Age,Health and Life Satisfaction Among Older Europeans

In this paper we investigate how age affects the self-reported level of life satisfaction among the elderly in Europe. By using a vignette approach, we find evidence that age influences life satisfaction through two counterbalancing channels. On the one hand, controlling for the effects of all other variables, the own perceived level of life satisfaction increases with age. On the other hand, given the same true level of life satisfaction, older respondents are more likely to rank themselves as “dissatisfied” with their life than younger individuals. Detrimental health conditions and physical limitations play a crucial role in explaining scale biases in the reporting style of older individuals.     

Does Individual Secularism Promote Life Satisfaction? The Moderating Role of Societal Development

This study was designed to examine the link between values and life satisfaction, examining the role of culture in this process. Secularism was found to predict life satisfaction scores at a small but statistically very significant level in persons from all nations participating in all four waves of the World Values Survey. The direction and strength of this relationship was moderated, however, by the country’s human development index—people in low-HDI countries consistently showed a negative relationship between secularism and happiness across the four waves of the WVS; people in high-HDI countries initially showed a negative relationship between secularism and happiness in Waves 1 and 2, but a positive relationship between secularism and happiness in Waves 3 and 4. These results thus appear to support a “cultural fit” hypothesis consistently for persons in low HDI countries, and a transition towards a “cultural fit” for persons in HDI countries as data was collected across the four waves. By Wave 4, it is clear that citizens who endorse values consistent with their county’s developmental trajectory are more satisfied with their lives. This study demonstrates the amenability of the data collected by the World Values Survey to individual-level analysis of psychological process that is responsive to the shaping influence of variations in their nation’s societal characteristics.     

An evaluation of the American Community Survey: results from the Oregon test site

The American Community Survey (ACS) is a Census Bureau product designed to provide accurate and timely demographic and economic indicators on an annual basis for both large and small geographic areas within the United States. Operational plans for Census 2010 call for ACS to replace the decennial census long form (Census LF), pending the results of evaluation studies. This plan represents a major change in that variables that traditionally have been collected on a “snapshot” basis once every 10 years would be collected on a “rolling” annual basis. Using a loss function analysis and other tools, this paper reports preliminary findings from a comparison of ACS and Census 2000 results in Multnomah County, Oregon, one of five national “local expert” test sites set up to compare ACS data collected at the time of Census 2000. The preliminary findings suggest that there are notable differences between some of the corresponding variables found in the ACS and Census LF that require more detailed examination. For example, the loss function analysis reveals notable differences for race and disability variables. In other comparisons of corresponding variables between ACS and Census 2000, differences are found within each of the four major areas of interest: (1) demographic characteristics, (2) social characteristics, (3) economic characteristics, and (4) housing characteristics, with housing characteristics showing the least similarity overall. These results also suggest that more detailed examinations are needed to understand differences between corresponding variables collected by ACS and the Census LF.     

Impact of Arts-Related Activities on the Perceived Quality of Life

The aim of this investigation was to measure the impact of arts-related activities on the perceived or experienced quality of life. In the fall of 2006 a questionnaire was mailed out to a random selection of 2000 households in each of five British Columbia communities, and 1027 were returned completed. The total and individual community samples should be regarded as merely representative of some British Columbian residents who had some interest in the arts. Sixty-six kinds of arts-related activities were identified in the questionnaire, and five indexes were created to help explain people’s motives for engaging in such activities. Seven different scales were used to measure respondents’ overall assessment of their lives, (1) self-reported general health (5-point scale), (2) satisfaction with life as a whole (7-point scale), (3) satisfaction with the overall quality of life (7-points), (4) happiness with life as a whole (7-points), (5) satisfaction with life as a whole (5-item index), (6) contentment with life (5-item index), (7) subjective wellbeing (4-item index). In the context of all our predictors, based on the relative impact of all the arts-related activities and the satisfaction obtained from those activities on our seven overall life assessment variables, it is fair to say that such activities and their corresponding satisfaction contributed relatively little. While this may seem incredible (especially to arts enthusiasts), it is important to keep in mind the initial condition “in the context of all our predictors” and the qualifier “relatively”. Our inability to discover greater marginal or total impacts of arts-related activities on the perceived quality of life may be the result of our use of the wrong search instruments for the great variety of values involved. It is an open question whether we used the best tools and found as much as there was to find or whether better tools would have found more.     

