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Using a social ecological understanding of resilience, this position paper explores how schools in different contexts and across cultures influence student resilience by providing them with seven resources that are associated with better developmental outcomes for children: (1) access to material resources; (2) access to supportive relationships; (3) development of a desirable personal identity; (4) experiences of power and control; (5) adherence to cultural traditions; (6) experiences of social justice; and (7) experiences of social cohesion with others. Drawing on results from studies around the world that have assessed these seven factors, this paper makes the case that educational institutions, in collaboration with families and communities, are a form of psychosocial intervention that can improve children’s resilience. Positive outcomes are most likely when there are opportunities for children to experience support for multiple coping strategies that respond to the challenges they find in different environments at school and in their communities. Our review of the research suggests that schools may have the greatest impact on resilience among children who are the most disadvantaged.

The determinants of health are influenced by genetics, lifestyle, social environment, medical conditions, etc. As an informal system, social capital plays an increasingly recognized role in individual health. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the direct and indirect effects of social capital on individual health in China. Using cross-sectional data from the China Family Panel Studies 2016, this paper explores the effects of cognitive and structural social capital on individual health from a micro perspective. The results show that both types of social capital have significant positive effects on individual health, and this effect remains after endogeneity is considered. The two types of social capital show obvious heterogeneity in age samples, urban and rural samples and north–south samples. In addition, the mechanism analysis shows that the health promotion effects of the two types of social capital are mainly derived from the effects of informal finance and access to medical resources. Based on the above findings, this paper puts forward policy recommendations.

Using data on 48 countries, this paper finds that people in economically freer countries care more about education. This is probably mainly because economic freedom enables them and their children to achieve higher returns to education. The magnitude of the estimated effect is substantial. The paper combines individual-level data from the World Values Survey with country-level data on economic freedom and other relevant factors. It controls for all relevant characteristics of survey respondents as well as for potentially confounding country-level characteristics. It also addresses potential endogeneity of economic freedom.

The paper investigates the change in the impact of democracy on political trust in national and international institutions, the European Union (EU) and to the United Nations (UN), after the start of the Great Recession 2008. Based on empirical evidence, the paper argues that the impact of the level of democracy on national trust is different from its impact on international trust post-crisis 2008, despite having been similar before 2008. Overall trend is in line with previous findings on decrease in trust to political institutions. In addition to these findings, this paper also demonstrates that the impact of democracy on trust in international institutions has changed radically after the start of the Great Recession. These findings are important for studies on political trust and democracy, on the consequences of the Great Recession, as well as for the comparative research on regional versus global institutions, such as the EU and the UN.

While there are many cross-sectional studies that provide data on gambling behaviour and the characteristics of those who gamble, there are few large-scale population based longitudinal studies of gambling. This is a serious limitation. It is increasingly being recognised that longitudinal data is required to properly understand gambling behaviour, trajectories, risks and consequences. This paper makes use of a large-scale longitudinal survey that includes questions on gambling behaviour in Australia: the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. Although the HILDA survey currently provides data on gambling at a single point in time in 2015, there are data on the individuals, in the majority of cases, back to 2001. This paper analyses the trajectories of a range of social, health and economic outcomes according to self-reported risk of experiencing gambling related problems. The analysis clearly shows that problem gamblers experience significantly worse outcomes than those without gambling problems, and poor outcomes go back a number of years. In a number of cases, outcomes are becoming progressively poorer, which may suggest either increasingly risky gambling behaviour or the cumulative effects of a sustained period of gambling problems. The long-term nature of the poor health and social outcomes experienced by problem gamblers strongly suggests that programs designed to address gambling problems will have to be cognisant of, and address these underlying issues. Effective treatment is thus likely to be long-term and challenging. It also suggests that restricting access to gambling via mechanisms such as pre-commitment or self-exclusion will be effective.

