Ethnicity,Modern Prejudice and the Quality of Life

The aim of this investigation was to measure levels of ethnic or cultural background diversity, social cohesion and modern prejudice, and the impact of such diversity, cohesion and prejudice on the quality of life. Using a sample of 743 residents of Prince George, British Columbia, we identified diverse ethnic or cultural groups, and created several indexes of heterogeneous social networks and a measure of modern prejudice. Dividing the total sample into three roughly distinct groups containing, respectively, respondents self-reporting an ethnic or cultural background that was aboriginal, non-aboriginal visible minority or anything else, we discovered that all significant comparisons indicated that people with aboriginal backgrounds reported a generally lower quality of life than those in the other two groups. The quality of life scores of the other two groups were practically indistinguishable. Given the demographic structure of our sample, the revealed differences could not be attributed to differences in socio-economic classes. Members of the largest group of respondents tended to be most prejudiced and optimistic, people with aboriginal backgrounds tended to be least prejudiced and optimistic and people with visible minority backgrounds tended to be between the other two groups. Regressions revealed that a variety of ethnic/culture-related phenomena could only explain 8%, 9% and 10%, respectively, of the variation in scores for happiness, life satisfaction and satisfaction with the overall quality of life. When domain satisfaction scores were added to the set of predictors, we were able to explain 48%, 69% and 54%, respectively, of the variation in scores for happiness, life satisfaction and satisfaction with the overall quality of life. In the presence of the domain satisfaction scores, the scores on the ethnic/cultural related phenomena added only one percentage point of explanatory power for happiness and life satisfaction, and three percentage points for satisfaction with the overall quality of life. All things considered, then, it is fair to say that this project showed that ethnic or cultural background diversity, social cohesion and modern prejudice had relatively very little impact on the quality of life of our sample of respondents.     

Source,Method, and Surmise: Quality of Life in History

The purpose of the essay is to demonstrate that study of quality of life can explore eras before our own. There are caches of social data as early as the seventeenth century, and there were people who attempted to formulate social circumstances close to today’s concepts of quality of life. Data from England and Ireland are presented and analyzed.     

Ways that Social Change Predicts Personal Quality of Life

A notable way that social change affects personal quality of life would rely on the person’s experience with social change. This experience may influence societal quality of life and quality of work life, which may in turn affect personal quality of life. Additionally, the experience of social change is possibly less detrimental to personal quality of life later in the presence of higher existing personal quality of life. These influences over time become transparent through a three-wave panel study of 531 working people in Hong Kong, China. Findings show that although social change experienced did not generally impair subsequent quality of life, it tended to be more detrimental to the person with lower quality of life before. In addition, social change experienced tended to erode societal quality of life and quality of work life experienced, which appeared to be predictors of personal quality of life. Hence, there are possible ways for social change to predict personal quality of life.     

Determinanten der Lebensqualität psychisch kranker Personen

Not only chronic mental disease, but also psycho-social factors limit the quality of life (QoL) of mentally ill persons. From three theoretical explanation models of QoL — the medical model, labeling theory, and stress process model — we deduced three hypotheses. To test our hypotheses, we re-analysed data from the study “Social integration and quality of life of mentally ill people”. Data were derived from structured interviews with 305 in-patients in psychiatric institutions in the Canton of Zurich (Switzerland), and completed with few informations from their doctors’ files. Various QoL dimensions entered the statistical analyses as dependent variables. Results indicate varied explanation power of the models under investigation depending on the dimension of QoL: psychic symptoms highly influence the health-related QoL, but have only small effects on social and material QoL. Social as well as material QoL are strongly influenced by social support as well as, though to a lesser extent, by life stress events. Chronification of mental illness and perceived discrimination because of the mental disease indirectly affect QoL through reduced social support and increased psychic symptoms. From our results we conclude that social integration and rehabilitation of mentally ill people require a bio-psycho-social treatment approach.     

