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A Framework to Measure the Progress of Society
Abstract
Over the last three decades, a number of frameworks have been developed to promote and measure well-being, quality of life, human development and sustainable development. Some frameworks use a conceptual approach while others employ a consultative approach, and different initiatives to measure progress will require different frameworks. The aim of this paper is to present a proposed framework for measuring the progress of societies, and to compare it with other progress frameworks that are currently in use around the world. The framework does not aim to be definitive, but rather to suggest a common starting point that the authors believe is broad-based and flexible enough to be applied in many situations around the world. It is also the intention that the framework could be used to identify gaps. In existing statistical standards and to guide work to fill these gaps.
... The current article is aimed at constructing an aggregate index of urban well-being for the Italian Province capital cities. To avoid subjectivity in choosing a representative set of variables that proxy the phenomenon under study, we rely on the theoretical framework adopted by ISTAT within the BES project (see Cnel-ISTAT 2012), which, in turn, is based on the conceptual model published by OECD (Hall et al. 2010), as detailed in the next section. ...
... In other words, a conceptual framework is required to have a reference structure for understanding wellbeing and what the dimensions and components of this concept are. A conceptual framework should also clarify the linkages among the various components and establish comprehensible guidelines for their operationalization (Hall et al. 2010). This implies that the basic structure chosen should present a list of indicators together with the suggested scales of measurement and a description of the relevant measuring tools. ...
... In this paper, we rely on the theoretical framework adopted by ISTAT within the BES project, which has adjusted for the Italian context the conceptual model published by OECD (Hall et al. 2010). ...
In recent years, there has been an increasing proliferation of initiatives focusing on the concept of quality of life and well-being. At the centre of these studies there is the recognizing that the GDP offers only a partial perspective of factors affecting people’s lives. Following this line of the research, this paper is aimed at computing the well-being efficiencies of a sample of Italian Province capital cities, using a methodological approach that combines data envelopment analysis (DEA) with Shannon’s entropy formula. To avoid subjectivity in choosing a representative set of variables that proxy the phenomenon under study, we rely on the theoretical framework adopted by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) within the equitable and sustainable well-being (BES) project. The dashboard of indicators included in the analysis are related to the Ur-BES initiative, promoted by ISTAT to implement the BES framework at cities level. In a first step of the analysis, an immediate focus on separate dimensions of urban well-being is obtained by summarizing the plurality of available indicators through the building of composite indices. Next, the adopted integrated DEA–Shannon entropy approach has permitted to increase the discriminatory power of DEA procedure and attain a more reliable profiling of Italian Province capital cities well-being efficiencies. The results show a marked duality between the Northern and Southern cities, highlighting important differences in many aspects of human and ecosystem well-being.
... Importantly, when it comes to many issues of public policy, people mean different things based on their self-and other-regarding preferences, as well as socio-demographic variables such as education, income, wealth, and influence [44]. As noted in the research work of Hall, Giovannini [45], the ecosystem is equally important as the human well-being system, as the resources and services of human activities are provided by the ecosystem. Nissi and Sarra [46] based their research work on Hall, Giovannini [45], and address the measure of well-being in the context of Italian urban areas using an integrated DEAentropy approach. ...
... As noted in the research work of Hall, Giovannini [45], the ecosystem is equally important as the human well-being system, as the resources and services of human activities are provided by the ecosystem. Nissi and Sarra [46] based their research work on Hall, Giovannini [45], and address the measure of well-being in the context of Italian urban areas using an integrated DEAentropy approach. Their findings show significant dualism between northern and southern cities, revealing significant variations in many facets of human and ecological well-being. ...
This study aims to measure the ability of 29 countries in producing competitive products and services that fulfill individual needs and improve the level of welfare with less utilization of natural resources. We build a two-stage network production process model to investigate the ecology efficiency and social welfare efficiency of the countries and then further discriminate the efficient countries in post-analysis. The two-stage network directional distance function is applied to assess the efficiencies of countries, and the network-based ranking approach is used to further discriminate the efficient countries following the panel data between the years 2013 and 2016. Results show that Poland and Spain are strongly referenced by other countries in the ecology stage, whereas Bulgaria, the United States, and Sweden are leaders in the social welfare stage. A remarkable observation is an absence of countries’ efficiency in both ecology and social welfare efficiencies. Most of the 29 countries have lower efficiency in the social welfare stage than in the ecology stage. This study suggests the strengths and highlights the weaknesses of the countries to help the governments efficiently improve and operate their countries.
... It is by now well-established that well-being is a multidimensional concept. A well-being measure should catch the economic component of progress, of course, but also social, environmental, equity and sustainability aspects (Hall et al. 2010;OECD 2008OECD , 2011OECD , 2014. ...
... Equitable and Sustainable Well-being project-born as a joint initiative of CNEL and ISTAT-is part of the international debate on "Gdp and beyond", as recommended by the OECD (Hall et al. 2010) and the Stiglitz Commission (Stiglitz et al. 2009). Moving from the idea that economic parameters alone are inadequate to evaluate the progress of societies, the Commission established the objective of building a set of social well-being indicators to be joined to GDP. ...
Equitable and sustainable well-being (in Italian, “BES”) has become an integral part of the decision-making process of economic and financial planning. By now, the needs of up-to-date and accurate measures of BES at local level is certain. Among BES indicators, several are obtained from Labour Force Survey (LFS) data. LFS provided estimates keeping with the highest quality and methodology standards required by the new Integrated European Social Statistics (IESS) framework regulation. The aim of this paper is to extend recent improvements in LFS variance estimation methodology also to BES indicators computed on LFS data. The direct consequence is that, besides estimates, accuracy measures can be provided. This can help researchers and decision makers to analyze the performance among the Italian regions and their evolution over time.
... Since the 1960s, literature has tried to quantify the concept of well-being through a multidimensional approach (Hasan 2019;Jaramillo et al. 2019;Hall et al. 2010), perfectly theorised later by Sen in the early 1980s (Sen 1985(Sen , 1990. According to Sen's approach, a person's well-being is not solely related to material well-being, as it depends on what one can do with the available resources (capabilities set) and one's ability to exploit these resources to achieve the goals (functionings set). ...
This paper looks at the concept of well-being from the perspective that a way of producing well-being is sustainable if it is also efficient, such being able to last over time. The paper gets its value from considering how well-being is produced and from assessing whether OECD countries are making the most of their resources or should revise their production processes. The data envelopment analysis is performed on all 37 OECD countries using the OECD Better Life Index variables with the aim of evaluating both technical and social efficiency in producing well-being. This allows both to assess how many countries are efficient in exploiting their resources and to consider social and environmental externalities as inputs and not only as an unavoidable consequence of the production process. High well-being countries are not always efficient at producing those levels of well-being. The poorest countries show the worst social efficiency scores: in the early stages of development, countries are focused on improving technical efficiency and, only later, on issues that are not merely economic, such as environmental and social costs.
... The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was used to determine the weight of each index in the comprehensive evaluation index system of employee well-being. The subjective satisfaction index was calculated according to the subjective evaluation of employees, and the range standardization method was used to standardize the specific data of each index [29][30][31]. Table 10 shows the comparative results of the comprehensive human well-being index of employees in coal-fired power plants and photovoltaic power plants. ...
The electric power industry is one of the major industries in terms of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and it is necessary to explore low-carbon green power generation models. In recent years, more research has focused on the difference in carbon emissions in fossil energy versus renewable energy but ignored the impact of energy on human well-being. The life cycle assessment (LCA) method is a better method for assessing the impact of the low-carbon model on human well-being. In this paper, the carbon footprints of coal power plants and photovoltaic power (PV) plants generating 1 Kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity are compared to analyze the degree of carbon emissions at different stages of the two models, and the environmental impact potential of the two models is analyzed using the LCA method. The differences between the two models in terms of human well-being were analyzed through questionnaires and quantified using the hierarchical analysis method. The impact of the different models on human well-being was compared using LCA method. The results of the study were as follows: the total CO2 emissions from coal-fired power generation at the 1 kWh standard were 973.38 g, while the total CO2 emissions from PV power generation were 91.95 g, and the carbon emission intensity of coal-fired power plants was higher than that of PV power plants. The global warming potential and eutrophication potential of coal-fired power plants were higher than those of PV power plants, and the rest of the indicators were lower than those of PV power plants. The composite human well-being index of PV power plants was 0.613 higher than that of coal-fired power plants at 0.561. The per capita income–global warming potential of PV power plants was higher than that of coal-fired power plants, indicating that PV power plants were a low carbon-emission and high well-being model. In conclusion, the PV power plant model is a low-carbon and high human well-being industrial model that is worthy of application in the Qilian Mountains region. The low-carbon industrial model proposed in this study can have a positive effect on regional ecological environmental protection and human well-being enhancement.