In 2016 the UK’s Conservative Government radically changed the official approach to child poverty measurement, scrapping targets for income poverty and material deprivation and introducing instead indicators of household ‘worklessness’ and children’s educational attainment at age 16. This paper seeks to assess the extent of support for this move among a range of national experts. The paper briefly reviews the way that poverty has been conceptualized by researchers going back to Booth and Rowntree, before going on to examine 251 responses to a 2012-13 UK government consultation on child poverty measurement. By drawing on the consultation, the paper is able to consider the views of those working in local authorities, children’s charities and frontline services as well as academic researchers. In doing so, it seeks to contribute to the literature on poverty measurement by considering a wider set of voices than are often heard, while also putting on record widespread opposition to the measurement changes. The paper identifies very clear support for an approach to poverty measurement that has income and material deprivation at its heart. Out of 251 responses, just two advocate removing income from poverty measurement. Responses also overwhelmingly reflect a relative understanding of poverty. There is fairly limited support for a multidimensional approach, and the paper reflects on why this might be, given a shift to more multidimensional thinking about poverty globally. It concludes that poverty measurement is highly political: what is measured drives policy, and preferences for indicators therefore reflect, at least in part, current political concerns about how best to hold government to account.

This paper examines the issue of horizontal inequalities in Vietnam over the past 20 years. Using data from three recent Vietnam population censuses (1989, 1999, and 2009) and three Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys (1998, 2008, 2012), we estimated numerous measures on inequalities between five groups against four welfare indicators. Our results show that horizontal inequality matters in Vietnam, in particular for ethnicity, region, and rural/urban groups. While there has been an improvement in horizontal inequality in education, this paper shows little change in other welfare indicators, in particular poverty. We also found that horizontal inequality does matter for poverty reduction in Vietnam and it needs more attention when designing poverty policies in the future.

Tackling the many negative health effects of social isolation has been identified as a policy priority in the UK and consequently many local authorities are developing strategies to ascertain its prevalence through the development of social indices. This paper provides a novel assessment of the emerging approach of developing indices to identify social isolation. It provides an overview of a selection of indices being developed by local authorities across England; considers the validity of such quantitative indices; and explores the extent to which more in-depth qualitative data collected at a neighbourhood level is additionally required. It draws on evidence of a social isolation index for older people created by a northern English local authority, assessing its validity through a qualitative sense check; an innovative approach which has not been attempted elsewhere. The paper contributes important knowledge to the growing literature in this field by further developing understanding around the most effective ways of identifying, measuring, and understanding social isolation at a local level. Our findings indicate that an index, alone, is insufficient to fully capture the multifaceted nature of social isolation as relevant indicators, unique to local spaces, which cannot easily be measured quantitatively, are often excluded. The paper offers a significant and original contribution to the debate for both academics who wish to gain a greater understanding of the role indices can play in identifying those most at risk of social isolation, as well as for policy makers and practitioners who are currently grappling with this challenging concept.

This paper provides an overview of findings from a recent survey of quality of urban life (QOUL) in Hong Kong which focuses on: (a) individuals’ subjective assessment of their overall quality of life (QOL) and of a set of QOL life domains, and (b) their level of satisfaction for three levels of QOUL living domains: their housing, their neighbourhood, and Hong Kong as a whole. Differences between demographic and socio-economic groups are discussed. The paper also reports on preliminary results of multivariate modelling to identify factors that might explain variations in individual levels of satisfaction with their overall QOL and with the three levels of QOUL living domains. The Hong Kong survey of QOUL is compared to those of Brisbane and of the greater Detroit region to highlight differences between urban regions in the east and west. The results show that Hong Kong is still lagging far behind the two western regions in most aspects of the QOL life domains and the three QOUL living domains. The comparisons have implied that the differences between these urban regions are beyond east-west influence in the perception of quality of life and more attributable to disparities in urban environments.

