of holding their government accountable for public interest. With a longitudinal individual-level survey data in China, we identify a causal relationship between life satisfaction and people’s trust in local government officials by an individual fixed-effects model coupled with instrumental-variables. Specifically, people increase their political trust when they are more satisfied with their life, and the converse is also true. The findings are robust to a series of sensitivity tests. Among those checks, similar association is also found between life satisfaction and people’s evaluation on government performance, our results thus indeed can be interpreted as a sort of political accountability. An important implication of this study is that any governments, even for an authoritarian ruler, will need to defend its legitimacy. And individual subjective well-being deserves more attention from the governments when designing policies to maintain political support.

ABSTRACT. The framework to measure Equitable and sustainable well-being (Bes), which was developed by the Italian National statistical institute (Istat) since 2010, is constantly revised and supplemented, following social change, and the evolution of the well-being concept itself in the Italian society. Among the innovations introduced in the Bes 2022 Report, new variables and indicators, so far unpublished for Italy, were analyzed, with the aim to foreshadow a weakening of civic culture or the emerging of an intolerant social climate, since these sentiments and orientations adversely affect the social climate and the citizens’ well-being. The new data help also to deepen and better understand the reasons behind the low levels of citizens’ trust toward some democratic institutions that has long been observed in Italy. In the 2022 edition of the Aspects of Daily Life Survey, a battery of 10 items was submitted to a sample of 37,500 individuals aged 14 years and over to measure the importance they give – on a 4-position scale – to some conditions, circumstances, and behaviors that flow directly from constitutional rights, and which are essential requirements of mature democracies. The topics probed range from freedom of thought, expression, information, religion to civil rights, gender equality, absence of ethnic discrimination, exercise of political rights. The goal is to build new Bes indicators to be monitored over time, so being able to capture any changes in democratic sentiment. In this work, the main results are presented and analyzed by population groups and across the regions. At the same time, it will be discussed the opportunity and possible ways in which this information could be included in the set of indicators to measure well-being as a multidimensional concept.

ABSTRACT. Since the dawn of democracy in 1994, youth development has remained an area of challenge in South Africa. Although progress has been made in several areas of youth well-being, developmental outcomes in crucial areas such as employment, poverty and mental health remain problematic. Many countries, including South Africa, experienced economic devastation in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic and more than half of the youth population continues to live in income poverty and they experience high rates of unemployment. Given the strong relationships between economic engagement and well-being, it is imperative to explore the relationship between socio-economic challenges and mental well-being among youth. Relatively few studies in South Africa have assessed the association between depressive symptoms and socio-economic status, and this paper uses the 2017/18 and 2020/21 datasets from the population­-based Quality of Life (QoL) survey conducted by Gauteng City-Region Observatory to examine the changes in youth mental health before and after the onset of COVID-19. QoL 2020/21 survey confirms a decrease in overall youth well-being, measured by the QoL Index scores, relative to QoL 2017/18. In addition, the percentage of youth with depressive symptoms increased slightly from 33.8% in 2017/18 to 34.7% in 2020/21 and this can be linked, but not entirely, to unemployment, low socio-economic status, low household income and other adverse social conditions. This places an emphasis on the importance to promote youth mental health and well-being through settling a long-term path to economic growth and job interventions for the youth population.

ABSTRACT. In recent years, multidimensional quality of life (QoL) studies in the South African context have gained momentum. Existing studies revealed that the QoL of adults reflect inequalities based on gender, race, and age. Females, black South Africans, and the elderly tend to report lower levels of QoL (Greyling & Tregenna, 2017; Kopylova et al., 2022). What’s more is that those residing in rural and traditional areas report lower QoL levels than those in urban areas. These findings reveal that, despite the progressive policy reforms that took place at the dawn of democracy, historical patterns of inequality remain difficult to disrupt. Pertaining to literature on adults in South Africa, the influence of intersectional social identities such as disability, gender, age and race that have been known to overlap to disadvantage individuals has been understudied as it pertains to multidimensional QoL. Furthermore, this kind of analysis has not been conducted on data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic which contributed to increased poverty levels. In this study, two theoretical approaches guide an analysis of the 2021 General Household Survey conducted in South Africa, namely Sen’s capabilities approach (CA) and the theory of intersectionality. Using the CA, the study sought to construct a QoL index; and determine which dimensions most contributed to explaining the variance in QoL for adults in South Africa. A multivariate quantitative method, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), was used to create the index using a sample of 22 754 adults. PCA is a technique that determines objective weights on the basis of factor loadings on different components and is useful in grouping indicators based on their correlations. As no universal method exists for the construction of composite indices, this method was selected following Booysen (2002) as one of the most frequently used methods in the weighting of composite indices. The components that explained the most variance in QoL of adults were food security, income, and access to services. Furthermore, when identities did not intersect, the individual groups of persons with disabilities, black South Africans, and younger people experienced a lower QoL. The analysis to implement the application of the intersectionality lens, which is yet to be completed, aims to investigate the influence of overlapping identities such as disability, gender, race and age on QoL. It is anticipated that the results will reveal empirically what we hypothesize theoretically. More specifically, it is anticipated that the identities of individuals from previously disadvantaged population groups in South Africa intersect to compound wellbeing levels of South African adults, thus leading to lower QoL levels. First, this research provides the evidence that to improve their wellbeing, policy and interventions should endeavor to improve access to food, enhance income and expand access to services for all adults in South Africa. Second, it is anticipated that intersecting identities, specifically for those from previously disadvantaged groups overlap to lead to lower QoL levels. Policy would therefore need to be focus on the identified groups to ensure an expansion of human capabilities that would result in improved QoL.

ABSTRACT. In politics, gender equality and quality of life (QoL) have been key priorities in post-Apartheid South Africa. These priorities led to the democratic government that came to power in 1994 to enact several measures to improve the lives of citizens and address the racial and economic injustices of the past. However, there exists a paucity of studies focussing on gender equality and subjective well-being (used interchangeably with happiness), which we link to QoL. A mixed-methods feminist study conducted among South Africa adult women is one of the few studies which indicated preliminary associations between gender equality and happiness. The current feminist qualitative study builds on the previous study by examining constructions of agency, gender equality, and happiness among high-school students in urban and rural Western Cape, South Africa. Employing photovoice methodology, the research included 6 focus groups at 3 high schools: 3 groups of young men and 3 groups of young womxn. Data was subjected to thematic analysis and three major themes were generated. In this presentation we only report on the participants’ views on happiness. The study holds potential value for researchers, policy-makers, activists, individuals and communities seized with questions of quality of life and gender equality.

