Participatory Partnerships: Engaging and Empowering to Enhance Environmental Management and Quality of Life?

It is generally believed that, when partnerships with civil society are created, members of the public become engaged in defining and solving problems, and as a result become empowered through enhanced understanding of substantive problems, and of the processes used by society to deal with them. In this context, two fundamental assumptions related to a partnership approach deserve examination. First, partnerships assume a shared vision among partners, and a willingness to work together in a spirit of collaboration and cooperation. However, humans often are competitive, protective and defensive, attributes unlikely to lead to collaboration and cooperation. Second, advocates of a participatory approach advocate, or assume, that citizens will become empowered through being part of a partnership process. If partnerships are to be encouraged, we need to know if such a transformation actually occurs. Two experiences in Canada, one dealing with shared decision making during a resource and land use management process in British Columbia, and the other focused on an environmental impact assessment process in Manitoba, provide evidence that challenges whether these assumptions are easily satisfied.     

Living Standards and Quality of Life

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Morningness–Eveningness and Satisfaction with Life

Individual differences in diurnal preferences and circadian rhythms are viewed as an interesting dimension of human personality. Previous research has examined various psychological correlates of diurnal preference. Evening types reported psychological and psychosomatic disturbances more frequently and intensively than morning types and morning types have a healthier lifestyle than evening types. Depression was also related to eveningness as were bulimic behaviour and seasonal affected disorders (SAD). Given these studies, one would expect a positive relationship between satisfaction with life or happiness (general well-being; Diener et al. (J Pers Assess 49:71–75, 1985)) and morningness. There was a significant positive correlation between morningness and satisfaction with life (r = 0.177; p = 0.023; N = 164).     

Quality of Life and Leisure Activities: How do Leisure Activities Contribute to Subjective Well-Being?

The quality of life is determined with objective factors and also with subjective perception of factors which influence human life. Leisure activities play a very important role in subjective well-being because they provide opportunities to meet life values and needs. Through participation in leisure activities people build social relationships, feel positive emotions, acquire additional skills and knowledge, and therefore improve their quality of life. In this report we will explore how leisure activities improve subjective well-being. We will try to distinguish among different types of leisure activities and find those which contribute more to the subjective well-being. Particularly, we will explore which leisure activities contribute to the subjective well-being of women and men of different age. Our study is based on data from a representative sample of Croatian citizens (N = 4,000), who estimated their subjective well-being and participation in various leisure activities. First, we will describe the subjective well-being of various groups of people who differ by gender and age. Afterward, we will identify important leisure activities which determine subjective well-being across age and gender groups. Overall, our results show that engagement in leisure activities contributes to subjective well being, while the pattern of important leisure activities somewhat varies across different age and gender groups.     

From Materialist to Post-Materialist Happiness? National Affluence and Determinants of Life Satisfaction in Cross-National Perspective

This paper takes the theory of value change as developed by Inglehart as a point of departure and tests its implications for the determinants of human happiness. It investigates whether the importance of post-material concerns for happiness, relative to that of materialist concerns, is indeed higher in rich post-industrial societies. Personal autonomy and job creativity serve as indicators for post-materialist concerns, the income domain as an indicator for materialist concerns. The main assumption is put against data for 48 countries from wave 5 of the World Values Survey, the most recent survey, which covers the full range from poor agrarian to rich post-industrial societies. Employing a multi-level design, the paper indeed reveals a quite consistent pattern towards post-materialist happiness as we move from poor to rich societies. This pattern seems to be driven by both a devalorization of material concerns and a valorization of post-materialist concerns, although the evidence suggests that the former trend is stronger and more linear than the latter.     

Quality of College Life (QCL) of Students in Turkey: Students’ Life Satisfaction and Identification

Understanding the complexities of a students’ quality of life has become essential in order for universities to plan their spending most efficiently. This study tests a model which was used to judge the satisfaction of college life and evaluates the overall impact of quality of college life (social, academic, and service satisfaction), life satisfaction, and identification. Secondly, the study assesses the impact of a university’s academic program, social life, facilities, and services on the students’ college life quality in this sample in relation to similar studies from Turkey and other countries. The survey included 1,260 students attending a public university in northwestern Turkey. Measurement tools included the quality of college life scale (QCL), Satisfaction with college life scale, identification scale satisfaction with life scale and personal information form. The results show social satisfaction has the strongest positive impact on QCL. This study found that life satisfaction and university identification had a positive impact on a university student’s satisfaction with college life. According to survey results it is also suggested that University administrators can primarily focus on improving the social satisfaction of the students then improve facilities and services, in order to raise academic satisfaction levels.     

