Education,Happiness and Wellbeing

Answers to the questions ‘Does education influence happiness and if so, how and how much?’ depend on how one defines and operationalizes ‘education’, ‘influences’ and ‘happiness’. A great variety of research scenarios may be constructed from our three essential variables. What public policies one ought to adopt and implement regarding the influence of education on happiness depends minimally on which of the great variety of research scenarios one adopts and maximally on lots of other things as well. My personal preference is for a robust definition of the three terms. Because human beings are complex organisms, an adequate construction of the idea of human wellbeing must also be complex. Therefore, any discipline-driven, reductionist definition that pyschologizes, medicalizes, economizes, geneticizes, socializes or politicizes the idea should be avoided.     

Happiness is not Enough: Cognitive Judgements as Indicators of National Wellbeing

The European Social Survey, on which this issue of the journal focuses, is a 30-nation multi-funded survey series measuring attitude change. Started in 2001, it is characterised by unusually high standards of sampling and data equivalence. Its data are made available on-line with equal access to all, and have already attracted over 20,000 users. Many papers, articles and books based on the ESS have already appeared. But none has yet employed the data—whether alone or with other sources—to derive indicators of citizens’ cognitive judgements of their society. A recent EC grant is enabling the authors to fill this gap, covering topics such as trust in national institutions, tolerance, social cohesion, social trust and fear of crime. The aim is to be able to monitor changes over time in the distance between what citizens believe their society ought to be in these respects and how they actually perceive it to be.

Developing a National Index of Subjective Wellbeing: The Australian Unity Wellbeing Index

The Australian Unity Wellbeing Index has beendesigned as a new barometer of Australians'satisfaction with their lives, and life inAustralia. It is based on, and develops, thetheoretical model of subjective wellbeinghomeostasis. The Index comprises two sub-scalesof Personal and National Wellbeing. Data werecollected through a nationally representativesample of 2,000 people in April/May 2001.Factor analysis confirmed the integrity of thetwo sub-scales and, confirming empiricalexpectation, the average level of lifesatisfaction was 75.5 percent of the scalemaximum score. Group comparisons revealed thatall age groups maintained their Personal Indexscore within the normal range. In addition,people in country areas were more satisfiedwith their personal lives than city-dwellers,but less satisfied about the nationalsituation, and people who had recentlyexperienced a strong positive event evidenced arise in wellbeing, whereas those who hadexperienced a strong negative event evidencedwellbeing in the low-normal range. It is arguedthat these data generally support homeostatictheory. However, an unusual result was thatfemales were more satisfied with their ownlives than males. A tentative argument isadvanced that this may represent aconstitutional difference. It is concluded thatthe Australian Unity Wellbeing Index haspotential as a valid, reliable and sensitiveinstrument to monitor national wellbeing.     

国民幸福指数纳入政府绩效评估探析

通过对国民幸福指数的理论研究,分析了将国民幸福指数纳入政府绩效评估的意义,总结了江阴市的经验和做法,并结合我国的实际情况,设计了将国民幸福指数纳入政府绩效评估的具体途径,这些途径主要考虑到评估法律、评估主体以及评估的指标体系等方面。最后提出要以法律的形式将国民幸福指数纳入政府绩效评估体系、政府绩效评估主体应该多元化、构建科学的政府绩效评估指标体系、将国民幸福指数具体化等建议。     

Wealth and Happiness Revisited – Growing National Income Does Go with Greater Happiness

Social Indicators Research - ``Will raising the incomes of all increase the happiness of all?'' Intuitionsays `yes' but theories of relative utility caution that the answer may...     

A Gender Wellbeing Composite Indicator: The Best-Worst Global Evaluation Approach

In this paper we present a new global evaluation methodology for constructing composite indicators. Given the limitations in the construction of wellbeing indicators that include a gender perspective, this paper proposes separate measures for men and women, using new linear programming models to improve the traditional Data Envelopment Analysis models. We obtain composite indicators using common weights (which are most and least favourable) so that the indicators’ values are able to discriminate between all units and provide a global vision of each one. This approach does not require prior knowledge of the weights for initial indicators, nor does it require a normalization method. Thus, the new composite indicator is less subjective than others. For the practical implementation of this proposal, we use the countries of the European Union as an example.     

Report of Survey on Family Happiness in China

The process and characteristics of China’s population change are unique in the world. In the past 60 years,China has not only experienced the peaks and busts of the size o births, but also the radical fluctuation of the total number of deaths, and large population migration and movement Especially in the last 30 years after     