This paper investigates whether two popular poverty indicators, namely income poverty and material deprivation, reach similar conclusions about the poverty reduction effects of income transfers. Such evaluations generally use income poverty. It is well-known, however, that poverty indicators regularly disagree about a person’s poverty status. What is less known is whether such disagreement also confounds estimates of a program’s poverty reduction effects. This paper compares the targeting performance of social assistance, housing and family transfers in countries with different welfare states namely Germany, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom. It finds that a transfer’s targeting performance does not differ much when defining the transfer’s target group either as the poorest income quintile or the poorest material deprivation quintile. Yet, when combining the information from both indicators, transfers appear much more effective in reaching those groups that both poverty indicators identify as part of the target group. Transfers also appear much more efficient in excluding non-target populations. For the groups on which the poverty indicators disagree, more analysis is needed. Triangulation between poverty indicators thus improves the validity of program evaluations as it enables a better separation between (potential) poverty measurement issues and the measurement of a program’s (potential) effects.

This paper performs a multidimensional first order dominance analysis of child wellbeing in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This methodology allows the ordinal ranking of the 11 provinces of the DRC in terms of their wellbeing based upon the probability of their domination. This empirical application obviates the need to adopt a weighting scheme for the deprivation indicators or to rely on the signs of other cross-derivatives for comparison. We execute a bootstrap linear programming algorithm on seven deprivation indicators for three age groups of children derived from the DRC 2007 Standard Demographic and Health Survey. The results reveal widespread disparities in child wellbeing in the DRC.

A number of studies—including our own—find a mid-life dip in well-being. Yet several papers in the psychology literature claim that the evidence of a U-shape is "overblown" and if there is such a thing that any such decline is "trivial". Others have claimed that the evidence of a U-shape "is not as robust and generalizable as is often assumed," or simply "wrong." We identify 409 studies, mostly published in peer reviewed journals that find U-shapes that these researchers apparently were unaware of. We use data for Europe from the Eurobarometer Surveys (EB), 1980–2019; the Gallup World Poll (GWP), 2005–2019 and the UK's Annual Population Survey, 2016–2019 and the Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey of August 2021, to examine U-shapes in age in well-being. We find remarkably strong and consistent evidence across countries of statistically significant and non-trivial U-shapes in age with and without socio-economic controls. We show that studies cited by psychologists claiming there are no U-shapes are in error; we reexamine their data and find differently. The effects of the mid-life dip we find are comparable to major life events such as losing a spouse or becoming unemployed. This decline is comparable to half of the unprecedented fall in well-being observed in the UK in 2020 and 2021, during the Covid19 pandemic and lockdown, which is hardly “inconsequential” as claimed.

Measuring, analyzing, and evaluating social, environmental, and economic impact is crucial to aligning the sustainable development strategies of international organizations, governments, and businesses. In this sense, society has been a determining factor exerting pressure for urgent solutions. The main objective of this paper is to provide an exhaustive analysis of the literature about the tools for measuring social impact and their evolution over the last 50 years. The search was conducted in the main academic databases (Scopus and Web of Science), where 924 articles were found from 1969 to 2020 related to the topic. The results of the quantitative analysis show that 71% of the publications were in the last ten years and the most productive countries were the USA and the United Kingdom. The relational analysis identifies 4 large clusters that fragment the literature into different subfields. The most used keywords are linked to the term "Social" in measurement methods, new concepts, and participants. This article contributes to the literature by giving the researcher an insight into the current state of art, trends, categories within the field, and future lines of research.

Policymakers use estimates of the Value of a Statistical Life (VSL) in performing regulatory reviews to assess the benefits and costs of policies that affect mortality. This paper empirically estimates an adjustment to conventional VSL measures to account for altruistic sentiments and concludes that conventional VSL measures are underestimated by a factor of two to three, suggesting we are greatly undervaluing life in regulatory reviews. This conclusion is attained by estimating the VSL multiplier suggested by Jones-Lee (Econ J 102(410):80–90, 1992), which hinges on assessing whether individuals are more health altruistic than wealth altruistic. The estimated VSL multiplier is greatest for policies that affect children’s mortality, as health altruism is dominant regarding children. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11205-021-02784-7.