ABSTRACT. Unmet healthcare needs are significant public health concerns worldwide. In South Africa, this is especially prevalent with high healthcare inequities. Issues about availability, acceptability, and accessibility are central to the healthcare inequities in the country. This has prompted a strong call for an updated health system, referred to as the National Health Insurance (NHI), that can provide quality, affordable personal health services for all South Africans based on their health needs, irrespective of their socio-economic status. Yet, little information exists on how people in different sociodemographic groups perceive healthcare issues and the impact on their well-being. As a major driving force for overall well-being, perceived health status has been a fundamental component of the well-being health model. However, other components of perceived health have mainly been ignored. Importantly, perceptions about individuals' healthcare needs, their judgments of healthcare fairness, and optimism about future healthcare services might be just as critical in the subjective well-health relationship and relates to individuals' demand for healthcare facilities. This study aims to assess the mediating role these factors play in the perceived health status-subjective well-being model and how individuals' perceptions of unmet healthcare needs, healthcare fairness, and future healthcare improvement might influence their subjective well-being. To achieve this, this study makes use of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) Health module to assess the impact issues about perceived unmet healthcare needs, healthcare fairness, and future prospective healthcare has on the subjective well-being of people in South Africa. By controlling for various sociodemographic factors, the preliminary results show that perceived issues about availability and accessibility to needed healthcare negatively influence subjective well-being. This implies that issues including: the inability to pay for healthcare, non-accessibility to treatment centres, and long waiting lists for treatment reduce the subjective well-being of South Africans. Furthermore, individuals with stronger optimistic feelings about future healthcare improvements and lower perceptions of healthcare unfairness reported higher subjective well-being than others. Also, the perceived fairness of healthcare influences the subjective well-being of people living in rural areas, while future healthcare optimism does not. Meaning individuals in rural areas' strong perceptions about unmet healthcare needs and the unfairness of the healthcare system drives their subjective well-being, while future optimism for improved healthcare has no influence over subjective well-being. This indicates that the hope of a future healthcare system is not enough to change subjective well-being. The well-being of individuals in rural areas is still dominated by the lack of quality healthcare in the area, specifically availability and accessibility issues. These results provide vital insight to policymakers about the constraints individuals have regarding the accessibility, availability and healthcare fairness that strongly influence their subjective well-being.

ABSTRACT. Children’s life satisfaction is shaped by two life domains in particular: family and school. Though previous research linked healthy family relations and school relations to greater life satisfaction, emotional and social well-being and less mental problems in single country studies, cross-national comparisons are still scarce. To address this research gap, this study investigates the effect of family relations and school relations on children’s life satisfaction in 30 countries across the globe to determine (a) differences in the explanatory power of family and school relations across societies and (b) their association with socioeconomic and cultural country characteristics. This study analyses data of 78,415 children aged 10 to 12 years who participated in the 3rd wave of the International Survey of Children’s Lives and Well-Being (2016-2019). Individual-level regression analyses reveal that family relations have a greater impact on children’s life satisfaction compared to school relations in 23 of the 30 countries – with Belgium, Norway, Greece, Albania, Nepal, Sri Lanka and South Africa being the exceptions. Country-level analyses show that national wealth and human development are positively correlated with the explanatory power of family relations and school relations, whereas income inequality is negatively correlated. That is, family relations explain children’s life satisfaction better in more prosperous and more equal societies. Regarding cultural value climate, family relations and school relations are found to be less important for children’s life satisfaction in societies with larger power distance. These findings highlight the necessity to consider children’s societal and cultural environment when examining children’s life satisfaction.

ABSTRACT. Background: The investigation of mental health issues and their determinants in children is vital to early detection, intervention, and subsequent prevention of chronic mental health course. Internalizing and externalizing problems during childhood are associated with impaired mental health, lower life satisfaction and poorer quality of life in adulthood. With methodological and technological advancements, polygenic scores (PGS) became an important tool in studies addressing gene-phenotype associations. However, studies devoted to investigating the association between PGS and mental health problems in children are still scarce and show divergent results. The difference is partially due to limited data availability and phenotypic heterogeneity in childhood samples. Additionally, it is imperative to understand environmental factors that could potentially influence the gene-phenotype association. Still, when moderators are included in study designs, they are restricted to disturbances in the environment, such as negative family environment, parental mental health, problematic peer relationships, and stressful life events. To the best of our knowledge, no study has yet investigated how maternal wellbeing could potentially influence the gene-phenotype association in children.

Aims: This study aimed to investigate a) how do different PGS predict internalizing and externalizing mental health problems during toddlerhood and b) how could maternal wellbeing potentially moderate this gene-phenotype association.

Methods: Over 14,000 children were included from the Mother, Father and Child cohort (MoBa) and from the Netherlands Twin Register (NTR). Only one child per family was included. Internalizing and externalizing symptoms in children were evaluated through the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) at age 3 (maternal report). Maternal wellbeing was assessed at the same timepoint through the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) or the Cantril ladder. PGS included were for subjective wellbeing (SWB), major depressive disorder (MDD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), anxiety, educational attainment (EA), schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (BP). Analyses were based on Latent Moderated Structural Equation (LMS) and Multigroup Structural Equation Model (MSEM), controlling for maternal age, educational level and child’s biological sex.

Results: Preliminary results point that PGS for EA predicts both internalizing and externalizing symptoms. PGS for SWB and ADHD also predicted externalizing symptoms. Remaining PGS did not show overall statistically significant predictions in either internalizing or externalizing problems. However, the association between PGS for anxiety could significantly predict both internalizing and externalizing symptoms based on the gradient of maternal wellbeing.

Conclusion: Albeit preliminary, our findings suggest that mental health problems in toddlerhood could be predicted by different PGS. The gene-phenotype association involving the PGS for anxiety was moderated by maternal wellbeing. Identifying modifiable environmental factors that could potentially moderate the gene-phenotype relation becomes crucial for evidence-based practice and health promotion

ABSTRACT. Community network for youth's development is a formal or informal cooperation system among human, material, and intellectual resources in the community to meet the various needs and desires of youths for healthy growth and to solve problems at risk. Local government-led cooperative community networks are characterized by being operated in a representative centralized or decentralized manner, and are ‘government-led cooperative governance’ that emphasizes cooperative management and communication based on partnership with the principal of reciprocity between the government and the private sectors. It has a similar form to ‘participative governance’ based on administrative systems and participation. The purpose of the study is to apply the case study analysis and to compare a rural community network and an urban industrial community network operated to support youth’s development model in between a rural area in agriculture and a city of high-tech industrial complex. The study outcomes revealed that both cases were operated as a cooperative governance model led by the local government (government-led), but the cooperative governance strategies for utilizing local community resources and supporting youth growth were different. In particular, it showed that the government's decision making for choosing strategies through direct or indirect intervention was influenced by the characteristics of available resources and industries within its community. Accordingly, it was highlighted that the specific goal setting of supporting healthy growth of youths also (should) differed according to the level of cooperation and the needs among a local government and private sectors and the useful resources in community.

ABSTRACT. UWE („Umwelt, Wohlbefinden und Entwicklung“ = “Environment, Well-Being and Development”) is a classroom-based, repeated cross-sectional study. It set out asking every youth in grades 7 and 9 in two Ruhr-Area municipalities about their well-being, everyday life, and social resources, every other year since 2019. Multidimensional operationalisation of subjective well-being (including self-esteem, optimism, life-satisfaction, and absence of sorrow and sadness), social resources and contexts (school, home, neighbourhood), allow drawing a comprehensive picture of adolescent life from a socio-ecological perspective.

Subjective well-being (SWB) of children and adolescents differs widely across groups, e.g., girls and boys or youth from precarious socioeconomic backgrounds. Dynamic regulatory requirements and policies in schools during pandemic times have posed significant challenges to youth and their families - have disparities been exacerbated? Which factors are protective?