... Il framework teorico da cui sono stati tratti gli indicatori BES inseriti nella programmazione economica e di bilancio è frutto del progetto BES Cnel-Istat avviato a dicembre 2010, a sua volta ispirato ad un lavoro dell'OCSE (Hall et al. 2010) 22 . Alla base vi è un concetto di benessere multidimensionale, in cui i diversi aspetti che concorrono a definire una vita di qualità sono descritti attraverso una serie di indica-20 Si veda nota 2. 21 Due riflessioni sono state avanzate circa la tempistica della valutazione e la natura dell'allegato al DEF sugli indicatori di benessere. ...
L’inserimento degli indicatori di Benessere equo e sostenibile (BES) all’interno della programmazione economica e di bilancio. Questa integrazione rappresenta un esempio di sinergia tra attività di ricerca e policy making per varie ragioni: gli indicatori selezionati sono parte del framework teorico elaborato da Cnel e Istat all’interno del progetto BES; l’Istat fornisce i dati per le analisi; lo sviluppo da parte del Ministero dell’Economia per nuove metodologie di analisi e modelli di previsione richiede un continuo confronto con l’Istat. The paper describes the Italian experience of monitoring and evaluating public policies through the integration of Equitable and Sustainable Well being indicators (BES: Benessere equo e sostenibile) into economic and budgetary planning. This integration represents an example of synergy between research activities and policy-making for several reasons: the selected indicators are part of the theoretical framework developed by Cnel and Istat within the BES project; Istat provides the data for the analysis; the development by the Ministry of Economy of new methodologies of analysis and forecasting models requires a continuous comparison with Istat.
... The project aims to measure the level of well-being through the analysis of relevant aspects of the citizens' quality of life but also its equity in terms of distribution of the determinants of well-being between social groups and its sustainability, considering if the same level of well-being can be guaranteed to future generations. The project is part of the international debate on "GDP and beyond" and is based on the central idea that economic parameters alone are inadequate to evaluate the progress of societies and should be complemented by social and environmental information and by measures of inequality and sustainability (Hall et al., 2010). Istat, together with representatives of the third sector and civil society, has developed a multidimensional approach to measure well-being, integrating the indicator of economic activity (GDP) with measures of basic social and environmental dimensions of well-being, together with measures of inequality and economic, social and environmental sustainability. ...
This paper describes and discusses an activity proposed to secondary school students to experience the process of measuring well-being of society. The suggestion is part of a series of initiatives conducted by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istat) to promote statistical literacy among young people. Students are required to reflect about well-being concepts, to operationalize well- being dimensions, to analyse and interpret well-being data, and to verbalise their statistical analysis. Data sets come from the Istat’s “Report on equitable and sustainable well-being” (BES) and contains over one hundred indicators concerning the fundamental dimensions of well-being and progress in Italy and its territories. Retracing the path to define and measure well-being, students become familiar with these issues and using real data they anchor the learning process to everyday life.
... Nel corso degli ultimi venti anni, il tema della qualità della vita è stato al centro di un dibattito internazionale (Scrivens & Iasiello, 2010;Hall et al., 2010;Stiglitz et al., 2008), europeo (Commissione Europea, 2009) e nazionale (Consiglio Nazionale dell'Economia e del Lavoro, CNEL, e l'Istituto Nazionale di Statistica, ISTAT), che sta portando a definire un quadro teorico di riferimento utile alla realizzazione di analisi sullo stato e sul miglioramento del progresso delle società, la cui natura multidimensionale della qualità della vita (Layard, 2005;Nussbaum & Sen 1993;Stiglitz et al., 2008) rappresenta una sfida importante in termini di valutazione. ...
The topic of Environmental Justice is of great concern in industrially contaminated sites, since usually the communities living in or close to contaminated areas have socioeconomic fragilities, in addition to being affected by
the exposure to pollutants. The contributions included in this report document a multidisciplinary reflection on the theme of promotion of Environmental Justice for communities resident in Italian contaminated sites. This reflection regards the epidemiological monitoring of such communities both at the national level, referring to the national epidemiological monitoring system SENTIERI, and at the local level, taking a cue from the experience developed in the Taranto polluted site. In details, the multidisciplinary reflection is focused in assessing how to improve the capabilities of SENTIERI and of local monitoring systems of: assessing and monitoring inequalities; understanding
mechanisms of generation and maintenance of marginalities; identifying interventions for Environmental Justice promotion.
... By applying these approaches in planning, monitoring, and evaluation (PM&E), SERVIR-HKH aims for a better understanding of and harnessing of the complexity of the program for navigating change toward outcomes and impacts. Ensuring the adoption and use of EO services for societal benefit is the major objective; societal benefit is obtained when any support has a meaningful impact on the well-being of society (Giovannini et al. 2011), and it can be measured (Bornmann 2012). Result-oriented PM&E focuses on achievements and guarantees that resource allocation and planning are closely tied up with the outcomes and impacts rather than inputs and activities. ...
This open access book is a consolidation of lessons learnt and experiences gathered from our efforts to utilise Earth observation (EO) science and applications to address environmental challenges in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region. It includes a complete package of knowledge on service life cycles including multi-disciplinary topics and practically tested applications for the HKH. It comprises 19 chapters drawing from a decade’s worth of experience gleaned over the course of our implementation of SERVIR-HKH – a joint initiative of NASA, USAID, and ICIMOD – to build capacity on using EO and geospatial technology for effective decision making in the region.
The book highlights SERVIR’s approaches to the design and delivery of information services – in agriculture and food security; land cover and land use change, and ecosystems; water resources and hydro-climatic disasters; and weather and climate services. It also touches upon multidisciplinary topics such as service planning; gender integration; user engagement; capacity building; communication; and monitoring, evaluation, and learning.
We hope that this book will be a good reference document for professionals and practitioners working in remote sensing, geographic information systems, regional and spatial sciences, climate change, ecosystems, and environmental analysis. Furthermore, we are hopeful that policymakers, academics, and other informed audiences working in sustainable development and evaluation – beyond the wider SERVIR network and well as within it – will greatly benefit from what we share here on our applications, case studies, and documentation across cross-cutting topics.
... By applying these approaches in planning, monitoring, and evaluation (PM&E), SERVIR-HKH aims for a better understanding of and harnessing of the complexity of the program for navigating change toward outcomes and impacts. Ensuring the adoption and use of EO services for societal benefit is the major objective; societal benefit is obtained when any support has a meaningful impact on the well-being of society (Giovannini et al. 2011), and it can be measured (Bornmann 2012). Result-oriented PM&E focuses on achievements and guarantees that resource allocation and planning are closely tied up with the outcomes and impacts rather than inputs and activities. ...
Forests play a vital role in combating climate change and mitigating its effects. In the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH), they are an important source of livelihood for the region’s growing population. With forest degradation and deforestation increasing, it has become all the more necessary to have a reliable climate resilient forest management system. At present, lack of precise information on forest degradation and the impacts of climate change on forest ecosystems hinder the conservation, planning and management of forest ecosystems in Nepal. We attempt to tackle this issue in collaboration with Department of Forests and Soil Conservation (DoFSC), Nepal, by providing scientific and reliable data on vulnerability of forests to anthropogenic factors and climate change using geospatial tools and techniques. We introduced a two-way multitier approach in Nepal to support the identification and implementation of adaptation and management strategies with special focus on forest ecosystems. It aims to reduce the vulnerability of forests to climate change and the degradation of forest ecosystems due to anthropogenic drivers. We used multispectral satellite datasets, data on climate trends and projections, and published data on extraction of forest resources in the study area. We then used data mining to quantify the influence of temperature and precipitation on functioning of forests by using MODIS data of net primary productivity, leaf area index, evapotranspiration and climatic trends and projections data. Finally, we overlayed the forest degradation map on forest climate sensitivity map to identify the hotspots of degradation and sensitivity needing immediate attention. These hotspots are defined as “adaptation footprints”, which help decision makers to prioritize their activities within their district. Most of the forest ecosystems in mid-western and far-western Nepal are highly sensitive to observed and predicted impacts of climate change, which need immediate prioritization and management. The products of this study are accessible through a web-based decision support tool, which will help decision makers at district and province level to prioritize the activities of forest management.
