A Measure of Well-Being Across the Italian Urban Areas: An Integrated DEA-Entropy Approach

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.     

A Measure of Trust: The Italian Regional Divide in a Latent Class Approach

Social differences within countries may partly explain the lack of economic convergence and the persistence of regional disparities. The case of Italy is emblematic: economic gap between North and South remains at high levels with large differences in social capital and in trust. In this paper, we use the micro data from the ISTAT “Aspects of Daily Life” Survey to build a measure of “trust in others” and a measure of “trust in institutions” through a latent class model to attribute a trust score to the Italian households and the Italian regions and, in this way, to add elements of knowledge useful to policies. Our measures confirm a persistent territorial divide although the regional mapping appears more complex than the classical North–South partition. At last, a discussion on the household typology shows that the territorial gaps of trust persist even among households with similar socio-economic characteristics.     

A fertility survey in the Maltese Islands

In order to determine whether fertility is declining in Malta, a sample was taken by the Maltese Central Statistical Office in mid-1955, along the line of the Family Census of 1946 in Great Britain. The size of the sample was 10,000, and the response very good. The sample shows no noticeable decline in fertility since the marriage cohorts of the beginning of the century. Some decline is noticeable int he fertility of the later durations of marriage, but completed family size remained more than 6 for the cohorts of the 1920's. This contrasts with the declining fertility shown by the enquiry in Great Britain, and the figure of 6 is in fact much greater than the completed families born to cohorts in Great Britain at the end of Queen Victoria's reign. Fertility seems in fact to be still rising in Malta for the first 18 months of marriage; and the first decade of marriage continues to show an average of 4 births. It seems therefore that the recent decline in the birth rate is to be attributed to changes in the populatino structure rather than in marital fertility. The continued high fertility implies a very rapid rise in population in the absence of emigration.     

The Global Challenge of Jihadist Terrorism: A Quality-of-Life Model

Social Indicators Research - Living in poverty may have long-run negative effects. The interaction between families and public policies is crucial as it affects a child’s opportunities. The...     

Radical Islamic Militancy and Acts of Terrorism: A Quality-of-Life Analysis

Horrific acts of terrorism have emerged as defining features of Islamic–Western relations throughout much of this still young century. Arising from decades, indeed centuries, of mutual distrust contemporary patterns of radicalized Islamic terrorism toward the West are rooted in their shared histories, traditions, values, norms and, for some, deeply held religious convictions. They also are the product of centuries-long colonization of large regions of the “Islamic world” by Western powers or their proxies. This paper presents an innovative approach for advancing the quality of life of Islamic and Western societies through a fuller understanding of the origins and dynamics of Islamic-inspired terrorist acts against the West. The paper examines the relationship that exists between acts of terrorism associated with a select group of 27 member states of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and: (1) their years of independence since colonization; (2) their current types of polity; (3) the extent of their civil liberties and political freedoms; (4) country levels of perceived public corruption; and (5) the overall level of each country’s broad-based social development (or quality of life). The paper concludes with an “evolving agenda for action” that seeks to advance the quality of life of all people living in Islamic and Western nations.     

Social Quality: A Way to Measure the Quality of Society

In this paper we suggest a way to measure the well-being of society based upon our own development of the Social Quality model. The Social Quality model has the advantage of being sociologically grounded as a measure of the well-being of society and the individuals within it. We test our model of Social Quality against life satisfaction as an indicator of how successful it is in delivering these aspirations. The model was tested on all European countries using the European Quality of Life Surveys in 2003 and 2007 and was found to explain a large amount of variance, which was consistent across time and space. We suggest that it is possible to operationalise this model using small number of variables, ones that are frequently used in comparative surveys and this should enable the quality of society to be measured in a parsimonious and effective way.     