This paper offers new evidence on the life-cycle pattern of happiness. A novelty of the analysis is that it exploits information on the period individuals recall as the happiest in their lives. Data come from SHARELIFE 2008/09, a retrospective life survey conducted in 13 European countries among individuals aged 50 or more. Using this information, I build a longitudinal data set that extends across the whole lifespan of respondents. The probability of living a happiest year in life at each age is estimated through a conditional fixed effects logit model. Results show that the likelihood of living the happiest period in life exhibits a concave relationship with age, with a turning point at about 30–34 years and a decreasing trend from that point onward. Retrospectively, midlife is not perceived as the least likely happiest period in life. These patterns persist even after controlling for usual correlates of subjective well-being, and they are rather stable across cohorts and genders despite presenting certain variability across European countries. Financiado para publicación en acceso aberto: Universidade de Vigo/CISUG Agencia Estatal de Investigación | Ref. RTI2018-099403-B-I00

While existing indices of gender equality measure the role of women’s status and position, they inadequately contextualize the broader construct of patriarchy, a social system that underlies many gender inequitable practices. An index capturing patriarchy may afford increased understanding of this social system, and may serve to complement other gender equality indices. This paper involves the development and testing of a novel composite measure, the India Patriarchy Index, to quantify the social and ideological construct of patriarchy using empirical data on family structure and gender roles. Using data from India’s National Family Health Survey, we develop an India Patriarchy Index to measure gendered social positioning in families based on sex by age, patrilocality, sex ratio imbalance among offspring, and gendered economic roles. Psychometric testing demonstrates good internal reliability and construct validity of this index, with validity indicated by its association with three gender equality indices used in India. Spatial and temporal analyses further indicate much state-level variation in India Patriarchy Index scores as well as slow change on this indicator over time, based on time trend analyses from 1992–93 to 2015–16. Results demonstrate the utility of the India Patriarchy Index to measure and track gender equality progress in India.

This paper empirically examines the disparities over time across six dimensions of poverty (monetary, education, health, housing, basic services, and durable assets) between ethnic minority and majority households in rural Vietnam. Using the five-wave panel data of the Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS) 2008–2016, we observe improvements in most non-monetary dimensions of poverty for both ethnic groups, while the monetary dimension shows the highest degrees of deprivation and the lowest rate of decrease during the studied period. Health is the only dimension in which ethnic minority households are not only better off than those of majority households during the studied period, but also report improvement. We further explore the role of social capital in ethnic minorities and non-minorities at household and community levels in multiple dimensions of poverty by employing multilevel models. Our study reports the significant effects social capital have at the community level on reducing poverty in the monetary, education, housing, and basic services dimensions for ethnic minorities, while social capital at the household level shows significant effects on monetary, basic services, and durable assets. These findings indicate that policy makers ought to consider the role of social capital when designing poverty alleviation strategies for the country.

Despite comparable living standards and a nearly universal healthcare provision, there are large cross-country differences in population health in the European Union. More than half of this variation remains unexplained after accounting for macro-level factors. This paper investigates how individual-level differences in demographic characteristics, education, labour market factors and income shape the prevalence of poor self-assessed health in the EU. A semi-parametric decomposition approach is used, which relies on constructing synthetic distributions of health that would prevail in each country if they had similar distributions of socio-economic factors as the country with the best self-assessed population health—Ireland. We find clustering of decomposition results within EU regions. When compared with Ireland, differences in the examined factors explain up to a third of excess poor health in the Southern and Central and Eastern European countries. On the other hand, we could not explain health differences between Ireland and the other Western European countries, which tend to have poorer self-assessed population health but more favourable distributions of socio-economic factors. Cultural differences in reporting styles may be responsible for this result.