... By applying these approaches in planning, monitoring, and evaluation (PM&E), SERVIR-HKH aims for a better understanding of and harnessing of the complexity of the program for navigating change toward outcomes and impacts. Ensuring the adoption and use of EO services for societal benefit is the major objective; societal benefit is obtained when any support has a meaningful impact on the well-being of society (Giovannini et al. 2011), and it can be measured (Bornmann 2012). Result-oriented PM&E focuses on achievements and guarantees that resource allocation and planning are closely tied up with the outcomes and impacts rather than inputs and activities. ...
The use of Earth observation (EO) information and geospatial information technologies (GITs) for evidence-based decision-making is a growing opportunity because of open access and increased availability of data.
... By applying these approaches in planning, monitoring, and evaluation (PM&E), SERVIR-HKH aims for a better understanding of and harnessing of the complexity of the program for navigating change toward outcomes and impacts. Ensuring the adoption and use of EO services for societal benefit is the major objective; societal benefit is obtained when any support has a meaningful impact on the well-being of society (Giovannini et al. 2011), and it can be measured (Bornmann 2012). Result-oriented PM&E focuses on achievements and guarantees that resource allocation and planning are closely tied up with the outcomes and impacts rather than inputs and activities. ...
The Regional Drought Monitoring and Outlook System (RDMOS) is an operational service which produces reliable drought indicators for the south Asia region with a specific focus on Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan. The system incorporates climatic models with suitable Earth observation data and land surface models to produce drought indices—precipitation, temperature, soil moisture, evapotranspiration—and vegetation conditions at 10-day intervals for near realtime monitoring of droughts. The RDMOS also provides seasonal outlooks at four-month intervals to support drought management and preparedness processes.
... To accomplish this, the UK's Office for National Statistics established a Measuring National Well-Being Programme to identify key areas that mattered most to people and to make an initial proposal for domains and specific measures. This Programme drew on existing frameworks in the well-being literature, including prior work by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (Hall, Giovannini, Morrone, & Ranuzzi, 2010), and aimed to incorporate items for subjective well-being already used in the international well-being literature. They included items related to hedonic, evaluative, and eudaimonic well-being, but also tried to keep the number of questions limited to avoid excessive costs and enable widespread use. ...
Measures of well-being have proliferated over the past decades. Very little guidance has been available about which measures to use in particular contexts. This chapter provides a series of recommendations, based on the present state of knowledge and the existing measures available, of which measures might be preferred in which contexts. The recommendations came out of an interdisciplinary workshop on the measurement of well-being and are shaped around the number of items that can be included in a survey and also based on the differing potential contexts and purposes of data collection such as, for example, government surveys, multiuse cohort studies, or studies specifically about psychological well-being. The recommendations are not intended to be definitive but instead to stimulate discussion and refinement and provide guidance to those relatively new to the study of well-being.
... In terms of wellbeing used to measure output, wellbeing includes not only economic income, but also the overall development of human beings and can be used to measure human satisfaction of life [48], including material conditions and living conditions [49]. The quantitative evaluation is based on the three-dimensional indicators adopted by the human development index published by the United Nations Development Program in Land 2021, 10, 12 7 of 17 1990 [50]. ...
Humans currently face a problematic ecological dilemma regarding economic growth. It is difficult to meet human needs by only studying economic growth created by artificial costs, and all countries need to pay attention to the task of improving the level of human welfare under the constraints of an ecological environment from the perspective of sustainable development. The focus of ecological wellbeing performance (EWP) is how to achieve the maximum welfare level output or achieve higher welfare level improvement with the fewest conversions of natural and ecological inputs. In this paper, we use the super-efficiency SBM model to measure the EWP of Chinese provinces and cities, traditional and spatial Markov probability transfer matrices are established based on time series analysis and spatial correlation analysis of the global Moran’s index, and the characteristics of the spatiotemporal variations of EWP are analyzed by comparing the matrices. The evolution trend for a certain future period is predicted, and the influences of geographical spatial patterns on the spatiotemporal evolution of EWP are discussed. On this basis, according to the calculation and analysis of the characteristics of China’s EWP, provinces and cities in China need to focus on improving their own resource utilization efficiency and strengthen environmental supervision to improve EWP. Finally, policy recommendations are put forward. First, special laws and regulations need to be introduced for resource utilization and ecological protection. The second recommendation is to promote and improve the mechanism of public participation in the rational utilization of resources and protection of the ecological environment. The third recommendation is to establish a dynamic monitoring system for resource utilization and ecological environmental protection. The fourth recommendation is to strengthen structural adjustment and accomplish high-quality economic development.
... Ou seja, deve estar vinculado também a aspectos ambientais, sociais e subjetivos, bem como à capacidade dos indivíduos de realizarem seus projetos de vida (cf. HALL et al., 2010, SCRIVENS;IASIELLO, 2010;STIGLITZ;FITOUSSI, 2009;TREWIN;HALL, 2010). É este o entendimento utilizado neste trabalho. ...
... In order to reach a definition of well-being that could be appropriate for the Italian context, the starting point was the theoretical framework elaborated by OECD [25], according to which specific domains and dimensions for the phenomenon are identified. In agreement with this framework, a preliminary distinction is made between Human well-being and Ecosystem well-being. ...
Measurement of well-being has been a highly debated topic since the end of the last century. While some specific aspects are still open issues, a multidimensional approach as well as the construction of shared and well-rooted systems of indicators are now accepted as the main route to measure this complex phenomenon. A meaningful effort, in this direction, is that of the Italian "Equitable and Sustainable Well-being" (BES) system of indicators, developed by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) and the National Council for Economics and Labour (CNEL). The BES framework comprises a number of atomic indicators measured yearly at the regional level and reflecting the different domains of well-being (e.g. Health, Education, Work \& Life Balance, Environment,...). In this work we aim at dealing with the multidimensionality of the BES system of indicators and try to answer three main research questions: I) What is the structure of the relationships among the BES atomic indicators; II) What is the structure of the relationships among the BES domains; III) To what extent the structure of the relationships reflects the current BES theoretical framework. We address these questions by implementing Bayesian Networks (BNs), a widely accepted class of multivariate statistical models, particularly suitable for handling reasoning with uncertainty. Implementation of a BN results in a set of nodes and a set of conditional independence statements that provide an effective tool to explore associations in a system of variables. In this work, we also suggest two strategies for encoding prior knowledge in the BN estimating algorithm so that the BES theoretical framework can be represented into the network.
... In order to reach a definition of well-being that could be appropriate for the Italian context, the starting point was the theoretical framework elaborated by OECD [25], according to which specific domains and dimensions for the phenomenon are identified. In agreement with this framework, a preliminary distinction is made between Human well-being and Ecosystem well-being. ...
Measurement of well-being has been a highly debated topic since the end of the last century. While some specific aspects are still open issues, a multidimensional approach as well as the construction of shared and well-rooted systems of indicators are now accepted as the main route to measure this complex phenomenon. A meaningful effort, in this direction, is that of the Italian “Equitable and Sustainable Well-being” (BES) system of indicators, developed by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) and the National Council for Economics and Labour (CNEL). The BES framework comprises a number of atomic indicators measured yearly at regional level and reflecting the different domains of well-being (e.g. Health, Education, Work & Life Balance, Environment,...). In this work we aim at dealing with the multidimensionality of the BES system of indicators and try to answer three main research questions: (I) What is the structure of the relationships among the BES atomic indicators; (II) What is the structure of the relationships among the BES domains; (III) To what extent the structure of the relationships reflects the current BES theoretical framework. We address these questions by implementing Bayesian Networks (BNs), a widely accepted class of multivariate statistical models, particularly suitable for handling reasoning with uncertainty. Implementation of a BN results in a set of nodes and a set of conditional independence statements that provide an effective tool to explore associations in a system of variables. In this work, we also suggest two strategies for encoding prior knowledge in the BN estimating algorithm so that the BES theoretical framework can be represented into the network.
... Hence, each society has the right to pursue its own goal to the extent that its actions do not compromise the capacity of the future generations or of utilization of utility with the fact that utility is subjective, unstable and not necessarily a consistent concept. Clear examples of this limit are the modern progress frameworks (Bova 2019a;Hall, Giovannini, Morrone and Ranuzzi 2010) that juxtapose the words equitable and sustainable to wellbeing to define the modalities according to which wellbeing can be pursued. The wellbeing approach suffers at least of three critic points. ...