Quality of Life in Older Adults: Benefits from Caring Services in Hong Kong

Many older adults are in need of care. Therefore, older people would generally benefit from the use of caring services, notably including home care, residential care, nursing, and medical services. The contributory factors underlying caring services tend to be a caring perspective that aspires to sustain older people’s social relationships and real-life involvement. To gauge the benefits from various social and health services, the present study relies on a large-scale survey of 3000 older adults in Hong Kong, using quality of life as a criterion. Results showed that an older adult who had used (ordinary or enhanced) home care services for a longer time turned out to have appreciably more improvement in quality of life. Besides, those who joined an interest group more frequently were higher in quality of life, including the health domain. On the other hand, frequent use of medical and meal-to-home services were signals that reflected problems detrimental to the older user’s quality of life. Despite this, the quality of clinics or hospitals, as perceived by the older adult, was the most beneficial. As such, caring services that foster older adults’ interests, cater to their health care needs, and embody quality can have principal contribution to their users’ quality of life.     

老年人口生活质量与社会支持的关系研究

国外不少研究表明社会支持(social support)与老年人的生活质量状态有着较强的相关性。本文基于2002年的中国健康长寿调查数据,在考虑人口社会特征和身体健康变量的情况下,应用Stereotype Ordinal Logit模型,从不同的维度分析考察了社会支持对中国老年人口生活质量的影响。结果表明,社会支持对老年人口生活质量的不同方面都有着积极的影响,而不同来源的社会支持对老年人生活质量产生不同程度的影响。     

Structure and processes of a phenomenon: The context of quality of life in India

The properties of objective or subjective variables are commonly examined with reference to a set of mutually distinct but analogous social groups structured at a time point. The procedure fails to examine what is happening across the structured groups and therefore what is likely to be the role of the variables in differentiating or integrating the ordained set of social groups. A resolution of this issue is vital for the appraisal of a better quality of life because by definition it is always an ongoing phenomenon. The issue is examined with reference to its methodological implications and with respect to QOL data on India.     

基于因子分析法对居民生活质量的度量与评价

随着经济的发展,人们的物质生活基本得到满足,在能够保持基本生活的前提下,更加关注精神方面的需求。社会发展的最终目标是人的全面发展,因此,我们应该更加关注居民生活质量的提高。本文利用因子分析法对居民生活质量的高低进行度量,找出居民生活质量综合得分排名前五的城市进行逐一分析,提出建议。     

Young People’s Perception Of Being Safe – Globally &; Locally

Giddens explores, in Modernity and Self-Identity, our preoccupation with risks in modern social life and the disparity between perceived risks and actual prevalence of life-threatening dangers [Giddens, A.: 1991, Modern and Self-Identity. Self and Society in Late Modern Age (Polity Press, Cambridge), p. 115]. Modern technologies have made global information accessible around the world; real time news communiqués about unfolding situations are displayed directly into the home environment through television and the internet. Global issues and local events intermix, blurring worldwide issues and threats with local realities. This research explored the everyday life of young people in two Australian rural communities, their community affiliation, sense of belonging and feeling safe in the local rural community. The research was exploratory in nature and based on a survey of 751 young people aged between 14 and 21 years, all being students at local secondary high schools. Feeling safe was of concern for both female and male young people: females indicated a higher tolerance towards strangers and cultural diversity, but at the same time, they felt less safe in the local community. These findings are discussed in relation to a 1989–1990 study of 13- to 21-year-old urban Australian and Swedish young people. The study explored young people’s experiences of scary events in mass media, in their home environment and among themselves. The findings signify the need for a holistic approach to identify social indicators to describe the grounds for young people feeling unsafe and the need to take into consideration local community circumstances, the global milieu and conflicts as portrayed in news, documentary and entertainment mass media.     

Ageing, Leisure, and Social Connectedness: How could Leisure Help Reduce Social Isolation of Older People?

This study investigates the relation between leisure activities and the social status of the elderly based on a heterogeneous sample of the Dutch population. Close relationships are also analyzed to identify which people could serve as successful stimulators of leisure participation. The social profile confirms that older people have fewer social contacts and often feel lonely. This study shows that leisure activities explain a significant part of older people’s social connectedness. Voluntary work, cultural activities, holiday, sports, reading books, hobbies and shopping are found to be successful predictors for social connectedness of older people. Watching TV, listening to the radio, and spending time behind the computer (passive activities) were not associated with social connectedness. Friends correlate positively to participation in leisure activities. Partners play a role in participation in cultural activities and sports; parents play a role in participation in voluntary work and holidays; siblings play a role in voluntary work and sports; and children play a role in cultural activities, reading books, and shopping. Local communities can use these close relationships and develop special programs to increase social connectedness and hence improve quality of life for older adults.     

