Child Health-Related Quality of Life and Parental Social Capital in Greece: An Exploratory Study

In this paper, we examined dimensions of child health-related quality of life in Greece in relation to parental assessments of neighbourhood social capital and social support networks. For the analysis, two main measures were used: (1) child self-reported health-related quality of life in ten dimensions, as measured by the KIDSCREEN questionnaire; (2) subjective measures of parental neighbourhood social capital and social support. Parental assessments of neighbourhood social capital and social support were both independently and positively associated with child self-reported health-related quality of life. However, they were not associated with the same dimensions of child well being, nor were they associated with all dimensions of child well being. These results suggest that greater attention in future research needs to be paid to the differential associations between the various dimensions of social capital and child health-related quality of life, with clear focus implications for social and health policies.     

Indicators of Social Quality and Social Exclusion at National and Community Level

This paper explores the domains and indicators ofsocial inclusion and exclusion and their interactionat national and community level, within the context ofthe social quality construct and the notions of Demosand Ethnos.Social inclusion/exclusion is conceptualiseddynamically within the overarching construct of socialquality. Micro and macro aspects of social quality arediscussed along with the relationship betweenorganisations and institutions and communities, groupsand individuals. The relationship between these levelsis explored in relation to Delantys distinctionbetween Demos and Ethos. Drawing on the work ofMcMillan and Chevis, two domains of community areidentified – identification and participation.Relevant attributes and indicators are suggested foreach domain.Interactions between social inclusion and exclusion atnational and community level are then exemplified,ranging from inclusion to exclusion both communallyand nationally via intermediate stages of inclusion inone realm and exclusion in the other. Social policyimplications of the relationship between national andcommunity exclusion are drawn, both formacro/institution and organisational levels (inrelation to legislation and society-wide serviceprovisions) and micro and group and citizen level (inrelation to social work).     

An Outcomes-Based Assessment of Quality of Life in Social Services

The goal of this article consists of describing the calibration of an instrument to assess quality of life-related personal outcomes using Rasch analysis. The sample was composed of 3.029 recipients of social services from Catalonia (Spain) and was selected using a probabilistic polietapic sample design. Results related to unidimensionality, item and person separation reliability, calibration, items’ level of difficulty, response categories and differential item functioning by gender and type of collective are provided and point out the general fit of the data to the model. However, it is recommended to include more difficult items and eliminate one that seems not to be adequate.     

香港人在上海的社会融合—个案实证研究

本文通过对18名在沪香港人的个案访谈实证研究。探讨了香港人在上海的社会融合情况,主要从经济、生活、心理和文化几方面展开,同时对香港人在上海发展面临的机遇和挑战以及上海存在的优点和不足等进行了分析和思考。研究中。许多香港人表达了对上海生活的满意,但同时认为上海在政府管理体制、工作理念和个人素养等方面与香港存在一定差距．需要上海在未来的建设中加以关注和改进。     

Quality of Life as a Social Representation in China: A Qualitative Study

This study explores the meaning of quality of life (QOL) in China from the perspective of social representations. The data were collected by open-ended individual interviews with 16 ordinary Chinese people. The study shows that social thinking about QOL in Chinese society is activated in five critical domains of life: health, family, work, social relations and the natural environment. Meanwhile, “having” and “being”, the two antinomic, yet dialogical interdependent, interpretive repertoires, have an overarching generative and normative power over the discourse about QOL. They permeate and underpin the different domains of life. Dominated by an “economic logic”, the “having” repertoire constructs these life domains through a set of economic consequences and posits them as resources leading to material possessions. While dominated by an “existential logic”, the “being” repertoire confesses existential meanings to the same life domains, and emphasises the joy derived from them. Thereby, it infers that QOL as a social representation is generated from, and organised around, a central thema of “having” and “being”.     

An Empirical Investigation on Regional Disparities in Public Expenditures: Province Level Evidence from Turkey

Social Indicators Research - This study investigates the existence of convergence in public-expenditures and its nine different sub-categories to reveal regional disparities in Turkey. To this end,...     