Overall SWB decreased significantly between the years of observation. School climate and feelings of belonging are explanatory factors, as well as social relations to adults and peers in school and adults at home. Girls are more affected by decline of well-being during the Covid-crisis, socio-economic privileges do not necessarily protect against this development - rather the opposite.

ABSTRACT. With the shift of the economy from manufacturing economy to service economy throughout the world, we have to re-think about qualities of leadership under the service economy and how we can nurture effective service leadership particularly in young people. According to Dr. Po Chung, Co-founder of DHL International, effective service leadership qualities have 3Cs: competence, character and care. With reference to university students, we have to address their well-being issues such as poor mental health and ethical issues (e.g., cheating and plagiarism) as well.

With the support of the Victor and William Fung Foundation, we have introduced the Fung Service Leadership Education Initiative since 2012. At The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, we have developed two credit-bearing subjects on Service Leadership. The first subject is entitled “Service Leadership” which is a classroom-based leadership subject utilizing experiential learning activities such as role play, group discussion, group reflection and group activities. Since its inception in 2012, more than 1,700 students have studied this subject. Besides teaching in Hong Kong, we also implemented the subject in Cambodia and Xian, China. To understand the impact of the subject on the students, we have utilized different evaluation strategies. First, we have used objective outcome evaluation using the one group pretest-posttest design and quasi-experimental design. Second, we have collected subjective outcome evaluation data based on the client satisfaction approach. Third, in the early days, we conducted process evaluation to make sure that the implementation was in line with the curriculum design. Finally, we have collected qualitative evaluation data through different ways. Evaluation findings based on different strategies have generated positive evaluation findings and they provide support to the claim that Service Leadership education is effective in promoting positive changes in students who took the subject.

Besides “Service Leadership”, we have also designed and implemented another Service Learning subject entitled “Promotion of Service Leadership through Serving Children and Families with Special Needs”. To date, 1,800+ students have taken this subject with service projects in Hong Kong and outside Hong Kong. For Service Learning projects outside Hong Kong, we have also utilized online Service Learning (electronic Service Learning) mode to deliver the service during the pandemic (summer of 2020, 2021 and 2022). Again, we have used different evaluation strategies to assess the impact of this subject on the service providers (i.e., university students) and service recipients.

In this presentation, we will review the evaluation findings in the past decade based on 3,500+ students. The findings generally suggest that these two subjects are promising means to promote service leadership qualities and well-being of the students.

ABSTRACT. Educating students to be future leaders is a key goal of higher education, especially in the postindustrial era when the service industry has greatly contributed to global GDP and played a major role in economic development. According to the Service Leadership Theory (SLT), effective service leaders should have competence, character, and care in managing complex human interactions and shared decision-making in service provision. Based on the SLT, a service leadership course aiming at promoting the holistic development of students has been implemented in Hong Kong. Previous research using objective outcome evaluation data has shown that this course is effective in promoting students' service leadership development and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, little is known about students' subjective perceptions of online teaching and learning during the pandemic. To address this gap, this study examined the views of 276 students from a public university in Hong Kong who took a service leadership training course during the academic years of 2020/2021 and 2021/2022 using a client satisfaction approach.

Data were collected through a 48-item self-report questionnaire assessing students' perceptions of the course content, teachers, and benefits from the course. Additionally, students indicated their satisfaction with the course, which was indexed by their willingness to recommend the course to their friends, willingness to participate in similar courses, and overall satisfaction with the course. Results of frequency analyses showed that the majority of students were generally satisfied with the course content, teachers, and benefits from the course in promoting their knowledge gaining, service leadership qualities, and well-being. There were significant correlations between perceived course content, teachers, and benefits from the course. Regression analyses revealed that perceived course content and teachers significantly predicted perceived benefits from the course. Moreover, perceived course content and benefits from the course were significant predictors of student satisfaction. However, consistent with past findings, there was no significant relationship between students' perceptions of the teachers and their satisfaction. This study demonstrated that the service leadership training course was generally effective in promoting students' knowledge, skills, leadership qualities, and well-being.

In conclusion, the findings support the effectiveness of the service leadership course implemented during the pandemic. Online service leadership pedagogies were appreciated by students and were effective in promoting student holistic development and well-being. Together with the objective outcome evaluation findings, the present study suggests that service leadership education can promote service leadership beliefs and qualities of university students that are required by the service economy.

ABSTRACT. Guided by the philosophy of “learning to serve and serving to learn,” service-learning (SL) education enables university students to deepen their learning, improve their leadership skills, and enhance personal and community well-being by applying knowledge, serving the community, and reflecting on their learning and service experiences. Despite rich evidence showing the benefits of SL participation on students’ development indexed by a wide range of measures, such as intra- and inter-personal competencies, responsibility, purpose, and life satisfaction, most of the existing findings have been derived from face-to-face SL. Although prior research has demonstrated the feasibility and benefits of online teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, whether online SL also benefits university students has not been fully addressed. This study attempted to answer this question based on a SL course in which 97 students from a public university in Hong Kong provided 3-day online services to over 280 underprivileged children in Xi’an, mainland China, during the pandemic in 2022 summer.

Using repeated-measures multivariate general linear model (GLM) analyses, pretest–posttest comparisons (n = 66) showed significant positive changes among students regarding their service leadership qualities (e.g., self-leadership, character strength, and caring disposition) and positive youth development qualities (e.g., positive identity and cognitive-behavioral competence). The subjective outcome evaluation for the SL course (n = 79) indicated that most of the students were satisfied with their learning experiences and perceived the course content, teacher performance, and course effectiveness in a positive manner. The subjective outcome evaluation for the service delivery (n = 84) also revealed students’ positive perceptions of the service content, their own performance, and benefits of the services for both children as the service targets and themselves as the service providers. Finally, Pearson correlation analyses showed that students’ changes in positive youth development and service leadership qualities were positively correlated with their appraisals of the SL course as well as the services they had provided.

Taken together, the present findings suggest that online SL course is well received by university students and it can successfully promote their holistic development. The results support the adoption of online SL education as a feasible and effective pedagogy when face-to-face services are limited, such as during the pandemic or serving needy people living in remote places. The present findings inspire educators and youth workers to meaningfully incorporate non-face-to-face teaching and learning elements into SL curriculum to effectively nurture students’ leadership skills and positive development that would eventually promote the quality of life of the service providers and service recipients.

ABSTRACT. Higher education not only develops university students with solid professional knowledge, but also should equip graduates with civic responsibility. In recent years, Service-Learning (SL) has been a new learning pedagogy and practicing strategy in global higher education institutions. SL refers to a type of experiential learning that provides learners with the opportunity to enhance their academic and hands-on skills and contribute to the community in practice. SL emphasizes the equal importance of learning and service, with both the service providers and recipients gaining benefits from SL programs. Yet, the empirical studies on the effectiveness of SL programs are quite limited in the Asian context and very few studies have investigated and compared the benefits and gains of service providers and recipients in the same SL program. Moreover, studies on the effectiveness of online SL programs during the pandemic is lacking.