Health, Quality of Life and Population Density: A Preliminary Study on “Contextualized” Quality of Life

Quality of life concerns individual (physical and psychological health), interpersonal (social relationships) and contextual (environment) aspects, which are both subjective and objective. In considering contextual characteristics, empirical findings have demonstrated that people’s relation to their living environment is a key issue for their well-being. However, until now literature has paid little attention to population density as an element affecting quality of life. The present study aimed at assessing the predictive role of population density on the several domains of quality of life, along with socio-demographic characteristics and physical diseases. Participants were 344 subjects living in the Northern Italy area. A questionnaire with WHO Quality of Life Brief Scale, a checklist of chronic diseases and a socio-demographic form was used to collect data. Results showed that population density influences psychological, relational and environmental quality of life. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.     

中国特色的人口老龄化过程、前景和对策

基于基本国情 ,中国老龄化具有老年人数多、老龄化速度快、未富先老和老龄化地区差别大的特点。老年人健康长寿水平与发达地区有很大差距 ,中国老龄政策要把老年人健康作为优先考虑的内容。老龄化速度快是低生育的结果 ,应充分利用“人口红利”为老龄化做好物质准备。老龄政策必须与经济社会发展水平相适应。在未富先老的条件下 ,老年人提高生活质量必须政府主导、社会参与、群众支持     

新疆各地州市人口现代化差异分析及评价

本文主要根据《新疆统计年鉴》和2000年新疆维吾儿自治区第五次人口普查的资料,选用了11个人口和社会发展的指标建立了人口现代化指标体系。通过SPSS统计分析软件进行主成分分析,选取三个主成分,分别用以反映各地州市人口现代化发展水平在人口社会结构与生活质量、教育水平模式与人口身体素质等三个方面的差异,最后,经过聚类分析,将全疆各地州市人口现代化水平分为五种类型,并分析了五个类型各自的特征与差别,进行了评价。     

Social and economic change,intergenerational relationships,and family formation in Taiwan

This paper examines the influence of social change and economic growth on intergenerational relationships and the formation of families in Taiwan. Using data from two island-wide surveys in 1973 and 1980, the analysis shows that, as expected, social change has been accompanied by rapid changes in family structure and relationships, including the spread of schooling, the employment of young people outside the family, increasing separation of the residences of parents and children before and after marriage, growing independence of young people, and increases in premarital sex and pregnancies. The position of a family in the social structure also influences the way young people interact with their parents and form their own families: women with educated fathers have more nonfamilial experiences than others, and farm origins tend to exert a traditional influence on the life course. Finally, experiences early in the life course have important ramifications for later behavior and transitions.     

Mobility,Perceptions of Quality of Life and Neighbourhood Stability in Saskatoon

Why people move, their well-being or self-assessed quality of life and the impact that this has on the stability of neighbourhoods are linked in many ways. One of the expected outcomes related to the attachment to and meaning of place is the level of intra-urban mobility by individuals and families. Those who have negative or neutral feelings towards the place they reside are expected to experience a greater level of intra-urban mobility. The objective of this paper is to examine the relationship between residential mobility and perceived well-being or self-assessed quality of life in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan across three clusters of neighbourhoods representing different socio-economic status (SES) (low, middle and high). The paper begins with a review of the literature on residential mobility and highlights concepts such as the life-cycle, social cohesion and social isolation. It employs data from three sources: a telephone survey collected from residents in 2001, a series of face-to-face interviews and 2001 Census data. The data are analysed statistically using a mixed model approach. The results show that mobility is an important feature of Saskatoon, and that a significant difference exists in the length of residency among the three neighbourhood clusters. However, the analysis indicates that there is no relationship between residential mobility and well-being as measured by self-reported quality of life and health.     