Application of the Rural Development Index to Analysis of Rural Regions in Poland and Slovakia

The main purpose of this research was to construct a multi-dimensional (composite) index measuring the overall level of rural development and quality of life in individual rural regions of a given EU country. In the Rural Development Index (RDI) the rural development domains are represented by hundreds of partial socio-economic, environmental, infrastructural and administrative indicators/variables at NUTS-4 level (e.g. 991 variables/indicators describing various aspects of rural development in Poland; 340 variables/indicators in Slovakia). The weights of economic, social and environmental domains entering the RDI index are derived empirically from the econometrically estimated intra- and inter-regional migration function after selecting the “best” model from various alternative model specifications (e.g. panel estimate logistic regression nested error structure model, spatial effect models, etc.). The RDI is empirically applied to analysis of the main determinants of rural/regional development in individual rural areas in years 2002–2005 in Poland and Slovakia at NUTS-4 level. Due to its comprehensiveness the RDI Index is suitable both to analysis of the overall level of development of rural areas and to an evaluation of the impacts (impact indicator) of RD and structural programmes at regional levels (NUTS 2–5).     

Measuring and understanding the well-being of South Africans: Everyday quality of life in South Africa

South Africa has a Gini co-efficient of 62, one of the world’s highest (Finmark: Project FinScope 2004 and 2005, FinMark Trust, Johannesburg). Hence, measures of wealth are ubiquitous social indicators in South Africa. However, a growing emphasis in government towards measurable service delivery targets and remedial action to redress the inequalities of our past makes the reliable measurement of people’s quality of life in greater depth in quantitative terms an imperative.We have developed a simple framework to measure people’s quality of life in key domains that extend beyond that simply of wealth, using composite indices to allow progress to be tracked and to make valid comparisons across our diverse population. Termed the Everyday Quality of Life Index (EQLi), it comprises a suite of measures encompassing socio-economic status (with special reference to poverty), urbanisation, health (nutrition, exercise and fitness), stress/pressure, quality of the environment, satisfaction of human needs, connectivity, optimism, subjective well-being (happiness, after Diener and Lucas: 2000, in M. Lewis, J.M. Haviland (eds.), Handbook of Emotions. (2nd ed) (Guilford, New York)), and the overall measure of well-being, the EQLi itself.The initial framework was developed from a structured questionnaire administered to a probability sample of 2000 South African adults in 2002. From this, a 52-item shortlist was derived to create the series of measures. This has been tested and refined in three subsequent annual studies, each of 3500 people across urban and rural South Africa. In 2004, items involving work as well as determining the balance of skills and challenges at work using the concept of “flow” (Csikszentmihalyi: 1990, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Harper and Row, New York)) were added.This paper outlines the rationale behind the selection and development of these measures, describes the EQL of South Africans using these and other key measures and concludes with implications for policy-makers and service providers in South Africa. Some marketing implications are also given: there is a growing emphasis worldwide on corporate social investment initiatives and, particularly in South Africa, on community upliftment and development – poverty alleviation and improving the lives of the disadvantaged (“people” rather than “consumers”). Further, people’s well-being affects how they react to marketing activities.     

Trajectory of Life Satisfaction and its Relationship with Subjective Economic Status and Successful Aging

The aim of the study was to explore the relationship between subjective economic status and indicators of successful aging to life satisfaction trajectories among the elderly in Taiwan. Data were from the four waves of “Survey of Health and Living Status of the Elderly in Taiwan”. Hierarchical linear modeling was conducted. Subjective economic status was measured by childhood economic status and time-varying economic satisfaction. Time-varying physical, mental, and social successful aging variables and demographics were also used to describe the trajectory of life satisfaction. Life satisfaction showed a slightly decreasing but generally stationary trend across time. The concurrent economic satisfaction was associated with life satisfaction trajectory, but childhood economic status was not significant. The time-varying depressive symptoms, cognitive function and social support were related to the life satisfaction trajectory. Policy on the elderly should take particular account of the economic security, mental health, and social support of the elderly.     