From Childhood Deprivation to Adult Social Exclusion: Evidence from the 1970 British Cohort Study

This paper analyses the common trajectories leading to adult social exclusion that children from disadvantaged backgrounds experience during their life courses. Moreover, it provides an assessment of whether education is effective in breaking the vicious circle of disadvantages both across and within generations. Using data from the 1970 British Cohort Study, this empirical analysis is based on structural equation modelling techniques and proceeds in three steps. The measurement model is first tested to validate three groups of theoretical constructs (childhood disadvantages, adolescent deprivations and a multi-dimensional measure of social exclusion) and their indicators. Next, a path analysis is conducted for describing the trajectories linking childhood disadvantages to social exclusion. In the third step, the multi-faceted role of education is established by measuring the extent to which deprivations in the educational domain directly or indirectly affect all the relevant social exclusion dimensions.     

Developmental Trajectories and Predictors of Social Exclusion Among Older Koreans: Exploring the Multidimensional Nature of Social Exclusion

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the developmental patterns of social exclusion among older Koreans over time. In addition, we identified the significant determinants that may increase the risk of social exclusion among older Koreans. The analyses were based on the panel data from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing and included older adults from 2008 to 2012 (N?=?24,074) for the final analysis. Social exclusion was categorized into four different sub-dimensions: financial, social relational, social cultural, and emotional. The analysis was based on a semi-parametric group-based approach followed by multinomial logistic regression. The results showed considerable variations and different developmental trajectories by the social exclusion sub-dimensions among older Koreans; in particular, the results showed that being older, male, and less educated were significant indicators of social exclusion. This study adds to the limited body of literature on longitudinal studies of social exclusion among older Koreans, and the results will help develop interventions for older Koreans who are socially isolated.

     

家庭生命周期和夫妻冲突的经验研究

本文运用上海、哈尔滨、广东和甘肃地区已婚男女调查资料,通过对其他影响因素的控制来揭示家庭生命周期对夫妻冲突的实际影响。分析结果表明,在婚姻生活不同时期夫妻冲突的发生率呈倒Ｕ字型曲线变化,但城市夫妇的争吵频率高于农村,夫妇纷争最少时期城市在老年阶段而农村则在新婚期,矛盾冲突高发期城市在婚后３~７年,农村则在８~１３年。双方的同质性在回归模型中显示最大的解释力。家庭角色的合格、经济支配自由度及其相互信任对减少夫妻冲突具有积极影响,而生活压力大、发生争执时双方各不相让则更易使冲突升级。     

An Empirical Analysis of the Interrelationship between Components of the Social Quality Theoretical Construct

Social quality has been presented as a theory that can explain economic and social progress of the daily lives of a population. The components of social quality include: socio-economic security, social inclusion, social cohesion and social empowerment. The social quality perspective views people as interacting within collective identities that provide the contexts of self-realisation. The paper tests the social quality theory by focusing on the relationship between social inclusion and social cohesion, the notion of social relations, to socio-economic security using the context of the family as a facilitator of self-realisation. Using data from the Israel Social Survey 2003, six indicators of socio-economic security were analysed. There was a small but positive and significant relationship between social inclusion and socio-economic security. We found no relationship between socio-economic security and social cohesion. These findings tend to undermine those aspects of social quality theory which posit close connections between these elements on a conceptual level.

Social Capital and Undeclared Work: An Empirical Analysis in Italy from 1998 to 2008

Social Indicators Research - The issue of irregular work has been well known in Italy since the early seventies. Undeclared work is a particular facet of shadow economy where employers evade tax...     