The Contribution of Health Care and Other Interventions to Black–White Disparities in Life Expectancy, 1980–2007

Black–white mortality disparities remain sizable in the United States. In this study, we use the concept of avoidable/amenable mortality to estimate cause-of-death contributions to the difference in life expectancy between whites and blacks by gender in the United States in 1980, 1993, and 2007. We begin with a review of the concept of “avoidable mortality” and results of prior studies using this cause-of-death classification. We then present the results of our empirical analyses. We classified causes of death as amenable to medical care, sensitive to public health policies and health behaviors, ischemic heart disease, suicide, HIV/AIDS, and all other causes combined. We used vital statistics data on deaths and Census Bureau population estimates and standard demographic decomposition techniques. In 2007, causes of death amenable to medical care continued to account for close to 2 years of the racial difference in life expectancy among men (2.08) and women (1.85). Causes amenable to public health interventions made a larger contribution to the racial difference in life expectancy among men (1.17 years) than women (0.08 years). The contribution of HIV/AIDS substantially widened the racial difference among both men (1.08 years) and women (0.42 years) in 1993, but its contribution declined over time. Despite progress observed over the time period studied, a substantial portion of black–white disparities in mortality could be reduced given more equitable access to medical care and health interventions.     

Transgender Adults’ Access to College Bathrooms and Housing and the Relationship to Suicidality

ABSTRACT

Transgender and gender non-conforming people frequently experience discrimination, harassment, and marginalization across college and university campuses (Bilodeau, 2007; Finger, 2010; Rankin et al., 2010; Seelman et al., 2012). The minority stress model (Meyer, 2007) posits that experiences of discrimination often negatively impact the psychological wellbeing of minority groups. However, few scholars have examined whether college institutional climate factors—such as being denied access to bathrooms or gender-appropriate campus housing—are significantly associated with detrimental psychological outcomes for transgender people. Using the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, this study analyzes whether being denied access to these spaces is associated with lifetime suicide attempts, after controlling for interpersonal victimization by students or teachers. Findings from sequential logistic regression (N = 2,316) indicate that denial of access to either space had a significant relationship to suicidality, even after controlling for interpersonal victimization. This article discusses implications for higher education professionals and researchers.     

Immigrants’ Sense of Belonging to the Host Country: The Role of Life Satisfaction,Language Proficiency,and Religious Motives

This paper focuses on a significant concept in migration studies: immigrants’ sense of belonging to the host society. Drawing upon the literature of immigration and subjective well-being, we proposed a model in which life satisfaction is a major predictor of immigrants’ sense of belonging, and is explained by background variables including religious affiliation, religious motivation, native language proficiency and ethnic segregation. The study was based on a survey of two groups of highly skilled migrants in Israel; immigrants from France and the Former Soviet Union who moved to Israel in the last two decades. The findings suggest that, as expected, life satisfaction had a significant influence on immigrants’ sense of belonging and served as a mediator variable in the model. Whereas ethnic segregation was not found to be a significant parameter in the model, religious motivation and Hebrew language proficiency were found to be prominent. In light of the literature, we also discuss the importance of religious motivations to immigrants’ subjective well-being, identity, and sense of belonging.

     

Is Personality Fixed? Personality Changes as Much as “Variable” Economic Factors and More Strongly Predicts Changes to Life Satisfaction

Personality is the strongest and most consistent cross-sectional predictor of high subjective well-being. Less predictive economic factors, such as higher income or improved job status, are often the focus of applied subjective well-being research due to a perception that they can change whereas personality cannot. As such there has been limited investigation into personality change and how such changes might bring about higher well-being. In a longitudinal analysis of 8625 individuals we examine Big Five personality measures at two time points to determine whether an individual’s personality changes and also the extent to which such changes in personality can predict changes in life satisfaction. We find that personality changes at least as much as economic factors and relates much more strongly to changes in life satisfaction. Our results therefore suggest that personality can change and that such change is important and meaningful. Our findings may help inform policy debate over how best to help individuals and nations improve their well-being.     

Population,Environment Dynamics,Poverty and Quality of Life in China

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Does Cultural Capital Matter?: Cultural Divide and Quality of Life

Since the remarkable work of Pierre Bourdieu, the concept of cultural capital has gained wide popularity along with theoretical and conceptual debates. This trend represents the social-structural change from materialism to postmaterialism. However, there are few empirical studies which find the cause and effect of cultural capital. Based on empirical survey data, this paper will analyze “how cultural capital and cultural divide influence the subjective well-being at the individual level.” Our analysis includes the following: First, we explore to what extent the cultural divide between haves and have-nots of cultural capital has impacted their subjective well-being, which consists of happiness and life satisfaction at the individual level. Second, we analyze what factors cause those cultural divides. Sociodemographic, social-relational, and economic variables are included in the regression models to test their relative explanatory power. Third, we discuss the implication for cultural policy.     

Spillover Between Work Attitudes and Overall Life Attitudes: Myth or Reality?

It is widely believed that work attitudes influence attitudes toward life overall. We investigated a multivariate model of work attitudes and overall life attitudes using survey data from two nationally representative (U.S.) data sets, one cross-sectional and one longitudinal. Including a comprehensive set of control variables, we found only weak support for the attitudes spillover perspective, suggesting that employees often compartmentalize or segregate their work and nonwork lives. We consider theoretical and practical implications of these findings.     