中国副省级以上城市人口可持续发展研究

基于2000年与2010年五普与六普的汇总数据,本文借鉴区位商及人口可持续发展指数的计算方法,从教育水平、第三产业比重、劳动年龄人口比重和跨省流动人口比重4个维度计算19个城市(4个直辖市和15个副省级城市)的人口可持续发展指数,并对其发展状况的变动进行比较分析,得出副省级以上城市人口可持续发展指数呈下降趋势,且质量的中心性也相对下降.对此,本文从培养和吸引更多具有创造力的高素质人力资本的角度提出相关政策建议,以促进人口的可持续发展.     

Stability and Change of the Quality of Working Life in Restructuring Municipalities

Social Indicators Research - Local government in Finland has undergone considerable restructuring since 2005 as a number of new larger municipalities (mergers) and partnership areas between social...     

A Mixed Method Approach to Quality of Life Research: A Case Study Approach

Increased use of qualitative and quantitative methods in quality of life projects necessitates an examination of how to effectively work within a mixed method framework. The research objectives of this paper are to (1) operationalize the two goals of mixed method research (confirmation and comprehension) and (2) develop a strategy for using mixed methods in quality of life research. Face-to-face interview (qualitative) and telephone survey (quantitative) data from the Community–University Institute for Social Research Quality of Life (CUISR QoL) project in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan were used for operationalization. Overall, confirmation and comprehension were challenging concepts to operationalize. Seven benefits and four guidelines were developed and are presented as dynamic, rather than definitive, structures.     

中国家庭代际关系的理论分析

中国家庭代际关系并非只有抚养-赡养一种关系形式.抚养行为发生在父母和未成年子女之间,赡养行为存在于壮年子女与老年父母之间.在成年子女和壮年父母之间还有另一种关系-交换关系.但抚养-赡养关系不能用交换关系去解释,因为它不是严格意义上行为主体之间的交换关系.完整的代际关系既有抚养-赡养关系,又有交换关系,两者具有并存特征.社会发展阶段不同,代际关系的层次和类型也有不同.     

Further Validation and Extension of the Quality-of-Life/Community-Healthcare Model and Measures

This paper extends and further validates thequality-of-life/community-healthcare model andmeasures developed by Rahtz and Sirgy (2000).The quality of life (QOL) model is based on thetheoretical notion that community residents'satisfaction with healthcare services available withintheir community affects community quality oflife and life satisfaction. This study extends themodel and, in keeping with past research,posits that the bottom-up spillover from communityQOL to life satisfaction is greater for thoseindividuals with low personal health satisfaction,lower income, and old age. Data were collectedfrom 1094 community residents in the East-Coast area of the United States. The resultsprovide good support of the new model.Managerial implications and applications forthe new model are discussed.     

A Measure of the Cultural Distance Between Countries

The current study was an investigation of age and gender differences in the relation between students’ school-related social support (i.e., teacher support and classmate support) and subjective well-being (SWB) in school (i.e., school satisfaction and affect in school), as well as the developmental differences in SWB in school. Data were collected from a sample of 2,158 students in Grades 4 through 11 in China on two separate occasions, 6-weeks apart. The findings indicated older age students reported lower levels of SWB in school than younger students. Furthermore, girls reported higher levels of school satisfaction than boys. In addition, both teacher support and classmate support significantly related to school satisfaction at Time 2 (controlling for Time 1) for all students. Classmate support significantly related to affect in school at Time 2 for all students, whereas teacher support only significantly related to affect in school at Time 2 for elementary school students. Specifically, teacher support accounted for the larger amount of variance in school satisfaction at Time 2 for elementary and high school students. Gender moderated the relation between teacher support and school satisfaction at Time 2 for elementary school students, as well as the relation between classmate support and school satisfaction at Time 2 for middle school students. Implications based on developmental considerations were discussed.     