This paper discusses the measurement of both the intergenerational equity and the transitional inequality where the latter is a measure of distance to a transitional goal. The issue is relevant especially for ecological sustainability which is the main aspect treated, and can be extended to a set of transitional goals as the Agenda 2030. The empirics show that we had non-sustainable intergenerational equity and that no transition has been performed; therefore, it is hard to believe that there will be no necessity for inequality to reach the intergenerational equity. Keywords: Intergenerational equity; Transitional inequality; Intergenerational equity indicators; Sustainable development indicators
... To accomplish this, the UK's Office for National Statistics established a Measuring National Well-Being Programme to identify key areas that mattered most to people and to make an initial proposal for domains and specific measures. This Programme drew upon existing frameworks in the well-being literature, including prior work by the OECD (Hall et al., 2010), and aimed to incorporate items for subjective well-being already used in the international well-being literature. They included items related to hedonic, evaluative, and eudaimonic well-being, but also tried to keep the number of questions limited to avoid excessive costs and enable widespread use. ...
Measures of well-being have proliferated over the past decades. Very little guidance has been available as to which measures to use in what contexts. This paper provides a series of recommendations, based on the present state of knowledge and the existing measures available, of what measures might be preferred in which contexts. The recommendations came out of an interdisciplinary workshop on the measurement of well-being. The recommendations are shaped around the number of items that can be included in a survey, and also based on the differing potential contexts and purposes of data collection such as, for example, government surveys, or multi-use cohort studies, or studies specifically about psychological well-being. The recommendations are not intended to be definitive, but to stimulate discussion and refinement, and to provide guidance to those relatively new to the study of well-being.
... Progress refers to the process of getting nearer to achieving or completing something (Giovannini, Hall, Morrone, & Ranuzzi, 2011). On the other hand, leadership is the direction an individual in a position of authority gives to a group of people under him or her for the group to accomplish organisational objectives timely and efficiently using all the resources at the disposal of the group (Uzohue, Yaya, & Akintayo, 2016). ...
This study explored the determinants of female teachers' progress to leadership in government-aided primary schools in Ntungamo District. Specifically, the study explored how personality characteristics, school factors and social factors determined female teachers' progress to leadership in government aided primary schools. This cross-sectional study used a sample of 210 respondents and data were collected using a questionnaire survey. Data were analysed using descriptive analysis that included frequencies, percentages and means, and inferential analyses that were correlation and regression. Descriptive results revealed that the level of female teachers' progress to leadership was good, had strong personality characteristics and experienced favourable school and social factors. Regression results revealed that organisational factors and social were positive significant determinants of female teachers' progress to leadership while personality characteristics were negative and insignificant determinants. Therefore, the conclusions reached were that personality characteristics were not the most probable factors that determined female progress to leadership in primary schools, school factors were essential for female teachers' progress to leadership in primary schools, and social factors were imperative for female teachers' progress to leadership in primary schools. It was thus recommended that bodies charged with promoting of female teachers such District Education Service Commissions and schools leadership should assess personality characteristics of women when promoting them to leadership, those charged with management of schools such as District Education Officers, Inspectors of Schools, Schools Management Committees and head teachers should ensure that school factors promote female teachers progress to leadership, and leadership of schools from national to local level and community members should ensure that social factors in place promote female teachers progress to leadership.
... Quantitative measure of living conditions is a complex process, due to its inherent multidimensional nature (Leal Filho et al. 2018). Objective measurement of living conditions have been widely discussed by several researchers (Jackson et al. 2008;Kroll 2011;McCloughan et al. 2011;Maggino and Zumbo 2012;Ciommi et al. 2017), the European Union (Council of Europe 2008; WHO Regional Office for Europe 2013; European Environment Agency (EEA) 2015) and by international entities (Bandura 2008;OECD and JRC European Commission 2008;Hall et al. 2010;OECD 2011OECD , 2017. A number of wellbeing indexes, which address a myriad of indicators, relevant at national scale, are currently available (Fredericks 2012;Haq and Zia 2013;OECD 2014;INE -Instituto Nacional de Estatística I.P 2017;Yan et al. 2018). ...
Sustainable development policies are the convergence point of plans and actions aiming to attain healthy, prosper and successful societies, while safeguarding natural resources and ecosystems. Progress on sustainable development must be measured on a regular basis to follow and to account for the defined political commitments. Sustainable development policies have impact on people’s life; thus, monitoring must occur at the local scale. Using the framework of the sustainable development goals indicators and the European Union correspondent targets, this work is a contribution to evaluate living conditions at the municipal scale, taking Portugal as the case study. Fifty-four variables were statistically analysed and combined in a composite index whose conception, methodological procedures and validation process were previously described. Composite indicators are recognized as useful tools to monitor and to compare countries’ evolution and this work focus on the results of an index that was tailored designed to be applied at a local level enabling to monitor SDGs. Results show that Portugal is struggling with the implementation of SDGs, namely: SDG 3, by the uneven distribution of health professionals alongside the increase of deaths by tumours and respiratory diseases; SDG 4, visible by the reduction of students enrolled in basic education; SDGs 7 and 12, by the increase of natural gas per capita consumption. Additionally, the aggravation of fires and the increasing number of incinerators and landfills affect many SDGs targets. At present, generally, living conditions are harsh than in 2009 during the financial crisis.
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... In particular, the economics literature addressed the determinants of life satisfaction considering its potential influences on well-being in terms of income, personal characteristics, socially developed characteristics, and attitudes and beliefs towards personal as well as other people's life. This led to rethink the mainstream economic approach to happiness, according to which it is considered as the extent to which individuals' preferences are satisfied and a social progress is achieved (Bartolini, 2010) and assessed (Giovannini, Hall, Morrone, & Ranuzzi, 2011). ...
Happiness is common, but multifaceted concept, which attracted over the time the interest of many different scholars. In the last decades, happiness has been coupled with sustainability, boosting an interdisciplinary research and policy development, pointing to ascertain the drivers of individual, communities, and global well‐being or the so‐called sustainable happiness. This study aims at contributing to the debate on sustainable happiness, focusing on the importance that both individual and collective characteristics can have on the long‐lasting happiness of community. To this end, a qualitative analysis has been conducted; thus, an explorative case study has been presented and discussed. The achieved results offers some interesting theoretical and policy implications for the further improvement of individual and collective happiness in communities, such as prisons.
... The project curated by Istat and by the CNEL, with the collaboration of experts in the fields of statistics and sociology, has as objective the evaluation of the multidimensional welfare of Italian citizens, bearing in mind the fairness in the distribution of resources, and the sustainability of levels of well-being for future generations. The methodological framework used is the one provided by the OECD in 2006 (Hall et al. 2010), based on domains and on two macro-dimensions: human welfare and ecosystem"s well-being, which in any case do not constitute a caesura, but are interesting in the intersections between the two spheres. According to these macro-dimensions, the Steering Committee of the Equitable and Sustainable Well-Being (Istat, CNEL and civil society) has identified two groups of domains: nine of them have direct impact on human and environmental well-being and the other three represents functional elements to improve social welfare. ...
... These ideas are increasingly being taken up by pan-national organisations and national statistical offices. The European Commission (2007), OECD (Hall et al., 2010), and national statistical offices across Europe (e.g. UK ONS, 2010), have all developed typologies or classifications to measure the quality of life. ...
The aim of the study is to look at the relationship between social benefits and the provision of training at sectoral level. The principal hypothesis is that social benefits (measured in terms of job satisfaction levels) are improved, other things being equal, by the provision of training and other learning opportunities, but there are sectoral specificities such that the relationship between job satisfaction and training varies significantly across sectors.
The sectoral specificities may relate to factors such as working practices in the sector, the principal forms of technology deployed in the production process, and social and cultural norms. These may all affect the relationship between worker and employer in any given sector, which has implications for the relationship between job satisfaction and training.
... A few studies are available to help guide the implementation of a capability approach framework to more specific contexts (e.g., Biggieri et al. 2006;Frediani 2006). Note that other multi-dimensional lists and conceptions of human well-being dimensions have been generated and vary according to the questions that each author seek to address and the context of operation; see Alkire 2002 andHall et al. 2010 for a discussion and comparison of different approaches. ...