Social Indicators Research and Health-Related Quality of Life Research

The aim of this essay is to build a bridgebetween two intersecting areas of research,social indicators research on the one hand andhealth-related quality of life research on theother. The first substantive section of thepaper introduces key concepts and definitionsin the social indicators research tradition,e.g., social indicators, positive, negative,input and output indicators, social reports andquality of life. After that, there is asection reviewing some historical origins andmotives of social indicators researchers,beginning roughly with Jeremy Bentham's`felicific calculus' and ending with the searchfor a comprehensive accounting scheme capableof measuring the quality of human existencewith social, economic and environmentalindicators.Results of eleven surveys are reviewed whichwere undertaken to explain happiness on thebasis of levels of satisfaction thatrespondents got from a dozen specific domainsof their lives, e.g., satisfaction with theirjobs, family relations and health. On average,for the eleven samples, we were able to explain38% of the variance in reported happiness fromsome subset of the predictor variables. Satisfaction with one's own health was never the strongest predictor of happiness inany sample. In five of the eleven samples,satisfaction with one's own health failed toenter the final explanatory regression equationfor lack of statistical significance. Theresults in this section of the essay show thatdifferent groups of people with different lifecircumstances, resources and constraints usedifferent mixtures of ingredients to determinetheir happiness.After examining some research revealing therelative importance of people's satisfaction with their health to theiroverall happiness, I consider some studiesrevealing the importance of people's self-reported health to their overallhappiness. Self-reported health is measuredprimarily by the eight dimensions of SF-36.When a variety of additional potentialpredictors are entered into our regressionequation, 44% of the variance in happinessscores is explained, but only one of the eightdimensions of SF-36 remains, namely, MentalHealth. The latter accounts for a mere four%age points out of the total 44. Thus,self-reported health has relatively little tocontribute toward respondents' reportedhappiness, and its measured contribution issignificantly affected by the number and kindsof potential predictors employed.Two approaches to explaining people'ssatisfaction with their own health areconsidered. First, using the same set ofhealth-related potential predictors of overallhappiness, we are able to explain 56% of thevariance in respondents' satisfaction withtheir own health. Then, using MultipleDiscrepancies Theory, we are able to explainabout 51% of the variation in satisfactionwith one's own health scores for 8,076undergraduates, with highs of 76% for a sampleof Finnish females and 72% for Korean males.Accordingly, it is reasonable to conclude thatif one's aim is to explain people'ssatisfaction with their own health, thepotential predictors assembled in MDT canprovide quite a bit and sometimes even moreexplanatory power than a reasonably broad setof measures of self-reported health.In the penultimate section of the essay it isargued that there are good reasons forcarefully distinguishing ideas of health andquality of life, and for not interpreting SF-36and SIP scores as measures of the quality oflife. It is suggested that we might all bebetter off if the term `health-related qualityof life' is simply abandoned. However, sincethis is unlikely to happen, it is stronglyrecommended that researchers be much morecareful with their usage of the phrase andtheir interpretation of purported measures ofwhatever the phrase is supposed to designate.     

Considering Social Cohesion in Quality of Life Assessments: Concept and Measurement

In recent years, the concept of social cohesionhas received great attention in scientificresearch as well as in politics. It representsa central policy goal at the national and thesupranational level as declared for example bymany policy documents of the European Union.The present paper integrates social cohesioninto the components of quality of life anddistinguishes two essential goal dimensionsinherent in the concept: the inequalitydimension and the social capital dimension. Thefirst dimension incorporates the goals ofreducing disparities, promoting equalopportunities and combating social exclusion,while the second dimension deals with allaspects aiming at strengthening socialrelations, interactions and ties. A proposal ismade on how to measure this conceptualisationof social cohesion within the framework of aEuropean System of Social Indicators, and someexamples of indicators of social cohesion inEurope are discussed.     

Introduction: Quality of Life in Countries Undergoing Rapid Social Change

Social Indicators Research -     

Self-Sustained Quality of Life Monitoring: The Philippine Social Weather Reports

In the Philippines, measurement of social indicators covering Qualityof Life and other social concerns has been institutionalized by means ofa unique Social Weather Reporting system. The Social Weather Reports arebased on a series of national surveys operated on a self-sustaining,syndicate-cum-omnibus basis by a private research institute whichoperates as an “enterprising non-profit.” The surveys began on asemestral basis in 1986 and have been run quarterly since 1992. Amongtheir regular topics are self-rated poverty, QOL gaining/losing andoptimism/pessimism, victimization by common crimes, satisfactionwith the performance of government institutions and officials, publicopinion on contemporaneous critical issues, and electoral prospects.Since the topics all deal with public issues, subscribers to the SocialWeather Reports are mostly from the public sector, plus some corporateand diplomatic institutions. Access of non-subscribers to the surveyfindings is on a delayed basis; all surveys are archived for publicuse. The most important factors behind the success of the Social WeatherReports have been their consistent focus on indicators of democracy andgovernance and their record in predicting the outcomes of the 1992,1995, and 1998 national elections in the Philippines.     