South Africa's 'Rainbow People', National Pride and Happiness

Since the first free elections were held in April 1994, South Africans are popularly known as the 'rainbow people'. The paper inquires whether South Africans who experienced pride in their nation in the first years of democracy also perceived a greater sense of subjective well-being. It is proposed that national pride in post-apartheid South Africa might be fused with or work through self-esteem to lift levels of happiness. The paper traces the history of the new integrating civil religion of the rainbow people and the acceptance of the rainbow as a political symbol of unity among the diverse people of South Africa immediately after the 1994 elections and two years later. The proposed link between national pride and happiness was explored with data from two independent national surveys, the 1995 South African World Values Survey conducted by Markinor and a June 1996 MarkData syndicated omnibus survey. The study found that the appeal of the rainbow as political symbol was inclusive of all groups in society and that feelings of national pride and support for the rainbow ideal were positively associated with subjective well-being. As indicated by intensity and frequency measures, the majority of South Africans were proud of their country and could name a national achievement that inspired pride. Better-off South Africans tended to be happier and more satisfied with life but less proud, while the poor were less happy but fiercely proud of their country. Results suggest that belief in South Africa's 'rainbow nation' ideal may have assisted in boosting happiness during the transition to a stable democracy, thereby preventing alienation among the losers under the new political dispensation. Supporters of the ideal of the rainbow nation were more optimistic than others about the future of their country.     

Personal Wellbeing Index in a National Cohort of 87,134 Thai Adults

Satisfaction with life correlates with other measures of subjective wellbeing and correlates predictably with individual characteristics and overall health. Social indicators and subjective wellbeing measures are necessary to evaluate a society and can be used to produce national indicators of happiness. This study therefore aims to help close the gap in wellbeing data for Thailand. The specific aims are to: (1) calculate the Thai PWI and domain scores using a large scale sample; (2) examine the level of life satisfaction of Thais when compared to international standards; (3) examine the Thai PWI and domains in relation to demographic, socioeconomic, and geographic characteristics. Our report derives from the findings on the Personal Wellbeing Index (PWI) in a large national cohort of Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University adult students living all over Thailand (n = 87,134). This Thai cohort had an overall PWI of 70.0 on a scale from 0 to 100 which is consistent with Western populations. The ‘spirituality and religion’ domain had the highest average score. ‘Standard of living’, ‘future security’ and ‘achievement in life’ made the largest contribution to overall ‘satisfaction in life as a whole’. These domains also show a positive trend with increasing age, being married, higher income, more education, more household assets, and rural residence. The PWI will be an important tool for policymakers to understand the subjective wellbeing of population groups especially as Thailand is undergoing a political and economic transition.     

Social Capital and Subjective Wellbeing in Europe: A New Approach on Social Capital

This paper aims to analyze the relationship between the various dimensions of social capital and subjective wellbeing. Data used in this study come from the fourth wave of the European Social Survey and different measures of wellbeing are used to take account of both the cognitive and affective processes of individual wellbeing (i.e. life satisfaction, happiness, and subjective wellbeing). A factor analysis is performed to summarize information coming from a large set of variables into different components corresponding to each dimension of social capital (i.e. networks, norms, and trust). Among the results, we find that the impact of social capital on subjective wellbeing differ depending on the component of social capital which is under analysis. In particular, social networks, social trust and institutional trust are the components that show a higher correlation with subjective wellbeing. Furthermore, in addition to the positive effects of the individual variables, our results suggest that social capital at the aggregate level positively correlates with individual wellbeing, thus pointing to an external or environmental effect of social capital.     

教师幸福感调查与分析——以兰州市为例

从古至今,人们从未停止过对幸福的追寻,幸福感早已成为评定生活状态的重要标准之一.教师作为一个独特的群体,对幸福的体会,一定有其独特的感受.笔者以兰州市城关区为例,对教师的幸福感状况进行了调研,并对调研结果进行了理性思考与分析,最后提出提升教师幸福感的建议.     

Local Meanings of Wellbeing and the Construction of Wellbeing Indicators

There have been attempts to develop and employ tools for measuring development that shifted away from economic growth. In Thailand, a number of alternative indicators to measure the progress of development were created and employed. However, the indicators and measurements of development continued to be challenging, partly because of the dynamic changes of socio-economics, and partly due to the inconsistency between aggregated and local, or individual units of measurement. This paper aims to study meanings and develop wellbeing indicators of a community in the Northeast of Thailand. The data was derived from qualitative research conducted during 2013–2014. Focus group discussions with thirty-five formal and informal community leaders were used, and in-depth interviews were applied to collect data from thirty key informants. The results showed that the indicators of community wellbeing are classified into four groups, namely objective community wellbeing, community trust, community security, and community strength. The objective community wellbeing indicators were consistent with those that are used to guide policy and practice in Thailand. However, based on the local meaning of community wellbeing, new dimensions of indicators were found and proposed. This study recommended that these indicators should be developed further, to be employed as a tool to monitor progress, especially by local government.     

Wellbeing and Society: Towards Quantification of the Co-benefits of Wellbeing

Social Indicators Research - The objectives of this paper are twofold. First, it reviews the empirical evidence showing the existence of linkage between wellbeing and possible co-benefits,...     

Environment and Happiness: New Evidence for Spain

This paper explores the relationship between air pollution, climate and reported subjective well-being (or happiness) in Spanish regions. The results show that, after controlling for most of the socio-economic variables affecting happiness, there are still significant regional differences in subjective well-being. Evidence also suggests that climate and air pollution variables play a significant role in explaining these regional differences in happiness. The analysis also allows us to calculate the monetary value of air quality and climate, deriving the average marginal rate of substitution between income and air quality and climate for the Spanish regions.     