Housing Adjustment Among Immigrants in Israel: Application of Complementary Non-Metric and Metric Techniques

This study applies two different complementary statistical techniques to examine the structure and determinants of homeownership and consumption of household goods among immigrants in Israel. Findings from partial-order analysis (POSAC) reveal significant differences between immigrant groups by type, rather than level, of household characteristics. Suppliers of entertainment (television) and of information-communication (computer) are the items that most strongly distinguish between immigrants. The joint direction of the partially ordered space corresponds with home and car ownership. Immigrant groups are dispersed in different parts of the household typology; with increased duration of residence in Israel immigrants move, albeit in varied rhythms, toward improved housing conditions. A complementary logistic regression analysis, which controls for socio-demographic variation and detailed tenure in Israel, show a likelihood of convergence of immigrants from all origin countries with the core native-born group in owning a home. For other household goods, the findings largely coincide with the typology derived from POSAC. The findings are discussed in reference to three conceptual expectations of “cultural norms”, “adjustment”, and “structural-environmental considerations”.

The impact of professional and personal satisfaction on perceptions of rural and urban: Some analytic evidence

Studies of rural-urban location decisions traditionally used ana priori definition of rural/urban based on population size. A group of 29 physicians (study group) practising in communities of less than 10 000, that were part of a larger sample, perceived their communities as ‘urban’. A matched group of physicians (control group) in the same communities, who perceived the communities as ‘rural’, was selected. The research question raised was: Are there personal and professional factors that could reliably predict the perception of rural and urban? A logistic regression analysis was done using professional and personal satisfaction items as predictors of the two groups. The analysis gives some evidence that, once the effect of community size is removed, the perception of rural urban can be explained by satisfaction with the following: (i) access to specialist expertise, (ii) quality of education for children, (iii) quality of life for children and (iv) quality of housing; satisfaction with size of community was not a significant predictor of rural/urban perception.     

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”.     

The Role of Housing Space in Determining Freedom and Flourishing in Older People

This paper takes as its central thesis Martha Nussbaum’s normative proposition that social arrangements should be evaluated primarily according to the extent of freedom people have to promote or achieve functionings they value. Using this as a lens the paper explores the housing circumstances of older people in the UK. The paper makes three points. Firstly, given that people use their homes to structure and manage their lives, the design, quality and standard of their home is therefore a critical factor in determining their “doings and beings” [Sen: 1992, Inequality Re-examined (Clarendon Press, Oxford) p. 40]. Since older people are more likely to spend greater time within the home through lower income, lessening mobility or loss of companions, this may be of greater significance to them than other age groups. Secondly the paper argues that the design of “specialist” dwellings for older people where there is a shifting balance between housing and care has played a part in shaping the thinking about the position and status of older people as well as providing a material context in which older people live [Laws: 1994, Environment and Planning A 26: pp. 1787–1802]. This paper suggests that this context may alter or deny many aspects of life that may be meaningful to individuals and therefore may inhibit rather than promote human flourishing. The paper draws mainly on a small qualitative study in which older people spoke of their home and its meaning. Quotations from this work are given in italics.     

Disentangling the Circularity in Sen’s Capability Approach: An Analysis of the Co-Evolution of Functioning Achievement and Resources

There is an ambiguity in Amartya Sen’s capability approach as to what constitutes an individual’s resources, conversion factors and valuable functionings. What we here call the “circularity problem” points to the fact that all three concepts seem to be mutually endogenous and interdependent. To econometrically account for this entanglement we suggest a panel vector autoregression approach. We analyze the intertemporal interplay of the above factors over a time horizon of 15 years using the BHPS data set for Great Britain, measuring individual well-being in functionings space with a set of basic functionings, comprising “being happy”, “being healthy”, “being nourished”, “moving about freely”, “being well-sheltered” and “having satisfying social relations”. We find that there are indeed functionings that are resources for many other functionings (viz. “being happy”) while other functionings (“being well-sheltered” and “having satisfying social relations”) are by and large independent, thus shedding light on a facet of the capability approach that has been neglected so far.     