To address these research gaps, we evaluated the effectiveness of an online SL program conducted by 83 university students from a public university in Hong Kong in July 2022. This online SL program served 340 Grade 2 to 5 children in a primary school from Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China. Using a single-group pre- and post-test design, we compared the changes of the service providers and recipients before and after they attended a five-day online SL program that focused on personal development and psychological well-being. We found that both service providers and recipients showed significant improvement in many aspects. Specifically, service recipients reported significant improvement in life satisfaction and most of the positive youth development (PYD) attributes (e.g., cognitive competence, behavioral competence, and resilience) except in self-determination, social competence, and belief in future after receiving the service. Meanwhile, service providers reported positive and significant changes in all PYD attributes and life satisfaction. We further found that service providers showed more significant improvement in self-determination, social competence, clear and positive identity, belief in the future, and life satisfaction than service recipients. The findings of this study demonstrated the effectiveness of the online SL program –– both service providers and recipients can benefit from this program. It also suggests that SL programs should be promoted in the Asian contexts.

ABSTRACT. Abstract The problem. How to choose a job that makes you happy? Choosing a job that leads to happiness is a complex one due to the vast number of options available in the labor market. But even more difficult is estimating whether a job will contribute to one's happiness by providing job satisfaction and life satisfaction. Choosing a job or making career decisions can often feel like a gamble, particularly due to the lack of information available to make an informed choice. This can lead to a high number of mismatches and disappointments, which can be detrimental to both the individual and society as a whole.

Aim. To facilitate the choice-making process by providing information on how happy comparable individuals are in different occupations.

Approach. Use of a dataset that includes information on (1) occupations, (2) happiness (at work and in life), and (3) personal characteristics. The dataset is large enough to provide reliable estimates of happiness in different combinations of occupation and personal characteristics. The data is obtained from the WageIndicator for the years 2009 to 2018.

Results. When looking at the results, the reported large differences are great examples of the importance of this information. For example, older, highly educated women with children may find that jobs such as Sales, Marketing and Development Manager (8, 4,38), Paramedical Practitioner (8, 4,27), Life Science Professional (7,67, 4,33), and Medical Doctor (7,62, 4,15) have high scores in both life and job satisfaction. Conversely, a younger, lower educated male without children may find that jobs such as Hotel and Restaurant Manager (8,5, 4,33), Sport and Fitness Worker (7,76, 4,19), Refuse Worker (8,09, 3,91), and Business Service and Administration Manager (7,89, 3,89) are good choices for happiness in both work and life.

Presentation. The information is currently available in the Netherlands on the website werkkeuzewijzer.nl, presented in an accessible format with a short questionnaire that provides direct advice. The questionnaire and advice are based on a decision tree designed using the research data. The website has had an average of 140 daily visitors over the past year (2022).

Limitations. The limitations of this study include the limited number (4) of personal characteristics currently available in the dataset. More characteristics could make the advice more personal. Additionally, the information is based on data that is several years old and may not reflect the current state of the job market. Work is changing fast nowadays and as a result the advice could perhaps no longer be accurate or applicable.

Future: Research will focus on exploiting the growing WageIndicator data and new datasets that provide more detailed information on personal characteristics, to provide more personalised advice.

ABSTRACT. Previous research on the psychological effect of job change has revealed a honeymoon-hangover pattern during the turnover process. However, there is a dearth of evidence on how individuals react and adapt to multiple job changes over their working lives. This study distinguished adaptation to a single job change in the short term from adaptation to the process of job change in the long term. Drawing on two large-scale, long-running panel datasets from Britain and Australia, it examined how job satisfaction trajectory evolved as individuals made a series of consecutive job changes since they first entered the labour market. Our fixed effect analyses showed that in both countries, individuals experienced a greater honeymoon effect with each successive job change, before gradually reverting to their baseline well-being. In short, the amplitude of the honeymoon-hangover effect increased across multiple job changes. By distinguishing ‘adaptation to change’ from ‘change in adaption’, this study generated original insights into the role of job mobility in facilitating career development and extended set point theory from understanding the impact of single life events to recurring life events.

ABSTRACT. The COVID-19 pandemic created challenges for employees across industries, as many working professionals struggled to balance work-life, family-life, and the stressful global events all while isolated within their own homes. At the same time, at least partly due to shifts in American work life due to COVID-19, many employees began leaving their jobs and seeking new ones, a phenomenon referred to as The Great Resignation. For organizations hoping to recruit and retain productive employees, understanding employee well-being, and the drivers that influence it, is increasingly important in an environment in which many workers discern career opportunities based on how they will be supported and given flexibility by their organization.

To explore financial professionals’ experiences of work and its impacts on well-being, this session presents findings from a survey of 99 financial advisors on their career satisfaction and their physical and mental well-being, paired with qualitative findings from conversations with organizational leaders from several financial firms.

Financial professionals who participated in the survey reported exceptionally high career satisfaction. Feelings about work-life balance, positive relationships with clients, a positive attitude about the respondent’s company or firm, work location, and level of compensation appeared as drivers of work satisfaction among this group of advisors, suggesting that multiple factors play an influential role for advisor well-being at work. However, having a positive work-life balance was correlated with better mental health, suggesting an outsized role of this factor on certain facets of well-being.

Female advisors reported significantly more physical unhealthy days and significantly more days that physical and mental health prevented them from doing activities, suggesting that women in the advisor workforce may need of support and could benefit particularly from increased flexibility. In contrast, there were no significant gender differences in self-rated physical or mental health, suggesting a gap between day-to-day experiences of poor health and one’s broader assessment of their well-being in those domains.

Bringing the employer perspective to these topics, firm leaders indicated increasing concern within their organizations about advisor recruitment and retention, in part due to employees’ evolving expectations around an employer’s role in supporting well-being through benefits and other modes. Firms sharing these concerns may benefit from addressing employee well-being, but because well-being is a complex concept which covers multiple domains and is influenced by multiple factors, there is likely no one-size-fits-all approach to measuring and promoting well-being among financial professionals. Asking multiple types of questions that address each dimension of the concept—such as asking both about mentally unhealthy days and about self-reported mental health—may uncover findings about employees that would otherwise remain obscure.

Given new expectations from advisors about their working lives and new conversations between firm leaders about employee well-being, organizations that understand the well-being of their employees—and can respond to employee needs with appropriate benefits and flexibilities—may be more successful at recruiting and retaining advisors and supporting them to be more productive.

ABSTRACT. Muay Thai profession improves the quality of life of Muay Thai fighters in many ways. It can increase income for family. Apart from this, they become well known persons in society. Being Muay Thai fighters also keeps them good health. This study aims to explore how Muay Thai fighters perceive happiness and wellbeing from their perspectives and profession experience.

In order to understand the perception of Muay Thai fighters on happiness and subjective wellbeing, we did in-depth interviews from professional and eminent Thai boxers and trainers from four regions of Thailand.

It was found that the definition of happiness and wellbeing of professional Muay Thai fighters were related to family and friends in their boxing club. Fame and income were also significant determinants of their happiness and subjective wellbeing. Moreover, the results showed that stress happened during their training and before the fight. Some of them reported that many clubs and managers got involved to gambling. To overcome the stress and other negative feelings, most Muay Thai fighters prepared themselves by studying about their rival fight strategies before the fight. The most powerful motivation for them were parents and their trainers. The result from this study also provides some strategic plans for fighting club and some welfare policy recommendations in order to improve the quality of life and reduce psychological breakdowns of Muay Thai fighters.