The Robustness of High Danish National Happiness: A Temporal Cross-Country Analysis of Population Subgroups

Denmark’s top position in various rankings of country happiness is well-documented. This study goes beyond the national average comparisons and investigates whether Denmark’s top position is also found when we disaggregate data in line with social categories often used within the social sciences. The central measure is the empirical probability that a given population subgroup in Denmark has significantly higher happiness compared to another country’s similar subgroup in a given year. All five rounds of the European Social Survey are used but only the sixteen countries that were surveyed in each of the five rounds are included in this study. The results show that Denmark’s position at the top of the happiness scale is also robust when we look at population subgroups, but not in the sense that Denmark dominates all countries for all years. Instead, a modified version of robustness is necessary; Denmark very often has significantly higher happiness levels than in other countries, only sometimes has the same happiness levels as in other countries, very rarely is it dominated by other countries, and finally it is never dominated by other countries in all 5 years for a given subpopulation characteristic. This conclusion is quite insensitive to the applied SWB measure and the applied significance level.

     

Subjective Quality of Life in Zhuhai City,South China: A Public Survey Using the International Wellbeing Index

The study of subjective quality of life and its connotations in the People’s Republic of China is at a preliminary stage. Although there is an emerging body of literature on this topic, there are few datasets representative of the general public, particularly in Mainland China. This paper reports the findings of a public survey (N = 449) conducted in Zhuhai City, South China using the International Wellbeing Index (IWI). There were four main aims: (1) to judge whether residents were satisfied with their lives; (2) to compare the data with recent findings from Hong Kong and Macau; (3) to investigate the equivalence of the IWI in terms of its psychometric properties; and (4) to determine the applicability of the ‘Theory of Homeostasis Wellbeing’. The data indicated a moderate level of personal (PWI score = 64.4.) and national (NWI score = 57.4) wellbeing, consistent with recent findings from Hong Kong and Macau. The PWI score was within the normative range for non-Western countries, which indicates that the residents were, on the whole, satisfied with their lives. Although previously reported objective measures of quality of life in Zhuhai are lower than in Hong Kong and Macau, this is not reflected in this study’s subjective measures. This finding was interpreted in terms of the ‘Theory of Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis’, and the specific situation in Zhuhai, as there seems to be an absence of factors (i.e., no harsh economic or social situation) which could drive subjective wellbeing below normal. Last, that the IWI demonstrated good psychometric performance in terms of its reliability, validity, and sensitivity, and concurred with previous published reports, it seems that the scale’s robustness generalises to Chinese samples.     

Burnout and Wellbeing: Testing the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory in New Zealand Teachers

The Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI) is a public domain questionnaire measuring the degree of physical and psychological fatigue experienced in three sub-dimensions of burnout: personal, work-related, and client-related burnout. This study first examines the reliability and validity of the CBI in measuring burnout in New Zealand secondary school teachers, and then the relationship between burnout and wellbeing among this population. The CBI had acceptable reliability (internal consistency and homogeneity) as well as factorial and criterion-related validity. As expected, burnout was negatively related to wellbeing measures (wellbeing index, school connection, and perceived general health). The findings indicate that this burnout questionnaire is a valid instrument to use with New Zealand secondary teachers, and also highlight the potential impact of burnout on the health and wellbeing of teachers.

Capturing Multidimensionality: What does a Human Wellbeing Conceptual Framework Add to the Analysis of Vulnerability?

Much research to date has tended to view vulnerability by discipline or sector, despite the fact that individuals and households experience multiple, interacting and sometimes compound vulnerabilities. However, cross-disciplinary thinking on vulnerability has emerged. At the same time, also emergent is an alternative to traditional thinking on poverty, which shifts the focus away from poverty as a static set of deprivations towards poverty as a dynamic set of interacting material, relational and subjective aspects of life in a human wellbeing perspective. The contribution of this paper is to bring together these two strands of thinking in order to explore the ways in which a human wellbeing conceptual framework might contribute to the analysis of vulnerability in terms of better capturing the multidimensionality of vulnerability.     

Minimising Misery: A New Strategy for Public Policies Instead of Maximising Happiness?

This paper raises the issue whether public policy should focus on minimizing unhappiness rather than maximizing happiness. Using a cross-sectional multi-country dataset with 57,000 observations from 29 European countries, we show that unhappiness varies a great deal more across social groups than (high levels of) happiness does. Our findings are robust to several alternative specifications, using both self-reported life satisfaction and self-reported happiness, and different cut-off points for defining unhappiness (dissatisfaction) and high levels of happiness (satisfaction). While misery appears to strongly relate to broad social issues (such as unemployment, poverty, social isolation), bliss might be more of a private matter, with individual strategies and attitudes, hidden from the eye of a policy-maker. The social cost of unhappiness may be also reflected in the immense cost of mental health problems. Preventing avoidable unhappiness, however, needs to be complemented with other strategies for promoting happiness, perhaps on a more decentralized level, given the different causes of bliss and that of misery.