Previous studies on the work-family relationship have analyzed the influence of work-family conflict and work-family enrichment on an individuals’ lives, namely on their well-being and health. Besides, attempts have been made to analyze the influence of other aspects of the labor context on this relationship, such as job insecurity. However, few have analyzed this relationship and interaction from a longitudinal perspective. Thus, the main purpose of this study is to analyze the moderating role of job insecurity in the work-family relationship and the perceived health of 373 workers of a Portuguese bank, across time. The results showed a negative influence of work-family conflict on perceived health 5 years after. Also, job insecurity was found to offset the relationship between work-family enrichment and perceived health, acting as a buffer. This research allows for a better understanding of how job insecurity, a characteristic of modern-day employment, can impact workers' quality of life. This paper also refers to some practical implications, in addition to the limitations of the study, and presents suggestions for future research in this context.

Ratio-based prevalence and absolute headcounts are the two most commonly accepted metrics to measure the burden of various socioeconomic phenomenon. However, ratio-based prevalence, calculated as the number of cases with certain conditions relative to the total population, is by far the most widely used to rank burden and consequently for targeting, across different populations, often defined in terms of geographical areas. In this regard, targeting areas exclusively based on prevalence-based metric poses certain fundamental difficulties with some serious policy implications. Drawing the data from the National Family Health Survey 2015–2016, and Census 2011, this paper takes four indicators of child undernutrition in India as an example to examine two contextual questions: first, does the choice of metric matter for targeting areas for reducing child undernutrition in India? and second; which metric should be used to facilitate comparisons and targeting across variable populations? Our findings suggest a moderate correlation between prevalence estimates and absolute headcounts implying that choice of metric does matter when targeting child undernutrition. Huge variations were observed between prevalence-based and absolute count-based ranking of the districts. In fact, in various cases, districts with the highest absolute number of undernourished children were ranked as relatively lower-burden districts based on prevalence. A simple comparison between the two approaches—when applied to targeting undernourished children in India—indicates that prevalence-based prioritization may miss high-burden areas where substantially higher number of undernourished children are concentrated. For developing populous countries like India, which is already grappling with high levels of maternal and child malnutrition and poor health infrastructure along with intrinsic socioeconomic inequalities, it is critical to adopt an appropriate metric for effective targeting and prioritization.

This paper estimates the extent to which childhood circumstances contribute to health inequality in old age and evaluates the importance of major domains of childhood circumstances to health inequalities in the USA and China. We link two waves of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study in 2013 and 2015 with the newly released 2014 Life History Survey, and two waves of the Health and Retirement Study in 2014 and 2016 with the newly released 2015 Life History Mail Survey in the USA, to quantify health inequality due to childhood circumstances for which they have little control. Using the Shapley value decomposition approach, we show that childhood circumstances may explain 7-16 and 14-30% of health inequality in old age in China and the USA, respectively. Specifically, the contribution of childhood circumstances to health inequality is larger in the USA than in China for self-rated health, mental health, and physical health. Examining domains of childhood circumstance, regional and rural/urban status contribute more to health inequality in China, while family socioeconomic status contributes more to health inequality in the USA. Our findings support the value of a life course approach in identifying the key determinants of health in old age. Distinguishing sources of health inequality and rectifying inequality due to early childhood circumstances should be the basis of policy promoting health equity.

This paper contributes to the debate on the Sustainable Development Goals progress by evaluating the MDGs achievements in South Asia and the policy and institutional challenges deriving from such experience. Using cross-country regressions and aggregate indicators of poverty, health, education and gender parity outcomes, we offer three sets of findings. First, comparative evidence shows that, while South Asia has converged with richer regions, there is still significant variation in gender equality, universal primary education, and income poverty achievements across countries. Second, projections based on past trends on where SDGs are expected to be by 2030 reveal that there is a long way to go, where emblematic targets as income poverty eradication may not be met in the populous South Asian countries. Finally, considering the expanded set of development targets in the SDGs and the growth slowdown in South Asia, we argue that further progress would simultaneously require increased public spending on health and education and reforms improving state capacity. A simulation exercise confirms that such a combination of interventions would deliver significant benefits in the region, particularly in areas that are critical to progress on the goals of ‘No Poverty’, ‘Quality Education’, ‘Gender Equality’, and ‘Inclusive Growth’.