ABSTRACT. The attention devoted to the concept of social capital has been growing in the past few decades, and with reason. Social capital is catalyst for multiple outcomes, such as economic growth, development, health and well-being. We aim at presenting a comprehensive literature review on the past and present perspectives on the relationship between social capital and well-being, and inform researchers and policy makers as to what is missing in the literature and what we believe is needed to increase quality of life and work in relation to social capital. Referred to as the “Networks, together with the shared norms, values and understandings that facilitate cooperation within and among groups” (OECD, 2001), social capital is used to describe interrelated and overlapping phenomena that are associated with individuals’ relationships to resources and people around them. Social capital places itself among the most important determinants of both objective (mental and physical health) and subjective well-being (life satisfaction, happiness, positive affect), as well as of its long run growth. Early research findings point to the quality of people's experience, that is the quality of the relationship among people in having a strong positive impact on well-being. More recently, social capital has been studied in its role of shelter against adversities. For instance, after the 2008 crisis, social capital moderated the negative effect of unemployment; similarly, social capital is found to moderate the negative well-being consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, and to determine the stringency in the containment policies enacted by governments to contain the pandemic. We argue that future research into the relationship between social capital and well-being should fill the gaps in the literature on several points. Causality needs to be properly assessed; “hard measures” on social capital should be used to validate the self-reported measures that are customarily employed in the literature; and policies for social capital should be properly assessed and reviewed in order to better inform policy making on what actually contributes to a higher well-being. Lastly, research should focus on work place social capital and well-being. Not much research has been devoted to understating the effects of work social capital on employee well-being. Work place interventions that foster sociability and trust, two key components of social capital - which ultimately create community, feeling of belonging, increase social skills, productivity and well-being – have not been studied in a systematic way, and are missing from the well-being literature. We hope this work contributes to the debate on the open challenges of the research on social capital and to inform the future research agenda.

ABSTRACT. Family situation and significant relationships with other people are important determinants of subjective quality of life as they may be a source of emotional support as well as practical help and personal care. Family (kinship) networks are composed of family members such as parents, children, grandchildren, siblings and other relatives. In contrast, social networks (SN) usually differ from family networks as they are defined by emotional bonds with important persons in life, who offer psychological and practical support (if needed). It should be underlined that both family and social networks change over the life course of an individual for many reasons. Therefore, these changes and a particular composition of social networks at a given point in time/ in life may be linked to subjective well-being also among older people who more frequently experience the loss of their close ones (siblings, parents, friends). Moreover, previous research shows that the importance of different persons in social networks for subjective well-being may differ for different socio-demographic groups as well as between countries due to differences in the place of family in an individual’s life. The aim of the paper is to presents the results of (1) a descriptive analysis of family and social networks observed among older people in Europe; (2) an analysis of associations between family and social networks and subjective well-being among people aged 65+. Using data from the 6th wave of SHARE (carried out in 2015) we estimated linear regression models with dependent variable describing subjective well-being (CASP-12 measure) for all analysed European countries and groups of countries. The modelling results show the importance of different persons in family and social networks for subjective well-being of older people in the analysed European countries. The obtained findings confirm not only the impact of having a spouse/partner on subjective well-being, but also the relationship quality among the spouses, which is even more important. Having living children was not related to SWB in the model for all countries, however, different directions of this association were found in the separate models for groups of countries. Having children was positively related to SWB in Northern and Western European countries, while a negative relationship was found for Southern European countries. Additionally, taking into account the quality relationship between older people and their children expressed by including them in the SN, one may conclude that this association was negative in Southern European countries only. Having surviving siblings, but not listing them in SN was positively associated to SWB, as compared to those not having living siblings in Nordic, Western and CEE countries. In contrast, including siblings in SN contributed to higher life satisfaction of older people in comparison to those without siblings in CEE and Southern European countries. Having grandchildren was positively related to SWB in CEE and Southern European countries. The obtained results shed new light on kinship and social networks of older people in the European context and confirmed the significance of different family members for subjective well-being of older adults.

ABSTRACT. Background: There is no unanimity on a concrete definition of social capital. The literature accepts as proxy indicators those which measure the degree of trust and adherence to rules, quantify collective action and/or indicate membership in some group or association. Social capital is considered one of the indicators that influences individual and collective health. This relationship is established in different ways: norms and attitudes that influence health behaviors, psychosocial networks that increase access to health care and psychosocial mechanism that enhance self-esteem, etc. Nevertheless, there is a lack of recent evidence for European countries and there are wide divergences in the use of social capital temporary definition.

Objective: We aim at exploring the role of social capital in the determination on population health. More precisely, we disentangle how the social capital (both bonding and bridging), as well as the satisfaction with these social resources, is associated with self-assessed health among elder Europeans. We hypothesize that both forms of social capital are positively associated with self-rated health.

Methods: We used the 4th, 6th, and 8th waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) and included 13 countries that appeared in all of them. We measured social capital through a large variety of variables that enabled us to create two different scales measuring both bonding and bridging social capital. Moreover, we included individuals’ satisfaction with their social networks and with their bridging social capital activities. We control for personal and socioeconomic characteristics such as age, gender, marital status, education level, labor situation or the capacity of making ends meet, and health variables such as limitations in daily activities, and quality of life using the CASP scale (quality of life score). Several econometric techniques such as Principal Component Analysis, logistic regressions and tests to control for reverse causality are developed.

Results: We found that higher levels of social capital reduced the odds of reporting poor health, especially bridging social capital. Additionally, satisfaction with social networks had a positive impact on the elderly’s health, meaning that not only quantity but quality is important when considering the effect of social capital on health.

Conclusions: There is remarkable consistency in direction of the relevant role social capital (both bonding and bridging) in determining health across the European older adults. Our analysis can be considered in order to disentangle policy intervention measures to increase social activities and their quality to promote older adults’ health

ABSTRACT. The current research of happiness focuses primarily on the phenomenon that it is a product or by-product of life experiences or living conditions. Less attention is given to the importance of happiness in predicting or explaining values or behaviors of the people. This paper promotes a happiness-as-a-driving-force approach. Empirically, I adopt a nonrecursive causal model to simultaneously test happiness as a cause and an effect of high-profile social behaviors and policy positions, including social network, value of effort, and attitudinal endorsement of income redistribution. The nonrecursive model applies adequate structural equation modeling to ascertain to what extent happiness can operate as an explanatory factor in social behaviors and value stances by taking into account the possibility that it is also affected by key relevant factors. Data is drawn from the most recent wave of World Value Survey across eighty countries during 2016-2021. The results of this study offer a unique contribution in testing the influence of happiness by way of reciprocal casual inference.

ABSTRACT. In Brussels (Belgium), as in other parts of the world, the Covid-19 pandemic has been used as an opportunity to accelerate and legitimate changes in planning policy and regulation. The ongoing reform of Brussels’ regional planning regulations has been reframed as the ‘good living’ plan and has high ambitions to improve everyday quality of life, notably by setting more flexible rules for new developments. Despite long-lasting citizen engagement in planning processes, Brussels’ aspirations to improve its inhabitants’ quality of life have faced several spatial and institutional challenges. The Belgian capital hosts the European Commission and international and administrative office districts as well as industrial areas. Quality of life, both in public space and in housing dwellings, is very contrasted between its south-eastern, high-priced neighbourhoods and the former industrial zone along the canal. Furthermore, Brussels’ planning framework has suffered from institutional fragmentation, conflicting government agencies, politicised planning and strong market intervention. In this reflection paper, we discuss the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on planning instruments aimed at everyday quality of life through analysis of Brussels’ good living plan, based on document analysis and semi-structured interviews conducted with actors of the local planning system. Our reflection of Covid-19 impact on quality of life in Brussels draws on the following observations: (i) the pandemic has evidenced the need for quality in both public space and housing, (ii) it has fueled debates about planning principles based on proximity, such as the 15-minute city, and (iii) it put the structural housing affordability issue high on the political agenda. Covid-19 may be an opportunity to reduce the gap towards ‘good living’ in Brussels and make us more resilient the next time we face a major health crisis. Setting and consolidating policy goals is one thing, making sure to implement them without excluding vulnerable groups is another one.