Different Things Make Different People Happy: Examining Social Capital and Subjective Well-Being by Gender and Parental Status

This paper addresses a number of key challenges in current subjective well-being (SWB) research: A new wave of studies should take into account that different things may make different people happy, thus going beyond a unitary ‘happiness formula’. Furthermore, empirical results need to be connected to broader theoretical narratives. Using a re-examination of the social context of well-being as its case study, this article therefore resorts to sociological theory and fills a gap by investigating how social capital is correlated in different ways with the SWB of men, women, parents, and non-parents. Ordered logit and OLS regression analyses systematically examine slope heterogeneity using UK data from the European Social Survey. It turns out that civic engagement is not at all associated with higher life satisfaction for mothers, while the relationship is positive for men and strongest for childless women. Moreover, informal socialising is positively and more strongly associated with life satisfaction among women, although only when OLS is used. In sum, the social context of well-being varies considerably by gender and parental status. Mothers do not seem to benefit from formal social capital, indicating a “motherhood penalty” (see Correll et al., Am J Sociol 112(5):1297–1338 in 2007) regarding the psychological rewards usually associated with volunteering. Given the high levels of formal social capital among mothers, the findings also highlight the importance of the homo sociologicus concept. Consequently, SWB research can be successfully used to provide new insights into long-standing interdisciplinary theory debates such as the one on homo economicus versus homo sociologicus.     

Tracing the Density Impulse in Rural Settlement Systems: A Quantitative Analysis of the Factors Underlying Rural Population Density Across South-Eastern Australia, 1981–2001

Rural population density has a very significant independent influence over important socio-economic and demographic characteristics of developed world rural communities. Additionally, it is a fundamental variable in public policy and planning, both expressing and influencing the relative cost-efficiency of servicing populations. Yet density is itself produced by more fundamental qualities (e.g. environmental resources, nature and time of colonisation) which may themselves change over time. Treating rural population density as a dependent variable produced by a wide variety of factors, we build and test two causal models that attempt to explain the observed pattern of rural densities across south-eastern Australia (n = 414 communities). We distinguish between a “productivist” model—applicable for most of white Australia’s history—and a consumptionist model that takes account of recent counter-urbanisation trends. These models are applied to the entire study area and, in recognition of the study area’s internal heterogeneity, to five clusters of communities. In the drier inland and remoter zones, the productivist model exhibits the greatest explanatory power, while in the more accessible and well-watered “multifunctional” zones, an expanded model that incorporates a measure of “amenity” produces the best results. The research finds that simple environmental factors, coupled with relative location within the national space economy, act as dominant controls over rural population density in early 21st century Australia.

International Well-being Index: The Austrian Version

The International Well-being Index (IWI) measures both personal and national well-being. It comprises two subscales: the Personal Well-being Index (PWI) and the National Well-being Index (NWI). The aim of this paper is to test the psychometric properties (validity and reliability) of the translated scale in Austria. Convergent validity is assessed using the Scales of Psychological Well-Being, the Satisfaction with Life Scale and the Positive and Negative Affect Scale. In addition, a Visual–Analog Scales capturing “satisfaction with life as a whole” was applied. The participants were 581 students of the Medical University Innsbruck (female: 47.7%; age: 23.2 ± 3.7). Internal consistency (Cronbach’s α) of the IWI was for both scales > .70 (PWI: .85; NWI: .83). The exploratory factor analysis of the IWI identified a 2-factor-structure identical with the two scales of the IWI explaining 54.2% of the variance. The convergent validity hypotheses were confirmed, construct validity was partly confirmed for the PWI being a deconstruction of a first factor called “satisfaction with life” (38.1% explained variance). Happy participants scored higher on the PWI (84.3 ± 7.9 vs. 68.7 ± 13.7; p < .001) and NWI (64.3 ±  15.8 vs. 57.9 ±  15.1; p < .001) scores than unhappy participants. It is concluded that the Austrian version of the IWI is a reliable and valid instrument to assess personal and national well-being. Further studies including a representative sample should be carried out on a recurring basis to use the IWI as an indicator for social science research in Austria.     

Assessing the Measurement and Structure of Material Hardship in the United States

Previous attempts to measure material well-being or hardship have not made clear the relationship of individual items to the broader concept of hardship. The current study used the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), a large-scale U.S. survey with a large number of questions on the material circumstances of households to create a measurement model of hardship that takes this relationship into account. A higher-order model with five-first-order factors: consumer durables, resources available to meet needs, housing conditions, neighborhood problems and crime, and community services, and a single second-order factor hardship fit the data well, with the “Housing” and “Neighborhood” first-order factors most strongly related to the higher-order hardship construct. Despite our attempts to tie the hardship measures to objective conditions, subjective evaluations were strongly related to most of the factors.