As a consequence of the U.S. effort to increase infrastructure security and resilience, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other U.S. federal agencies have identified 16 critical infrastructure sectors that are considered vital to the nation’s well-being in terms of economic security, public health, and safety. However, there remains no articulated set of values that justify this particular list of infrastructure systems or how decision-makers might prioritize investments towards one critical sector over another during a crisis. To offer a more integrated and holistic approach to critical infrastructure resilience, this research employs the capabilities approach to human development, which offers an alternative view of critical infrastructure that focuses on the services that infrastructure provides rather than its physical condition or vulnerability to threats. This service-based perspective of infrastructure emphasizes the role of infrastructure in enabling and supporting central human capabilities that build adaptive capacity and improve human well-being. We argue that the most critical infrastructure systems are those that are essential for providing and/or supporting central human capabilities. This paper examines the DHS designation of criticality from a capabilities perspective and argues for a capabilities basis for making distinctions between those systems that should be considered most critical and those that might be temporarily sacrificed. A key implication of this work is that an across sector approach is required to reorganize existing critical infrastructure efforts around the most valuable infrastructure end-services.
... In particu- lar, the 2010 Human Development Report introduces the Inequality-Adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI), which is a measure of the level of human development of people in a society that accounts for inequality; the Gender Inequality Index to better expose differences in the distribution of achievements between women and men; and the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), which complements money-based measures by considering multiple deprivations and their overlapping deprivations in three dimensions: education, health and living conditions. Within the OECD, another theoretical framework that reduces the emphasis on eco- nomic indicators in favour of a multidimensional approach, which considers social and environmental well-being just as important as economic well-being, was developed in 2009 ( Hall et al., 2009). The authors define the 'well-being of a society' (or societal well- being) as the sum of the human well-being and the ecosystem condition; and 'progress of a society' (or societal progress) as the improvement in human well-being and the ecosystem condition. ...
... Such approaches are essential to making progress in mental health 9 . Relevant and well thought-through frameworks are increasingly available internationally (for example, the Canadian Index of Wellbeing 98 , The Australia We Want 99 , the OECD societal progress framework 100 and The Wales We Want, which even has its own legislation 101 ). These provide suitable philosophical and practical structures for thinking about climate change, about how people perceive fairness in this context 102 and about mental health. ...
It is increasingly necessary to quantify the impacts of climate change on populations, and to quantify the effectiveness of mitigation and adaptation strategies. Despite growing interest in the health effects of climate change, the relationship between mental health and climate change has received little attention in research or policy. Here, we outline current thinking about climate change and mental health, and discuss crucial limitations in modern epidemiology for examining this issue. A systems approach, complemented by a new style of research thinking and leadership, can help align the needs of this emerging field with existing and research policy agendas.
... In order to increase the availability of indicators, several basic statistics were integrated; the input information is provided from 37 data sources managed by 13 different institutions. The quality of the indicators therefore varies because data have different reference periods and are affected by different kinds of bias depending on the features of the statistical source used (ESS 2001;Hall et al. 2010;Istat 2012). ...
The aim of the present chapter is to discuss a recent contribution in the partial least squares path modeling framework: the quantile composite-based path modeling. We introduce this recent contribution from both a methodological and an applicative point of view. The objective is to provide an exploration of the whole dependence structure and to highlight whether and how the relationships among variables (both observed and unobserved) change across quantiles. We use a real data application, measuring the equitable and sustainable well-being of Italian provinces. Partial least squares path modeling is first applied to study the relationships among variables assuming homogeneity among observations. Afterwards, a multi-group analysis is performed, assuming that a specific factor (the geographic area) causes heterogeneity in the population. Finally, the quantile approach to composite-based path modeling provides a more in-depth analysis. Some relevant results are selected and described to show that the quantile composite-based path modeling can be very useful in this real data application, as it allows us to explore territorial disparities in depth.
... 第 39 卷 第 3 期 资 源 科 学 http://www.resci.net 与贫穷、 可持续发展密切相关 [9] 。居民福祉包括健 康、 文化、 良好的物质文化条件、 人际关系、 自我选 择和决定权等 [10] 。千年生态系统评估 (MA) 是首次 在全世界范围内进行的对生态系统的多层次综合 评估， 为促进生态系统对满足居民需求、 对整个生 态系统的保护和可持续利用所作的贡献奠定科学 基础 [11] 。 生态系统服务通过影响安全保障、 维持高质量 生活所需要的基本物质条件、 健康以及社会与文化 关系对人类福祉产生了深远的影响 [11] 。反过来， 福 祉的组成要素又可以和人类获得的自由与选择产 生相互影响 [12] 。生态系统服务与人类福祉的关系非 常复杂， 在空间尺度上， 国内外学者基于经济学的 价值理论解释了地域差异对生态系统服务的影响， 认为流域生态系统服务价值变化对居民福祉产生 影响的深层原因在于流域生态系统服务的空间流 转及其经济外部性致使流域生态资产占有和使用、 生态环境建设投入和享用在空间上的分离 [13] ， 导致 生态系统服务价值高的区域 (如流域上游) 并不一 定带来高的人类福祉， 即所谓的 "资源魔咒" [14] ， 或生 态系统服务退化 (如流域下游) 而人类福祉提升的 情况 [15] ， 造成流域环境与生态系统资源管理的困 难。时间尺度上， 人类福祉与生态系统服务相对 应， 呈多层次性和动态性， 基于生态系统服务供给 与人类福祉关系框架 [16][17][18] ...
This article defines "cultural experience" and places it in a holistic conceptual model; “the cultural city” where it plays a relevant role in improving the performing of cities. The conceptual model combines the basic elements of the heritage city, the smart city and the creative city. The city is interpreted from a threefold perspective; as a repository of resources, as a connective interface, and as the setting for citizens' life and social and professional experiences. In this context, each of these perspectives incorporates culture in a different way, enabling different models of value creation and different processes of production and reproduction of this value. In each of the urban models described above, production processes that combine symbolic, physical, financial, social, human and cultural capital in different ways and urban strategies are implemented to provide cultural experiences that ignite transformative effects through several spillovers. That means that culture, in its different dimensions, regains the role of a raw material and becomes the point of origin to activate development processes and improve urban performance. The integration of the dimensions of the heritage city, the creative city and the smart city through an enabling context is the core proposal of the “cultural city”. In alignment with the New European Agenda for Culture, we deepen the analysis in the specific spillovers on wellbeing and quality of life, citizen engagement and urban renewal as the backbone of a set of external effects of cultural experiences. In the final part of this article, we test the plausibility of this speculative proposal through some empirical evidence. We develop an OLS model with proxy indicators, that could be considered transitional indicators, for the three different potential strategies (heritage, smart, creative). The findings support the assertion that it is conceivable that the supply of cultural experiences through a variety of tactics (heritage city, smart city and creative city) can account in part for the growth of European cities in the years after the 2008 financial crisis. These strategies have contributed to the good performance of the urban device in a way that is positive, not negligible (accounting for around 50% of the variance in productivity) and statistically significant. The provision of a context that increases the cultural experiences for citizens has clearly improved the performance of European cities, and we develop some conceptual and empirical mechanisms to explain and measure the socioeconomic impacts of these processes.
Modern bilimsel, felsefi ve politik söylemlerde ilerleme (progress) kavramının tanımı oldukça karmaşıktır. Çin, İslam, Hint gibi medeniyetlerin geliştirdiği farklı “ilerleme” kavramları vardır. Bu çalışma, modern ilerleme anlayışının “Aydınlanma Çağı”nın başlamasıyla ivme kazandığı fikrini desteklemektedir. Aydınlanma Projesi, toplumsal ilerlemenin toplum, ahlak, siyaset, bilim ve teknoloji gibi bir dizi konuyu kapsar. Ana iddiası, insanlığın doğası gereği “ilerici” bir tür olduğudur. Bu çalışmada önerilen ilerleme kavramının kavramsallaştırılması, hem değişim ilkesini, hem iyilik ilkesini hem de istenen hedefi içermektedir. İlk iki ilke sırasıyla bilim (doğa) ve ahlak alanına aittir, son ilkenin politik veya ideolojik alanda yer aldığı söylenebilir.