Travel Demand Management and Social Exclusion

Demand management policy and practice has been focused on the need to reduce car‐based trips and the level of congestion. Mode‐shift goals of transport policy now require a greater balance between congestion reduction objectives and the equally important policy objectives of social inclusion and safety. This paper examines transport disadvantage and social exclusion in urban Scotland. The work provides an overview of the trends and transport patterns in deprived areas. It examines the impact of income and gender on journey time and lifestyle and demonstrates the differential effects of transport access on the ability to access goods and services. The paper also looks at policies that are being developed to tackle the effects of transport disadvantage.     

Career Decision Self-Efficacy and Life Satisfaction in China: An Empirical Analysis

Focusing on the Chinese context, the present study took a pioneering step to examine the relationship between career decision self-efficacy (CDSE) and life satisfaction. Employing a three-dimensional CDSE model, which includes goal planning self-efficacy (GPSE), information gathering self-efficacy (IGSE) and problem solving self-efficacy (PSSE), we also explored the mediation mechanism underlying this relationship from the internal functioning process of CDSE (i.e., the GPSE–PSSE–life satisfaction and IGSE–PSSE–life satisfaction relationships). We then investigated the moderating role of person–environment (P–E) fit in the mediated CDSE–life satisfaction relationship. Data were collected from 786 university students. Results showed that all three dimensions of CDSE were positively related to life satisfaction. The internal process view was supported, for PSSE was found to mediate the relationships of life satisfaction with GPSE and IGSE, respectively. Additionally, P–E fit moderated the relationship between PSSE and life satisfaction. Further examinations also found a significant moderating role of P–E fit in the indirect relationships of life satisfaction with GPSE and IGSE via PSSE.     

Empirical Comparison Between Capability and Two Health-Related Quality of Life Measures

The Investigating Choice Experiments Capability Measure (ICECAP) is a new preference-based measure of the extent to which a person is able to achieve attributes or capabilities related to the quality of life. Conceptually, it differs from health-related quality of life (HRQoL) as the focus is upon the ability or capacity to achieve as distinct from the current experience of the attributes. The objective of this study was to explore the empirical relationships between capability as assessed by the ICECAP for Adults (ICECAP-A) and HRQoL as assessed by the Assessment of Quality of Life (AQoL)-8D and the five-level EuroQol Five Dimensions questionnaire (EQ-5D). To compare these measures, the study employed self-reported survey data from the healthy public and from seven disease areas in five countries. Results indicate that, despite their conceptual origins, the ICECAP-A is strongly associated with the AQoL-8D and that the clear distinction between capabilities and HRQoL found in other studies is attributable to the use of the EQ-5D in the comparison and the weaker association between the EQ-5D and ICECAP-A. The suggestion that ICECAP-A should be included in evaluation studies along with a HRQoL instrument is more persuasive when the instrument is the EQ-5D. The case for its inclusion with other HRQoL instruments requires further research and evaluation.     

Social Monitoring and Reporting: A Success Story in Applied Research on Social Indicators and Quality of Life

From its beginnings research on social indicators was not primarily considered as pure, but rather applied research in terms of the regular monitoring of and reporting on quality of life. Thus, the successes—but eventually also failures—of social indicators research may first of all be visible in its most important field of application. Social monitoring and reporting activities, which can be traced back to the early 1970s provide quantitative information and empirically based analytical knowledge on well-being and progress in a single society or groups of societies to be used for different purposes, including policy making. Providing an overview over the variety of social monitoring and reporting projects emerging from social indicators research is supposed to be important with a view to form a more solid fundament for present and future discourses and initiatives in the field of measuring and monitoring well-being and progress. The article looks back to this field of applied social indicators research and—with a focus on Europe—identifies patterns and recent trends in this sort of activities. By looking forward, it finally discusses selected issues that are considered to be crucial for further improvements in this field.