ABSTRACT. This article proposes moving beyond the tyranny of economic imperatives towards a human needs-based framework to assess cities and regions and envision their development. Existing calls for such a transition tend to focus on material conditions and normative prescriptions, but lack a foundation able to capture the various dimensions of human life in and around cities, which can be provided by the concept of human needs. We ask whether cities deliver satisfiers that make them good places to cater for the full range of human needs in a similar way to how they cater for economic needs.

The article develops a framework that allows us to address that question. We first show how the main debates in human needs theory are illustrated by distinctively urban phenomena, and then search for a human needs model which is able to advance those debates and tackle the problem specifically in cities. We propose the Human Scale Development theory of Manfred Max-Neef as a strong contender for that role, as the properties of this framework are tightly linked to processes of human needs satisfaction in cities. Finally, we review the applied literature for an operationalisation of those processes. This allows us to construct a table of indicators to assess how cities fare in human needs satisfaction, ensuring global comparability as to whether, as well as local contextualisation as to how, needs are satisfied. The paper discusses its necessarily provisional nature and proposes new directions regarding the multi-scalar nature of needs satisfaction processes, interdisciplinary links with political and economic geographies, the issue of measurement, and sound policy-making.

ABSTRACT. Contemporary society is confronted with significant challenges including climate change, health, and poverty which are not uniformly distributed throughout the world, as both their burden and the capacity to address them vary significantly. Despite this unevenness, urban governance and spatial planning continue to be shaped by growth-oriented paradigms for integration in global economic systems. As a result, recent decades have seen a tendency towards hierarchical and exclusionary thinking that privileges growth over wellbeing and dominant core regions over others. There is a growing trend towards alternative frameworks focused on health and wellbeing to address the shortcomings of previous approaches. However, to become credible alternatives to growth-driven paradigms, it is crucial that they are conceptualized and operationalized for different places and at various scales, from the global to the regional and local. So far, most such frameworks (e.g. healthy city, smart city, 15-minute city, etc.) are too localized in a few core cities and have difficulties both in ‘scaling up’ to metropolitan and regional levels as well as ‘scaling across’ to different types of city. Therefore, this paper advocates a shift from a localized focus on health and wellbeing in frontrunner cities, towards a more inclusive and multiscalar perspective that incorporates and builds upon networks of cities and territories of various types and sizes. This perspective stems from the observation that the challenges that most affect health and wellbeing - e.g. related to climate, infrastructure or justice - materialize at the level of territories and are best addressed through cooperation at that scale. But the required shift is especially relevant in Europe, where powerful global cities, despite their capacity to promote healthy urban development, often experience negative agglomeration effects, and interconnected, polycentric networks of second-tier cities are getting recognized as an appropriate scale for governance, policymaking, and spatial planning. On this basis, we claim that integrated and collaborative networks of medium-sized cities are significant environments to test and a good opportunity to implement a shift from a ‘healthy city’ perspective towards ‘territories of wellbeing’. This is explored in the cities and regions along the Rhine watershed - a natural planning region at the demographic and economic core of Europe - whose development resembles the prototypical European urbanization mode of an integrated system of medium-sized cities. Through their shared geography, the cities and regions along the waterway share similar territorial threats and challenges, such as increased risks of extreme flooding, often paired with droughts, and engage in discussions about techno-managerial innovations and risk adaptation. Lastly, the Rhine cities are part of the same, special type of urban ‘family’ - port cities. Shared transnational economic, infrastructural, logistical, and institutional interdependencies and common cultural and historical references provide the incentive and need to cooperate at the territorial scale. The paper investigates whether this gives them multiple valuable capacity-building potentials to jointly achieve alternative goals of becoming a territory of wellbeing and drafts a framework to operationalize the concept and assess how regions perform in this respect.

ABSTRACT. Cities as organisational models are amongst the oldest and dynamic in human innovation. They are also guaranteed destinations for much of the world’s population as migration trends continue. Understanding the role projects play in their development to ensure their preparedness and appeal for inevitable population growth is a necessity. Given their relatability to all of us, it also makes them immediately relevant and us immediately vested in their success. A ‘smart city’ is a relatively new term that connotes an idealized vision for a new and future type of urban living. Most perspectives, however, focus on the use of new and recent technology to run a city. This research will take a different view and examine the role projects and citizens have in maximizing quality-of-life. A smart city represents a living lab where the everyday citizen should benefit from its activities. Project professionals (researchers or practitioners) have a unique opportunity to see projects in action, and identifying which projects can contribute to quality-of-life is aal critical first step. Analysis of 4000+ official smart city projects will be presented along with eight international city-based case studies (including Utrecht, Netherlands). This is the basis of a 2023 doctoral study completed by the author which answers the question: how do projects impact qualityof- life in smart cities?

Multiple themes have been explored and their relevance can be clearly presented. They include housing, work & economic value, transportation & mobility, safety, education, beauty, culture, environment, civic engagement, spirituality, social justice, health and leisure. The use (or absence) of specific projects for each theme will be presented to substantiate clear trends emergent in Western Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand.

Beyond projects, the citizen’s role is essential to maximizing quality-of-life in smart cities. A new theoretical model categorizing four roles—tolerator, contributor, recipient and advocate—which influence (or prevent) progress will also be presented. Specific city examples will be shown where citizens suffered from poor, decision-making and outright exclusion. Other city examples show the opposite – enabled and empowered citizen collaborators where sincere and meaningful partnerships existed with other project stakeholders. With this analysis, a range of roles were introduced, including those that should be avoided, and those that should be repeated as often as possible. In each case, quality-of-life in their cities was influenced.

In the study of smart cities, hundreds of definitions are available. It’s really quite astonishing. This research adopted one that was very clear…a smart city is one that continuously improves the quality-of-life of its citizens. The examination of projects shows how that can happen.

ABSTRACT. The covid situation has negatively affected many areas of our lives, including a complex effect on work-family conflict (Vitória et al., 2022). Uncertainty, working from home and spending additional time with family often caused more stress (Lonska et al., 2021). Previous research indicates that social networks and positive relationships at work have a positive effect on health, well-being, and life satisfaction. Decreased social contacts because of the epidemiological situation may in the future have negative consequences for the health and well-being of employees. But many have avoided these negative effects.

This study addresses a question about the long-term effects of shift work on employees' work-life balance factors from the domains of health, well-being, social and family life during Covid-19. Data collected from 631 garment factory workers in Poland in three waves 2019, 2020 and followed in September 2021 based on longitudinal Well-being Survey (WBS). The WBS was tested on a sample of over 13,000 garment workers in China, Cambodia, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Poland, and the United States and of over 5,500 office and manufacturing employees of two Fortune 500 manufacturing companies in the U.S. (Bialowolski et al., 2020).