Bu araştırmada, kültürel değerlerin ülkelerin sosyal gelişme düzeyleri üzerindeki etkisi araştırılmıştır. Sosyal gelişmenin gelirle olan ilişkisi göz önünde bulundurularak, kişi başı GSYİH değeri de kontrol değişkeni olarak araştırmaya dahil edilmiş ve kültürel değerlerin sosyal gelişme üzerindeki etkisi doksan bir ülke verisiyle analiz edilmiştir. Kültürel değerler, Hofstede’nin güç mesafesi, belirsizlikten kaçınma, bireycilik, maskulenlik, uzun dönem yönelimi ve hoşgörü boyutlarıyla incelenmiştir. Sosyal gelişme, genel sosyal gelişme endeks skorunun yanı sıra sosyal gelişmeyi oluşturan temel insani ihtiyaçlar, refah altyapısı ve fırsatlar boyutlarıyla ölçülmüştür. Bu nedenle kültürel değerlerin genel sosyal gelişme endeksi üzerindeki etkisinin yanı sıra sosyal gelişmenin alt boyutları üzerindeki etkisi de incelenmiştir. Araştırma sonuçları, gelirin sosyal gelişme üzerindeki etkisi kontrol edildiğinde, maskulenlik ve hoşgörü boyutu haricindeki kültürel değerlerin (güç mesafesi, belirsizlikten kaçınma, bireycilik ve uzun dönem yönelimi) en az birinin sosyal gelişme ve alt boyutlarını anlamlı düzeyde etkilediğini göstermiştir. Belirsizlikten kaçınma, sosyal gelişme, temel insani ihtiyaçlar, refah altyapısı ve fırsatlar üzerinde; uzun dönem yönelimi, sosyal gelişme ve refah altyapısı üzerinde; bireycilik ve güç mesafesi sosyal gelişme ve fırsatlar boyutları üzerinde anlamlı etkiler göstermiştir. Güç mesafesi, sosyal gelişmeyi negatif yönde etkilerken belirsizlikten kaçınma, bireycilik ve uzun dönem yöneliminin sosyal gelişmeyi pozitif yönde etkilediği görülmüştür.
In this study, the effects of cultural values on the social progress levels of countries were investigated. GDP per capita was included in the research as a control variable since income is an important determinant of social progress. Then the effects of cultural values on social progress were analyzed with data from ninety-nine countries. Cultural values were examined by Hofstede's cultural dimensions of power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism-collectivism, masculinity-femininity, long-short term orientation, and indulgence-restrain. As well as the general social progress index score, social progress was also measured by the dimensions of basic human needs, foundations of wellbeing, and opportunity which forms social progress. For this reason, the effects of cultural values on the social progress index and its dimensions have been examined. The results of the research showed that at least one of the cultural dimensions of power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, and long-term orientation significantly affected social progress. Uncertainty avoidance affected social progress, basic human needs, foundations of wellbeing, and opportunity; long-term orientation affected social progress and foundations of wellbeing; individualism and power distance affected social progress and opportunity dimension significantly. While power distance affected social progress negatively; uncertainty avoidance, individualism, and long-term orientation affected social progress positively.
Global change, population growth, and urbanization have been exerting a severe influence on the environment, including the social system and ecosystem. To find solutions based on nature, clarifying the complicated mechanisms and feedback among land use/land cover changes, ecosystem services, and human well-being, is increasingly crucial. However, the in-depth linkages among these three elements have not been clearly and systematically illustrated, present research paths have not been summarized well, and the future research trends on this topic have not been reasonably discussed. In this sense, the purpose of this paper is to provide an insight into how land use/land cover changes, ecosystem services, and human well-being are linked, as well as their relationships, interacting ways, applications in solving ecological and socioeconomic problems, and to reveal their future research trends. Here, we use a systematic literature review of the peer-reviewed literature to conclude the state of the art and the progress, emphasize the hotspot, and reveal the future trend of the nexus among the three aspects. Results show that (1) ecosystem services are generally altered by the changes in land use type, spatial pattern, and intensity; (2) the nexus among land use change, ecosystem services, and human well-being is usually used for supporting poverty alleviation, ecosystem health, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable development; (3) future research on land use/land cover changes, ecosystem services, and human well-being should mainly focus on strengthening multiscale correlation, driving force analysis, the correlation among different group characteristics, land use types and ecosystem service preferences, and the impact of climate change on ecosystem services and human well-being. This study provides an enhanced understanding of the nexus among the three aspects and a reference for future studies to mitigate the relevant problems.
Discussions at the European Commission, in academic journals as well as at conferences for academics and practitioners, indicate that there is a lack of clarity on how to coincide anti-competitive sustainability agreements with the so-called economic approach of the European Commission. The current interpretation of the economic approach, most notably the European Commission guidelines issued in 2004 on the application of Article 101(3) of the TFEU, has led to situations where agreements between undertakings to stop the sale of unsustainable products or production processes have been discouraged, thereby, potentially reducing sustainable consumption. These agreements have the potential to increase sustainable consumption as well as reduce greenwashing by stopping the sale of products that do not meet certain sustainability criteria. In this chapter, it is examined how the current European Commission guidelines could be improved to allow undertakings to assess their agreements in a way that is quantifiable but that goes beyond a neoclassical economic approach focusing solely on monetary well-being. Such an approach may reduce the inhibitive effect of EU competition law on sustainable consumption by allowing agreements that promote human well-being. This chapter gives an overview of Article 101 TFEU and the guidelines, followed by an exploration of welfare economics, cognitive science, behavioural economics, and moral philosophy to quantify agreements under Article 101(3) TFEU.
Abstract: Fiscal Federalism, the division of economic responsibilities between the central and local
government, has been an ongoing debate. The few existing studies on Brazilian’s fiscal structure
facing regional economic growth shows conflicting results. However fiscal decentralization can
lead to a more efficient provision of local public goods and services to promote welfare state,
citizen’s preferences and economic growth, Brazil's policymakers seem to have a different view.
In a country where only three states in 26 hold 53% of Brazil’s PNB, disparities shows-up claiming
to be solved. There are still some questions as to whether all regions can achieve real gains with
greater autonomy. Decentralization may not solve all subnational entities problems, especially the
issue of the poorer regions losing competitiveness about the richer regions, which increases
regional disparities. In this way, more recent studies have focused on the different channels
through which fiscal decentralization can affect the issue of disparities such as taxes and duties,
the autonomy of spending and vertical fiscal imbalance. The present work investigates the
relationship between fiscal decentralization, regional disparities and economic growth within 26
Brazilian’s states and Federal District, in the period 2001-2012. Attention was given to channels
through which decentralization can affect inequality: human capital, vertical fiscal imbalance,
population’s geographic concentration, and local taxes. The empirical analysis suggests that a
decentralized fiscal structure can reduce regional disparities by implementing better government
policies that favor local economic development
The way healthy societies are conceptualised shapes efforts to achieve them. This paper explores the features and drivers of frameworks for healthy societies that had wide or sustained policy influence post-1978 at global level and as purposively selected southern regions, in India, Latin America and East and Southern Africa. A thematic analysis of 150 online documents identified paradigms and themes. The findings were discussed with expertise from the regions covered to review and validate the findings.
Globally, comprehensive primary healthcare, whole-of-government and rights-based approaches have focused on social determinants and social agency to improve health as a basis for development. Biomedical, selective and disease-focused technology-driven approaches have, however, generally dominated, positioning health improvements as a result of macroeconomic growth. Traditional approaches in the three southern regions previously mentioned integrated reciprocity and harmony with nature. They were suppressed by biomedical, allopathic models during colonialism and by postcolonial neoliberal economic reforms promoting selective, biomedical interventions for highest-burden diseases, with weak investment in public health. In all three regions, holistic, sociocultural models and claims over natural resources re-emerged. In the 2000s, economic, ecological, pandemic crises and social inequality have intensified alliances and demand to address global, commercial processes undermining healthy societies, with widening differences between ‘planetary health’, integrating ecosystems and collective interests, and the coercive controls and protectionism in technology-driven and biosecurity-driven approaches.
The trajectories point to a need for ideas and practice on healthy societies to tackle systemic determinants of inequities within and across countries, including to reclaim suppressed cultures; to build transdisciplinary, reflexive and participatory forms of knowledge that are embedded in and learn from action; and to invest in a more equitable circulation of ideas between regions in framing global ideas. Today’s threats raise a critical moment of choice on which ideas dominate, not only for health but also for survival.
In this paper we analyse a set of Italian equitable and sustainable well-being indicators, related to the education and training domain, considered at a regional level over different years. To this end, the Partial Triadic Analysis - a multiway approach which allows to properly deal with time-dependent data structures - will be used in conjunction with a bootstrap method to carry out the assessment of the outcomes obtained. The adopted resampling scheme - called Maximum Entropy Bootstrap - proved to be an appropriate analytical tool, given its ability to preserve the longitudinal data structure without incurring in the usual restrictive assumptions of more traditional bootstrap methods. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first time a bootstrap method for longitudinal data has been employed in PTA.