The structure and significance of community satisfaction

Residential and community satisfaction have been studied for many decades in an effort to understand human commitments to local places. In more recent years, concepts that more nearly reflect commitment have been developed, among them place attachment. Yet, the extensive, prior work on empirical indicators of satisfaction give that concept a particularly useful entry into studies of experiences of place, even though these may only provide estimates of phenomena of deeper commitment. The present study is drawn from the data for a large-scale investigation of the meaning ofcommunity in metropolitan America. Based on 2,622 women and men from 42 municipalities in 10 SMSAs across the United States, the study includes a sample of all socioeconomic statuses and from minority as well as majority populations. On the basis of factor analyses of a wide array of evaluations and satisfactions with housing, neighborhood, and the wider community, a structure for community satisfaction has been delineated. On the basis of these community satisfaction factors, along with several other social role and personality variables, an estimate is provided of the personal significance of community satisfaction in people's lives, using life satisfaction as the dependent variable. While there are socioeconomic status and other variations, community satisfactions appear to be important influences on life satisfaction at all socioeconomic status levels.Requests for reprints should be addressed to Marc Fried, Dept. of Psychology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02167.The now defunct Center for Metropolitan Studies of the National Institute of Mental Health was most helpful, not only in funding this study but in many other respects as well. The author is also grateful to the many people who participated in the large-scale study of which this paper represents only a small part. In particular, John Havens and Lorna Ferguson were most important to the achieving of the objectives of the study.     

School Attachment Among Taiwanese Adolescents: The Roles of Individual Characteristics,Peer Relationships,and Teacher Well-Being

This study examines the effects of individual characteristics (school grade and gender), peer relationships (peer support and peer victimization), and the subjective well-being of teachers (depression and job satisfaction) on students’ attachment to school. Twenty-four classes in grades 7 through 9 at two middle schools in Taipei were selected as the sample, and survey data were obtained from students and homeroom teachers. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to conduct a two-level analysis on 720 students and 24 teachers with valid data on all research variables. A series of models were constructed and tested stepwise. The results indicated that students’ average school attachment scores varied significantly among classes. A higher school grade was associated with reduced attachment while no gender difference was found. Peer support had a positive influence and peer victimization had a negative effect on school attachment. Finally, job satisfaction of the homeroom teachers positively contributed to students’ attachment to school, but teachers’ depression had no significant effect. Implications for creating a positive classroom environment were discussed.     

How Neighborhood Features Affect Quality of Life

In this paper we report on the development ofthree conceptual models that explain howsatisfaction with neighborhood features affectresidents' quality of life (life satisfaction). The first model posits that satisfaction withsocial, economic, and physical features of theneighborhood affects life satisfaction throughthe mediation effect of one's overall feelingstoward the neighborhood. That is, satisfactionwith the social, economic, and physicalfeatures tend to contribute to one's overallsatisfaction with the neighborhood(neighborhood satisfaction), which in turnplays a positive role in overall feelingstoward life (life satisfaction). Survey datafrom a variety of communities located insouthwest Virginia were collected, and the datafailed to provide support to this model. The second model posits that satisfaction withthe neighborhood features (social, economic,and physical) does affect life satisfactionthrough a hierarchy-of-satisfaction effects –satisfaction with the neighborhood featuresimpacts neighborhood satisfaction, which inturn affects community satisfaction and housingsatisfaction. Housing satisfaction, in turn,affects home satisfaction. Both homesatisfaction and community satisfaction, inturn, affect life satisfaction. The surveydata failed to support this model too. The third model posits that satisfaction withdifferent features of the neighborhood (social,economic, and physical) affect different domainsatisfactions, which in turn affect lifesatisfaction. Specifically, the model arguesthat satisfaction with the physical featuresaffects both neighborhood satisfaction andhousing satisfaction. Neighborhoodsatisfaction plays a role in communitysatisfaction, whereas housing satisfactionplays a role in home satisfaction. Bothcommunity satisfaction and home satisfaction,in turn, play a role in life satisfaction. Satisfaction with the social features of theneighborhood plays a role in the satisfactionwith the neighborhood and the community – thelatter feeds into life satisfaction. Satisfaction with the economic features of theneighborhood plays a role in the satisfactionwith the house and home – the latter feeds intolife satisfaction. The data were mostly supportive of this model.