A Two-Step Approach to Analyze Satisfaction Data

In this paper a two-step procedure based on Nonlinear Principal Component Analysis (NLPCA) and Multilevel models (MLM) for the analysis of satisfaction data is proposed. The basic hypothesis is that observed ordinal variables describe different aspects of a latent continuous variable, which depends on covariates connected with individual and contextual features. NLPCA is used to measure the level of a latent variable and MLM is adopted for detecting individual and environmental determinants of the level. This approach is suggested to analyze users’ satisfaction. In fact, NLPCA is used to create a synthetic continuous measure of satisfaction (first step) and MLM are used to detect the role of external (individual or environmental) variables that can affect the level itself (second step). The proposed two-step procedure is applied to the Eurobarometer survey data about opinion of European citizens on services of general interest (SGI) aiming to evaluate and compare the opinion about SGI in different countries. The focus is on overall level of satisfaction about four major public services: fixed telephone, electricity supply, postal and rail services. The item analyzed, which are named manifest variables, are: access easiness, price, quality, information clarity and contract fairness, as reported in the 2002 Eurobarometer survey. In the first step these variables are used to set up the synthetic indicator (the overall level) of satisfaction and, in the second step, a MLM is used to test the impact of some explanatory variables on this satisfaction.     

A Reduced Posetic Approach to the Measurement of Multidimensional Ordinal Deprivation

In this paper, we discuss the existence of particular systems of generators for posets associated to multidimensional systems of ordinal indicators and derive a reduced posetic procedure for the measurement of multidimensional ordinal deprivation. The proposal is motivated by the need to lessen the computational complexity of the original posetic procedure described in Fattore (Soc Indic Res 128(2):835–858, 2015), so as to make it applicable to larger multi-indicator systems, particularly to those comprising many variables scored on “short” scales, as typical in deprivation studies. The reduced procedure computes identification and severity functions based only on so-called lexicographic linear extensions. These are a particular generating system for the basic achievement poset, naturally associated to rankings of deprivation attributes. After motivating this choice, both from an interpretative and a computational point of view, the paper provides some simulated examples, comparing the reduced and the non-reduced procedures.     

Infant mortality in the Marshall Islands

Levy and Booth present previously unpublished infant mortality rates for the Marshall Islands. They use an indirect method to estimate infant mortality from the 1973 and 1980 censuses, then apply indirect and direct methods of estimation to data from the Marshall Islands Women's Health Survey of 1985. Comparing the results with estimates of infant mortality obtained from vital registration data enables them to estimate the extent of underregistration of infant deaths. The authors conclude that 1973 census appears to be the most valid information source. Direct estimates from the Women's Health Survey data suggest that infant mortality has increased since 1970-1974, whereas the indirect estimates indicate a decreasing trend in infant mortality rates, converging with the direct estimates in more recent years. In view of increased efforts to improve maternal and child health in the mid-1970s, the decreasing trend is plausible. It is impossible to estimate accurately infant mortality in the Marshall Islands during 1980-1984 from the available data. Estimates based on registration data for 1975-1979 are at least 40% too low. The authors speculate that the estimate of 33 deaths per 1000 live births obtained from registration data for 1984 is 40-50% too low. In round figures, a value of 60 deaths per 1000 may be taken as the final estimate for 1980-1984.     

A Fuzzy Index and Severity Scale to Measure Violence Against Women

Social Indicators Research - Measuring and comparing levels of violence against women across individuals or countries are controversial exercises, and yet they remain essential to understanding the...     

A New Multidimensional Approach to Measuring Precarious Employment

This article proposes a new methodology to measure precarious employment with a multidimensional approach. The adjusted multidimensional precariousness rate employed to measure job precariousness is calculated on a counting approach and exhibit several advantages, including its decomposability according to the relative contribution to total precariousness of different dimensions and sub-populations. For illustrative purposes, the methodology is applied to the Spanish case using microdata from the Encuesta de Estructura Salarial (Wage Structure Survey) and considering three precariousness dimensions of jobs (low wages, fixed-term contracts and part-time work). The evidence obtained shows that at the beginning of the economic crisis there was an increase in the incidence and intensity of precariousness for new jobs created in the Spanish economy. Moreover, obtained evidence shows that the incidence of precarious employment is particularly high in certain economic sectors and for females.