The results based on factory workers in Poland indicated that despite the exceptional day and night schedule, shift workers during covid-19 did not deepen the negative evaluation of relationships and did not deepen the feeling of loneliness. Only day workers have assessed that covid made them feel lonelier (β -0.23, p=0.044, CI 0.575-0.992) compared to day and night workers. Among shift workers, Covid has less negative impact on their social relationships than only for day workers (β 0.25, p=0.012, CI 1.062-1.624).

The associations were examined using generalized estimating equations. All models were controlled for prior sociodemographic variables: gender, age, education, and baseline values of all outcome variables simultaneously.

Many reviewed studies suggested that shift work at night might have serious negative effects on health, well-being, social, and family life. All the above were problems that have affected many during the pandemic. Shift workers have a different arrangement of day activities according to the day-oriented rhythms of the general population. Their work-family balance solutions may be the same as before the pandemic. Those behaviors and adaptations that help avoid negative effects, even under adverse conditions, will be valuable to study.

The presentation opens a discussion on the need for a broader view of work-life balance research in the context of adapting behaviors of nonstandard hours workers that prevent health and well-being negative effects of workers.

ABSTRACT. With the development of a 24/7 economy, nonstandard work schedules (NWSs), referring to work schedules that occur outside the regular nine-to-five, Monday to Friday schedules, have become prevalent. While this labor market trend has spawned a growing body of research on whether maternal NWSs influence the wellbeing of children, prior empirical research tends to focus on the direct association, and thus our understanding of pathways through which maternal NWSs affect child outcomes remains limited. Moreover, previous studies did not distinguish the two dimensions of NWSs, despite the fact that understanding NWSs entails consideration of both the hourly (i.e., working nonstandard hours) and the weekly timeframe (i.e., weekend work). To address these knowledge gaps, this study investigated how the two aspects of maternal NWSs (i.e., working nonstandard hours and working weekend) affect early child development outcomes, with a focus on the mediating role of maternal involvement in children’s education, parenting stress, and maternal health. Structural equation modelling, using data from mothers of young children (age 5–6) in Hong Kong (N=243), found that maternal weekend work was associated with lower levels of maternal involvement in children’s education and suboptimal health status, and that these in turn were associated negatively with overall early child development outcomes. By contrast, no such negative mediation effects were detected for mothers working nonstandard hours. Instead, there was a direct, positive association between working nonstandard hours and early child development outcomes. This pattern of findings suggests that the hourly and weekly timeframe of maternal nonstandard work schedules (i.e., working nonstandard hours vs. working weekend) may affect young children differently, with different pathways. Given the findings indicating that the effects of maternal NWSs are not uniformly positive or negative, attention should focus on both the potential costs and benefits to parents and children, which will inform the development of effective strategies to alleviate challenges faced by parents working nonstandard schedules.

ABSTRACT. Quality of Life is defined by WHO as the perception of an individual's position in life, based upon their goals, expectations, standards, and concerns in the context of their culture and value systems (World Health Organization, 2012). It is believed that quality of life can be assessed by subjective indicators, asking citizens for their opinion on their lives, as well as by objective evaluation measures, such as employment, education, housing and others (ex. Eurofound, 2021). In the present study, we measured the subjective opinion of participants about their living conditions and their quality of life. Participants were residents in 22 municipalities in Portugal (N = 4053). The goal of this exploratory study was to determine which indicators are most predictive of well-being across 12 dimensions of life: 1) Culture and Leisure; 2) Diversity and Tolerance; 3) Economy; 4) Employment; 5) Environment; 6) Education and Training; 7) Health; 8) Identity; 9) Mobility and Road Safety; 10) Safety; 11) Tourism; 12) Urban Planning and Housing. The criterion variable was subjective well-being, a composite index from the levels of satisfaction, happiness, and optimism (α = .739; Eurofound, 2022). The results showed that participants' satisfaction with their professional situation is the most significant predictor of well-being (B=0,236). According to organizational, vocational, and work psychology researchers, job satisfaction is the most commonly used measure of job-related well-being (Rothausen & Henderson, 2019). Considering that Portugal is at the bottom of the list of job satisfaction in Europe (e.g. Eurostat, 2013) and in the world (e.g. Randstad, 2019), this result is of particular importance, as it is also a subject little researched by national statistics: only a few reports are available on this topic (ex. Perista & Carrilho, 2017). Additional analyses to understand the main predictors of job satisfaction reveals that the most significant predictors of job satisfaction are their income from work (B=0,257), perceived employment opportunities on one’s own municipality level (B=0,172), the quality of teaching in local schools (B=0,121), the evaluation of their neighborhood (B=0,118), the purchasing power (B=0,109) and the quality of the housing where they live (B=0,106). The results are consistent with the literature (e.g. Mouratidis, 2020; Bonsang & van Soest, 2012; Acker, 2004). Implications to the literature and the local policy practices will be discussed.

References: - Acker, G. M. (2004). The effect of organizational conditions (role conflict, role ambiguity, opportunities for professional development, and social support) on job satisfaction and intention to leave among social workers in mental health care. Community Mental Health Journal, 40(1), 65–73. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:COMH.0000015218.12111.26 - Bonsang, E., & van Soest, A. (2012). Satisfaction with Job and Income Among Older Individuals Across European Countries. Social Indicators Research, 105(2), 227–254. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-011-9879-5 - Eurofound. (2021). European Quality of Life Surveys (EQLS). https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/surveys/european-quality-of-life-surveys - Eurofound. (2022). Subjective well-being. https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/topic/subjective-well-being - Eurostat. (2013). Employment condition versus low job satisfaction, by country, 2013. Archive:Quality of Life in Europe - Facts and Views - Employment. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Quality_of_life_in_Europe_-_facts_and_views_-_employment&oldid=236091 - Mouratidis,

ABSTRACT. Sometimes, spirituality and happiness at work are hard to find by individual, more over to find a workplace to foster joy. The employees must decide whether or not to rely on themselves and accept responsibility for determining their own. Therefore, this study placed more attention on internal factors that reveal the causes of employee pleasure with several exploration models. The participants in this study are 201 social workers in Indonesia. The findings showed in model one found that Spirituality at Work (SAW) has the most significant direct effect on happiness (β=0.681; p <0.05). Altruism did not mediate between SAW and happiness. Then, in the model two gratitude gives a significant indirect effect between altruism on happiness of (β=0.149; p <0.05), but direct effect altruism to happiness has higher impact (β=0.413; p <0.05) than the indirect. In model three, it was found that altruism (0.383; p < 0.05) and gratitude (β=0.150; p < 0.05) have a significant direct effect on SAW. The mediation between altruism and SAW through happiness has smaller effect but significant (β = 0.183; p < 0.05). Indirect effect of happiness between gratitude and SAW is also significant (β=0.115; p < 0.05). In this model found that happiness has a reciprocal relationship to SAW (β=0.444; p <0.05). Altruism and gratitude can increase happiness as well. The conclusion is, SAW obtained from individual vibes (happiness) and the implementation of their values (altruism and gratitude). Happiness also comes from spirituality, altruistic and gratitude values that promotes individuals to optimize success for not only other human beings’ welfare but also for themselves.