Inherited frailty and longevity

The life spans of parents and children appear only weakly related, even though parents affect their children's longevity through both genetic and environmental influences. These influences can be summarized as a correlation between parents' and children's frailty. It is shown that even if children perfectly inherit their frailty from their parents, parents' life spans explain little of the variance in children's life spans, because the variance in life expectancies among people with different frailties is small compared with the variance in life spans among people at the same level of frailty. By interpreting frailty as a relative risk in a proportional-hazard model, longevity as a duration or waiting time, and inheritance as an invariance in relative risk over time, one can extend this result to repeatable events involving fertility, migration, marriage, unemployment, and so forth.     

Experiencing undesired daily life events, instrumental functioning, social support and well-being of Israeli elderly women: comparison between caregivers/non-caregivers for adult children with mental retardation

The purpose of the study was to examine the extent to which 160 mothers who care for an adult child with mental retardation differ in respect to undesired daily life events, instrumental functioning, social support and well-being from a comparably matched group of age peers. Findings indicated that caregivers for adult children with mental retardation reported more undesired daily life events in comparison to the matched group. However, no differences were found in respect to their instrumental functioning, social support and well-being. A detailed analysis showed significant variations in measures of undesired daily life events and social support.     

居民发展能力评估与差异比较——以甘肃省张掖市、甘南自治州为例

阿玛帝业森的能力理论是有关人类文化发展、福利经济学、社会政策研究的哲学论述,是有关个体福利和生活质量评估、社会整顿、政策制定和社会改革等的标准分析框架。本文在简要介绍阿玛帝亚森能力分析的概念和评估方法之后,采用社会学研究方法,通过问卷调查,以黑河流域张掖市与甘南自治州城市居民的能力分析测定为例,尝试在国内开展能力分析的定量研究,并比较影响两地区居民能力的主要因素,分析了提升个体能力,开展能力分析研究的重要意义。     

Predictors of Quality of Life in Economically Disadvantaged Populations in Montreal

Most epidemiological studies agree that economically disadvantaged populations are the groups most vulnerable to mental health problems and report lower quality of life among these populations. However, it appears that access to social support plays a role in protecting against the chronic stress resulting from conditions such as poverty. This study is an attempt to clarify the relative contribution of social support to the quality of life of economically disadvantaged populations in two low-income neighbourhoods of Montreal. A random sample of 417 social assistance recipients were interviewed in the respondents?? homes. The Quality of Life scale used was the Satisfaction with Life Domains Scale. The availability of social support components was assessed using the Social Provisions Scale. Social support measures were entered into a multidimensional model that included a number of variables identified as having a relationship to mental health. Among the 17 variables included in a multiple regression analysis, emotional support and support providing reassurance of worth accounted for most of the variance in the QOL predicted by the model. Psychological distress also accounted for a fair amount of variance in QOL and younger people and people experiencing food insecurity showed a lower QOL.     

Subjective Quality of Life of Young Europeans. Feeling Happy but who Knows why?

Latest developments in modern societies have altered living circumstances. Upcoming insecurities concerning employment and family relationships make life more and more incalculable. Especially young adults throughout the modern world are forced to rethink their life concepts and to desist from the lives of former generations. As difficulties to achieve a successful life increase, one could assume that the young are confronted with the impossibility of feeling happy and satisfied with their lives anymore. Yet, latest social surveys prove wrong. Although increasing unemployment, lower net income and single parenthood make life more difficult for the young, they still enjoy very high subjective quality of life in comparison to the older population. Throughout the paper I argue that it is not the objective conditions that make young adults (15–29 years old) feel overwhelmingly happy. Looking for other sources of explanation of high quality of life among people aged 29 or below, I argue for indicators of social embeddedness as being influential on their assessment of life. But again, the proportion of explained variance is smaller compared to older people. With the help of empirical data taken from the European Social Survey I highlight the differences in life circumstances between the young and the total population. Concerning occupation, habitation (kind of inhabited household) and financial situation, most of the young live under different situations compared to the adult world. But surprisingly, the rates of perceived high quality of life among the young do not vary to such a large extent as among the adults. I show that young adults, often damned to fail social demands because of their withdrawal from social life, are still the most happy in modern (more and more individualizing?) societies. But it gets more difficult to account for the reasons of their happiness.