Can We Compare Life Satisfaction Between Nationalities? Evaluating Actual and Imagined Situations

Do differences in reported life satisfaction between societies reflect real differences or do they reflect cultural differences in the way people rate their experiences? Study 1 showed that imagining better or worse life situations affected student respondents’ ratings of their own life satisfaction, as predicted by range–frequency theory. Study 2 investigated how German and Polish students rated their actual life satisfaction and how satisfied they would be under three imagined scenarios. Study 3 similarly compared Danish and Hungarian students. Both studies found significant differences in the rating of the hypothetical situations, and moderate correlations between ratings of satisfaction in the hypothetical situations and reality, but in neither study were national differences in actual satisfaction predicted by differences in hypothetical satisfaction. Overall, the results suggest that national differences in rated life satisfaction are real rather than reflecting differences in how satisfaction is rated.     

Resilient or Resigned? Criminal Victimisation and Quality of Life in South Africa

A victimisation study conducted among 3300 householders in South Africa’s Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality (NMMM) in the Eastern Cape Province aimed to inform a crime prevention strategy for the metropolitan area. The study found that the variables ‘fear of crime’ – measured in terms of perceived likelihood of victimisation – and concern about ‘personal safety’ had greater negative influence on life satisfaction than actual victimisation. Individual crimes against the person had greater negative influence on subjective wellbeing and feelings of personal safety than property and other household crimes. Individuals who perceived themselves to be at risk of becoming a victim of crime also perceived greater risk of other misfortunes. However, materially better-off victims reported higher levels of life satisfaction than non-victims in spite of their crime experience. South Africa has high crime rates by international standards and fighting crime presents the country with one of its major challenges in the second decade of democracy. Nevertheless, findings suggest that the negative impact of crime issues on achieving the good life are overshadowed by issues of racial inequalities and poverty. The conclusion is drawn that residents of Nelson Mandela Metropole are hardy when it comes to living with crime but nonetheless suffer stress in doing so. From a methodological perspective, the discussion considers whether subjective crime issues such as fear of crime and personal safety should be regarded as personal or neighbourhood quality-of-life issues. Based on survey findings, the conclusion is drawn that concern for personal safety is both. However, a crime-as-neighbourhood-issue is more likely to attract remedial action on the part␣of␣local authorities to better protect citizens and allay their fears of crime.     

Ministries and Agencies of Concurrent Commissionership to

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Life Satisfaction of Adolescents in Hunan,China: Reliability and Validity of Chinese Brief Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (BMSLSS)

The concept of poverty has gone beyond the monetary attributes to cover several dimensions directly influencing the level of individuals’ socio-economic status. Based on this methodological advancement, this study aims to approximate the deprivation of education, health and housing facilities to analyze the incidence of multidimensional poverty (MDP) at regional levels in the Sindh province of Pakistan. Findings revealed that the magnitude of MDP varies significantly across the regions due mainly to the variation in the deprivation levels of socio-economic aspects. Furthermore, the magnitude of MDP is higher in rural areas than urban areas in each region.     

“Life Without Line Dancing and the Other Activities Would be Too Dreadful to Imagine”: An Increase in Social Activity for Older Women

ABSTRACT

The literature on aging is replete with the positive effects of physical exercise on the well-being of older adults. Some Glass, T. A., de Leon, C. M., Marottoli, R. A. and Berkman, L. F. 1999. Population based study of social and productive activities as predictors of survival among elderly Americans. British Medical Journal, 319: 478–483. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] suggest, however, that the potential impact of social activities has not received adequate attention, and others Lennartsson, C. and Silverstein, M. 2001. Does engagement with life enhance survival of elderly people in Sweden? The role of social and leisure activities. The Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 56B(6): S335–S342. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar] note the importance of distinguishing between the physical and nonphysical impact of these activities. This study investigated whether line dancing, a physical activity, led to an increase in social activity. Thirty women over the age of 60 were interviewed to discover how line dancing affected them. Content analysis of the interviews helped identify various themes indicating that line dancing enabled these women to expand their repertoire of social activity, leading to positive reinforcements such as further community involvement, charitable work, inclusion in national sports events, self-expression, and personal development. The impact of line dancing plainly goes beyond the perceived physical benefits.     

Sample Heterogeneity and the Measurement Structure of the Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale

Several measurement assumptions were examined with the goal of assessing the validity of the Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (MSLSS), a measure of adolescents’ satisfaction with their family, friends, living environment, school, self, and general quality of life. The data were obtained via a cross-sectional survey of 8,225 adolescents in British Columbia, Canada. Confirmatory factor and factor mixture analyses of ordinal data were used to examine the measurement assumptions. The adolescents did not respond to all the MSLSS items in a psychometrically equivalent manner. A correlated five-factor model for an abridged version of the MSLSS resulted in good fit when all negatively worded items and several positively worded items (the least invariant) were excluded. The abridged 18-item version of the MSLSS provides a promising alternative for the measurement of five life domains that are pertinent to adolescents’ quality of life.