ABSTRACT. Measurement of health and wellbeing by means of patient-reported outcome measure instruments (OMIs) is performed by different professional stakeholders such as healthcare providers, policy makers and researchers. While health is increasingly considered from a broad perspective, often referred to as wellbeing, common instruments do not appear to suffice in measuring such broad concepts. Instrument development would benefit from an analysis of stakeholder preferences regarding health measurement. This study aimed to identify the properties of new tools to measure broad health concepts as desired by different professional stakeholder groups. A survey was conducted to assess preferences of three stakeholder groups: researchers, medical professionals and professionals in policy and governance. The preferred target group and way of score weighting seemed to follow sector lines, but otherwise no clear differences in preferences between stakeholder groups were found. Strikingly, individual respondents even often indicated various preferences, reflecting their different measurement purposes. There was consensus among the involved stakeholders on new opportunities of OMIs regarding the desirability of the incorporation of modern technologies such as apps and wearables, the need for patient and citizen input in topic selection and the desirability of combining quantitative and qualitative outcome measurement. Our study revealed that preferences in measuring health and wellbeing were not tied strictly to stakeholder groups; even within individual respondents various preferences exist. This means a certain flexibility of new OMIs seems appropriate. Opportunities are offered by modern technologies, incorporating patient and citizen input, and partly qualitative outcomes.

ABSTRACT. Objectives Economic evaluations are commonly used in countries across the globe to assess the benefits of health and social care interventions. The main outcome of economic evaluations are quality adjusted life years (QALYs). To put the “Q” into QALYs, health related quality of life measures (HRQoL) are commonly used. The existing measures may miss aspects that matter for people lives and for the assessment of some health and social care interventions. We report on the development and ongoing research of the EQ Health and Wellbeing Short (EQ-HWB-S), a new health and well-being measure for use in economic evaluations.

Methods The experimental version of the EQ-HWB-S was developed by an international collaboration of researchers. The initial development comprised of 4 stages. In stage one, reviews of the qualitative literature were conducted to understand how patients, social care service users, and carers report their conditions. In stage two, a list of items, with multiple items per domain, was developed using the identified themes and sub-themes. Stage three assessed the content and face validity of the list of items in 168 interviews in Argentina, Australia, China, Germany, United Kingdom and the United States. Stage four assessed the psychometric properties of the item pool, making use of classical test theory, factor analysis and item response theory. Two stakeholder consultations were used to select the final items. Additional psychometric testing is ongoing in numerous countries, disease areas and populations. Methodological valuation research is also being undertaken.

Results The literature review identified 32 sub-themes grouped into 7 high-level themes. Based on the literature review results, 97 items were generated. Following the qualitative interviews phase, 36 items were removed, 14 were modified, and 3 were added. The psychometric assessment revealed a good performance for 32 items, mixed evidence for 25 and poor properties for 7. This evidence was presented to stakeholders in 2 rounds of consultation and informed the selection of 9 items for the EQ-HWB-S. Selection of the items was made to ensure coverage of multiple health and wellbeing aspects. Ongoing psychometric work is adding to the evidence base, generally supporting the EQ-HWB-S validity in patients and members of the general public. The pilot valuation study revealed monotonicity of coefficients for the most severe items levels. Larger coefficients were observed for the health aspects compared to the well-being ones.

Conclusions Based on the results obtained from the development study, an experimental 9 items instrument was developed, the EQ-HWB-S. Growing evidence suggests the instrument is robust in varied contexts of application, populations and cultural contexts. Methodological work shows the instrument is amenable to valuation. Further research is ongoing to understand the reasons for the observed weights associated to the health items compared to the wellbeing items and which valuation methods may be most appropriate.

ABSTRACT. OBJECTIVES Existing preference-based quality of life (QoL) measures focus mainly on health. However, when evaluating care services for older adults improving health is often not the main outcome of care. Therefore, there is a need for preference-based QoL measures with a broader perspective on QoL, such as the ASCOT-SCT4. This abstract presents the Dutch utility tariff for the ASCOT-SCT4. METHODS Best-worst scaling (BWS) and composite time trade off (TTO) experiments were conducted among representative samples of the Dutch population. BWS data were analysed using a multinomial logit model with robust standard errors based on the sandwich estimator. To anchor values on the traditional 0-1 utility scale a mapping approach combining the BWS data with the TTO data was used. RESULTS A total of 870 respondents who completed the BWS internet survey, were included. The top two levels of the ASCOT-SCT4 domains Control over daily life and Occupation were most often chosen as the best domain levels. The worst level of the domains Control over daily life, Personal safety and Dignity were most often chosen as the worst domain levels. The estimated BWS coefficients of all domain levels were positive and showed a logically consistent order. Observed mean TTO values for the 26 ASCOT profiles included in the TTO experiment ranged from -0.446 to 0.960. The mean observed value was negative for 6 of the 26 profiles. The predicted Dutch ASCOT-SCT4 values range from -0.277 for the worst ASCOT-SCT4 profile to 1 for the best ASCOT-SCT4 profile. CONCLUSIONS The results of this study provide estimates for the preferences of the Dutch general population for ASCOT-SCT4 quality of life profiles and the resulting population level tariff. This tariff can be used to calculate a social care QALY equivalent that can be used to estimate the impact of social care interventions.

ABSTRACT. Aims The increasing demand for health and social care in Western countries stresses the need for efficient allocation of scarce resources. To improve the identification, measurement and valuation of the full benefits of interventions in health and social care, measures of overall quality of life or well-being are required. This study presents the development of the new 10-item Well-being instrument (WiX) in the Netherlands and presents several analyses into the content and construct validity of the instrument. Methods A draft version of the instrument was developed based on available instruments pursuing the same aim, a comprehensive theoretical framework of the domains of well-being, and recent empirical evidence from a general population sample about the constituents of well-being. Content and construct validation was conducted following the COSMIN methodology. In the qualitative content validation study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with experts (n=8) and members of the general population (n=20). Qualitative data were analyzed using inductive content analysis. For the quantitative content and construct validation, two representative samples (n=501 and n=1,045) from the adult general population completed an online survey. Additionally, a scan survey (n=601) specifically sampling respondents who scored a six or lower on the Cantril ladder was conducted to analyze validity among individuals reporting lower levels of well-being. For all quantitative analyses data were analyzed using descriptive, correlation, factor and regression analyses. Results The qualitative content validation showed that the relevance and comprehensiveness of the WiX were adequate, but several changes were made to consecutive draft versions of the instrument to improve comprehensibility. The quantitative validation confirmed these findings and resulted in some additional, minor changes to the instrument. Additionally, the WiX showed sufficient results in terms of construct validity, test-retest reliability, and responsiveness. Compared to the general population, the sample reporting lower well-being was more often female, less likely to be living with a partner or to have paid work, experienced more financial difficulties, and was in worse health and considerably unhappier. In addition, this sample reported lower scores on each of the ten items of the WiX and a lower average total score. Conclusions Thorough development and content validation have resulted in a new instrument to measure functionings in the adult general population on ten important domains of well-being. Content and construct validitation showed favorable results, suggesting the WiX is a promising instrument for measuring the full benefits of interventions in health and social care for economic evaluations. Further validation is required, also in other countries, and utility weights need to be developed.