The Routledge International Handbook of Global Therapeutic Cultures explores central lines of enquiry and seminal scholarship on therapeutic cultures, popular psychology, and the happiness industry. Bringing together studies of therapeutic cultures from sociology, anthropology, psychology, education, politics, law, history, social work, cultural studies, development studies, and American Indian studies, it adopts a consciously global focus, combining studies of the psychologisation of social life from across the world. Thematically organised, it offers historical accounts of the growing prominence of therapeutic discourses and practices in everyday life, before moving to consider the construction of self-identity in the context of the diffusion of therapeutic discourses in connection with the global spread of capitalism. With attention to the ways in which emotional language has brought new problematisations of the dichotomy between the normal and the pathological, as well as significant transformations of key institutions, such as work, family, education, and religion, it examines emergent trends in therapeutic culture and explores the manner in which the advent of new therapeutic technologies, the political interest in happiness, and the radical privatisation and financialisation of social life converge to remake self-identities and modes of everyday experience. Finally, the volume features the work of scholars who have foregrounded the historical and contemporary implication of psychotherapeutic practices in processes of globalisation and colonial and postcolonial modes of social organisation. Presenting agenda-setting research to encourage interdisciplinary and international dialogue and foster the development of a distinctive new field of social research, The Routledge International Handbook of Global Therapeutic Cultures will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in the advance of therapeutic discourses and practices in an increasingly psychologised society.
The concept of well-being has evolved over the last decades and a multidisciplinary literature has acknowledged the multidimensional nature of this phenomenon that encompasses different key dimensions. To give concise measure of well-being, methodologies based on composite indices assume relevance, for their capability to summarize the multidimensional issues, rank the units and provide interesting analysis tools. This paper intends to make a contribution to the efforts of assessing human and ecosystem well-being in the Italian urban areas, by appreciating the spatial dimension of the elementary indicators involved in the building process of the composite indicator. To this end, we derive a set of local weights reflecting the spatial variability of data through the Geographically Weighted PCA. Then, the analysis proceeds by employing a unitary-input DEA model, also known as Benefit of Doubt approach, as a benchmarking tool for constructing a spatial composite indicator to evaluate the well-being in the Italian urban areas. In such way, we can take local peculiarities into account and identify the best performing cities to follow as examples of good administrative practices for promoting urban well-being. The approach followed in this specific study is applied empirically with data from the Urban ‘Equitable and Sustainable Well-Being” (Ur-Bes) project, proposed by ISTAT.
Population living standards can be defined as a complex social and economic category reflecting the level of supply of necessary material goods and services to the population, the achieved consumption level of these material goods and services and the extent of satisfying reasonable (rational) needs. © 2019, Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature.
Africa has 54 acknowledged sovereign states and countries with many ethnic
groupings. The African region has the heaviest burden of disease in spite of impor-
tant national and regional efforts (World Bank 1994). The World Bank states that
32 African countries are among the world’s 48 least developed nations, and 80%
of the people in the region are in the low socioeconomic category (World Bank
1994). Poverty is the most important determinant of ill health in Africa (World
Health Organization 2002). Sub-Saharan Africa is the poorest region in the world,
and it is marked by political and economic instability and great variations in natu-
ral resources with most of the poorest countries in the world residing in this region
(Popkin 2002). The region faces an intense scourge of HIV/AIDS in addition to
the rising prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like hypertension,
diabetes mellitus, and other medical conditions related to obesity (Popkin 2002).
Nigeria has a high burden of infectious diseases with related morbidity and
mortality, while women and children bear the greatest impact of diseases in this
region (Lambo 2015). About 70% of the population live in rural areas (World
Bank 1987), and even though Nigeria has one of the highest numbers of health
workers in Africa, there are disparities in their distribution between the rural and
urban areas, geopolitical zones, states, and local government areas (Lambo 2015).
These poorly motivated staff work in poor work environments with inadequate
infrastructure, limited opportunity for continuing education, inadequate supervi-
sion, and low logistic support (Lambo 2015). This ultimately leads to poor reten-
tion and migration of health workers, further worsening the health indices of
Nigeria. The presence of widespread poverty and underdevelopment in Nigeria,
like other African countries, means that these communities are also exposed to the
major environmental determinants of oral disease (Thorpe 2006).
The prevalence of dental diseases closely mimics the levels of social depriva-
tion. Oral diseases are among the most common NCDs that affect people through-
out their lifetime, causing pain, disfigurement, and even death. In the World
Health Organization (WHO) African Region where above 80% of the population
are of low socioeconomic status, these diseases affect the health and wellbeing
of millions of people. Oral health disparities continue to widen, more so among disadvantaged and vulnerable groups where the vast majority experience the
highest burden of oral diseases (Petersen et al. 2005, Watt 2005, Jin et al. 2011).
Importantly, children in developing countries are known to suffer disproportion-
ately from the burden of dental diseases. Children with poor oral health experi-
ence pain and tooth loss which affect their feeding and negatively impact their
nutrition, self-esteem, speech, socialisation, quality of life, and school attendance
(Edelstein et al. 2006). Worldwide, it is estimated that over 51 million school
hours are lost annually from dental-related illness (Peterson et al. 2005, Pau et al.
2008, Rowan-Legg 2013). The majority of these children in Africa have no access
to dental care (Petersen et al. 2005).
Barry Popkin’s revised demographic, epidemiologic, and nutrition transition
model (Popkin 2002) serves as the framework for this work, and it addresses how
nutrition-related NCDs are now the main causes of disability and death globally.
Dental caries is a unique diet-dependent disease which has a communicable com-
ponent through the horizontal or vertical transmission of cariogenic bacteria such
as streptococcus mutans (SM), especially from the mother. It can manifest due to
a complex interplay between dietary and infectious processes in addition to other
social and cultural influences. Mothers are key decision makers on children’s
oral healthcare, and maternal knowledge and attitudes to oral health have been
reported to be an important predictor of children’s oral health in Nigeria (Adeniyi
et al. 2009). Since the critical focus of this model was on prevention and because
many oral diseases have modifiable risk factors, it is desirable to determine mater-
nal perception about early childhood caries in Nigeria and to explore preventive
strategies that can be adopted.
This paper gives an outline of relational sociology, which understands and explains society and human existence as “relationally constituted”, i.e. as constituted by social relations. Modern and postmodern sociological mainstreams see relations as an emanation of the individual, whereas in reality individual’s identity depends on relations. The fallacy of individualism is due to the fact that current social theories avoid addressing what the author calls “the enigma of the relationship”, i.e. an order of reality able to unite the diff erent ones while preserving, and even promoting, their differences. This new approach understands relations as a sui generis reality that cannot be reduced to the terms of the relations, their qualities and properties, because the relation is “emergent”. Thus, it overcomes the fallacies of subjectivism and objectivism in understanding the nature of social reality and can make visible the enigma of its relational constitution. This approach stems from a new social (relational) ontology, according to which substance and relation are co-principles of being. Such an ontology, in turn, needs to refer to a specifi c “theological matrix”, since every society depends on a kind of “symbolic code” that determines the uniqueness of its structures and sociocultural dynamics. Symbolic codes always have religious origins where “religion” broadly means the ultimate latent values of society. Within the framework of Western thinking, three symbolic codes or theological matrices can be observed, depending on how the diff erence between the Self and the Other is interpreted, namely dialectical, binary and relational. Within the dialectical symbolic code, the distinction between the Self and the Other is understood as a point of constant confl ict, discussion and negotiation: the theory of J. Habermas serves as a good example of this code. The binary matrix, presented by N. Luhmann, understands the diff erence between the Self and the Other as an insurmountable separation. Within the relational code, this difference (indeed any difference) is considered to be a social relation, i.e. a true interchange between the terms generating “emergent” eff ect. The relational matrix goes back to Christianity and its theological Trinitarian matrix.
Zugang über: http://www.albanknecht.de/materialien.html Permanente Adresse: http://www.albanknecht.de/materialien/Literatur_Lebenqualitaet.pdf von Alban Knecht. Das Konzept Lebensqualität ist - nach einer einzelnen Nennung bei Pigou - zuerst im Jahre 1964 im Wahlkampf des späteren US-Präsidenten Lyndon B. Johnson aufgetaucht (siehe Knecht (2010): Lebensqualität produzieren. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag, S. 18). Seine anfängliche Entwicklung hing eng mit dem Aufkommen der Sozialindikatorenforschung zusammen. Nach der Ölkrise ist das Konzept zuerst in Vergessenheit geraten; in den 80ern wurde es in neuer Form wieder belebt: Es erschien nun in Disziplinen wie der Geographie, der Stadtplanung und der Medizin. Im Großen und Ganzen kann man sagen, dass aus dem Makro-Konzept mit Weltverbesserungsanspruch ein Mikro-Konzept zur Messung individueller Lebensqualität geworden ist. Eine Tendenz zum Quantifizieren und Managen von individueller Lebensqualität hat sich über die 90er Jahre verstärkt durchgesetzt, worauf die gesundheitsökonomische Literatur wie auch die QALY-Forschung hindeuten. Seit 2005 wird Lebensqualität wieder verstärkt als ein Konzept diskutiert, das dem Denken in Wachstumsraten des Bruttosozialproduktes entgegengesetzt werden kann. 2010 hat der Deutsche Bundestag sogar eine Enquete-Kommission zum Thema Wachstum, Wohlstand, Lebensqualität-Wege zu nachhaltigem Wirt-schaften und gesellschaftlichem Fortschritt in der Sozialen Marktwirtschaft ins Leben gerufen.
There are developments in wellbeing policy and measurement in many countries, with the close involvement of international organisations such as Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations. The chapter takes the United Kingdom (UK) as a case study, looking in particular at the Measuring National Well-being (MNW) programme of the United Kingdom Office for National Statistics (ONS). ONS became increasingly aware during the first decade of the new millennium of calls for measures of wellbeing and progress to go ?beyond gross domestic product (GDP)?. Bache and Reardon have reviewed the emergence of wellbeing as a political concept in the UK government. They conclude that a paradigm shift in measurement may be taking place, especially through the ONS MNW programme, and that the wellbeing ?remains on the government agenda?.
This chapter explores various measurement approaches that have been proposed and are being pursued around the world. It also takes stock of a number of important issues in the measurement of national wellbeing that have arisen during these developments. Analysing the available data for some 30 countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), concluded that measures of economic growth are necessary but not sufficient for ?any assessment of well-being?. Their findings suggest a typology for prospective measures of national wellbeing. Gross domestic product (GDP) can be seen as a measure of the size of an economy. Stiglitz, Sen and Fitoussi concluded that measures of both objective and subjective wellbeing provide key information about people's quality of life. They recommended that ?statistical offices should incorporate questions to capture people's life evaluations, hedonic experiences and priorities in their own survey?.
It should be recognised that building new measures of wellbeing and progress may require several iterations, as an initial set of indicators may need further development and refining. This chapter mentions several frameworks that have been proposed to measure the progress of societies. The point is simply that there are potentially useful frameworks that seek to capture the definition and scope of national wellbeing. They provide potential starting points. However, the framework that is most suitable for a given locality, country or group of countries should be determined through a process of deciding and meeting user requirements, which is explored in the chapter. For the wellbeing conceptual framework that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) actually adopted, individual wellbeing is defined through eight quality-of-life domains and three domains for material conditions.
This paper explores the implications of the incompressibility of complex systems for the analysis and modelling of such systems. In particular, a provisional epistemology will be developed that attempts to remain faithful to the limitations derived from this aspect of complexity science. We will argue that such an investigation of complex systems highlights the relevance of paradigmatic pluralism or eclecticism, analytical creativity and boundary critique, and therefore has some affinity to sceptical postmodernism. Complexity science, like postmodernism, provides a clear warning as to the dangers of uncritically adopting any 'black and white' theoretical position. It encourages the deferral of paradigm selection and a healthy scepticism.
This chapter reviews the recent literature on social support and health and its relation to preexisting research and theory in the areas of social networks and social integration. We identify crucial directions for future theoretical and empirical work, focusing on the need to better understand the structures and processes through which social relationships affect human health and well-being. Two elements of social relationship structure are distinguished: (a) social integration, which refers to the existence or quantity of social relationships, and (b) social network structure, referring to the structural properties that characterize a set of relationships. We further identify three social processes through which these structures may have their effects: (i) social support, which pertains to the emotionally or instrumentally sustaining quality of social relationships; (ii) relational demands and conflict, referring to the negative or conflictive aspects of social relationships; and (iii) social regulation...
Changes in motivation related to age differences and their relationship to Maslow's hierarchy of needs were investigated with 111 subjects, ages 9 years to 80 years (58 females, 53 males), divided into five age groups (children, adolescents, young adults, middle-aged adults, old adults). Using the Life Motivation Scale, subjects ranked statements representing Maslow's five needs on 11. life components. Analyses of variance (Age X Sex) yielded significant developmental differences for four needs but limited support for Maslow's theory as a developmental model. Findings suggest further research is needed to make a valuable contribution toward a more comprehensive theory of motivational development. The purpose of this study was to investigate changes in motivation related to age differences, and their relationship to Maslow's hierarchy of needs (1943, 1963, 1968, 1970, 1971). Theories of development exist in most major areas of psychology including personality, cognition, learning, social, vocational, and moral. Many of these theories incorporate into the developmental sequence an implied or stated hierarchy such as Freud's psychosexual stages (see Hall, 1954), Erikson's (1968) psychosocial stages, Piaget's (1953) periods of cognitive development, Gagne's (1974) learning prerequisites, Super's vocational life stages (Super & Bonn, 1970), Havighurst's (1972) social developmental tasks, and Kohlberg's (1969) levels of moral development. Despite obvious differences among these theorists, there seems to be consensus on the meaning of development as a series of progressive changes that individuals characteristically show as they progress in time through the human life cycle.
Changes in motivation related to age differences and their relationship to A. Maslow's (1943–1971) hierarchy of needs were investigated with 111 Ss 9–80 yrs old, divided into 5 age groups (children, adolescents, young adults, middle-aged adults, old adults). Using the Life Motivation Scale, Ss ranked statements representing Maslow's 5 needs on 11 life components. ANOVAs (Age × Sex) yielded significant developmental differences for 4 needs but gave only limited support to Maslow's theory as a developmental model. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
If human development is “multidimensional” then perhaps we need to discuss what we mean by multidimensional: what is a dimension, and what are the multiple dimensions of interest? This paper develops an account of dimensions of human development, and shows its usefulness and its limitations—both in general and in relation to Amartya Sen's capability approach. The second half of the paper surveys other major “lists” of dimensions that have been published in poverty studies, crosscultural psychology, moral philosophy, quality of life indicators, participatory development, and basic needs, and compares and contrasts them with the account sketched here.
Broad categories have been suggested for the events which contribute to happiness. In 1943 Maslow might have argued that people are happy when they meet or continue to meet their basic needs in his hierarchy of needs. A survey was given to 150 college students to assess which of Maslow's levels of need is perceived to be most important to happiness. Falling or staying in love was chosen significantly more often than the other choices by undergraduates of both genders. These results suggest that love is considered to be an extremely important contributor to the feeling of happiness among college students.
Measuring progress towards a more sustainable Europe
- B De Spinoza
De Spinoza, B., (1676), A Theologico-Political Treatise, translated by Elwes, R., Dodo Press, London.
European Commission, (2007), "Measuring progress towards a more sustainable Europe", The EU
sustainable development strategy, Eurostat Statistical Books, Luxembourg.
Alternative Progress Indicators to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a means towards Sustainable Development, Policy Department Economic and Scientific Policy Study
- European Parliament
European Parliament (2007), Alternative Progress Indicators to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a means
towards Sustainable Development, Policy Department Economic and Scientific Policy Study.
Measuring Chronic Non-Income Poverty, Chronic Poverty Research Centre Working Paper 79
- I Günther
- S Klasen
Günther, I. and Klasen, S. (2007), Measuring Chronic Non-Income Poverty, Chronic Poverty Research
Centre Working Paper 79, www.chronicpoverty.org.
GDP: One of the Great Inventions of the 20th Century
- S Landefeld
Landefeld, S., 2000. GDP: One of the Great Inventions of the 20th Century. United States Department of
Commerce: Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The structure of a well-being index
- R Prescott-Allen
Prescott-Allen, R., (2006), "The structure of a well-being index", presented at JRC/OECD Workshop on
"Measuring
Well-being
and
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Progress",
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2006,
Milan:
http://crell.jrc.ec.europa.eu/Well-being/papers/Prescott-Allen_Structure%20of%20a%20well
Quality-of-Life Research
- R Veenhoven
Veenhoven, R. (2007) "Quality-of-Life Research", in Peck, D.L. and Bryant, C.D. (Eds.) 21st Century
Sociology: A Reference Handbook, Sage, Thousand Oaks, California USA.