OBJECTIVES: In a context of rising income inequality and policies to improve rights and inclusion for persons with disabilities, this paper examines income inequality trends by household work limitation status in the United States from 1981–2018. METHODS: Data comes from the March Supplement of the Current Population Survey using the work limitation disability measure to estimate decomposable Generalized Entropy measures of income inequality, and progressivity of government transfers and disability payments. RESULTS: Over the 1981–2018 period, inequality within the group of households with work limitations has been around 30 percent higher than inequality within the group of households without work limitations. Both households with and without work limitations have seen a similar 70 percent rise in income inequality since 1981. Progressivity of government transfers and disability payments increased among households with limitations, but not among other households. CONCLUSIONS: Income inequality is higher within the group of households with work limitations compared to other households and has been rising for both groups. Policies aimed to enhance the economic and social participation of persons with disabilities over this period may have mitigated this rising trend. Disability considerations should be part of research and policy on income inequality.

Food insecurity is the limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire foods in socially acceptable ways. The study presents a comparison of the principal determinants of individual food insecurity in Europe and other Continents, with particular regard to gender, since the literature clearly states the importance of women in the administration of food in the household. The study of gender related differences in food insecurity is particularly important in Europe, since women experience food insecurity at a larger extent than men, but with a variability related to the geographical distribution and with complex relationships with economic and social drivers. Using a large international sample of individual level data, that allows the analysis for developed Countries for the first time, and the first experiential measure of food insecurity comparable at the global level, the paper analyses the principal determinants of gender differences in food insecurity. In order to verify if women’s vulnerability in food insecurity is moderated by specific factors, the modelling approach allows gender to vary by education, poverty, place of residence. The results suggest that the driver that could most mitigate women disadvantage is education: people with a university degree present a lower probability of experiencing food insecurity, both for men and for women. On the contrary, familial characteristics, such as the number of children in the household, present a higher impact on women’s food insecurity than on men’s.

The aim of this paper is to explain the determinants of longevity in 20 European Union countries for which comparable data are available for the period 1990–2016. We use a health equation to explain life expectancy at age 65 for total population considering socioeconomic factors, population structure, health resources, lifestyles and environment as the main determinants of health status. Panel estimation techniques are implemented to estimate the health equation with lagged explanatory variables to attenuate the endogeneity problems of regressors. Our evidence shows that per capita income, education and pharmaceutical expenditures positively affect life expectancy at the age of 65. As expected, risky lifestyles and air pollution have a significant negative impact on health. The interaction between population age structure and pharmaceutical expenditures proves also to be important for explaining longevity. Our evidence reinforces the idea that investing in education and health care provision is the way to achieve healthier longevity allowing a more active participation of the elderly in society.

The income inequality hypothesis claims that in rich societies inequality causes a range of health and social problems (henceforth: social ills), e.g. because economic inequality induces feelings of status anxiety and corrodes social cohesion. This paper provides an encompassing test of the income inequality hypothesis by exploring levels and breeding conditions of social ills in 40 affluent countries worldwide, as well as pathways for a subsample of wealthy European countries. Our aggregate-level research is based on a revised and updated Index of Social Ills inspired by Wilkinson and Pickett’s book The Spirit Level, which we compile for both more countries (40) and more years (2000–2015) and combine with survey information about experienced quality-of-life as potential mediators. We get three major results: First, cross-sectionally income inequality is indeed strongly and consistently related to social ills, but so is economic prosperity. Second, while longitudinally changes in inequality do not result in changing levels of social ills, rising prosperity effectively reduces the amount of social ills, at least in Europe. Finally, whereas the cross-sectional analysis indicates that aspects of social cohesion most consistently mediate between economic conditions and social ills, the longitudinal mediation analyses could not ultimately clarify through which pathway rising prosperity reduces social ills. Overall we conclude that the income inequality hypothesis is, at best, too narrow to fully understand health and social problems in rich countries.

An important body of research has used time diaries to assess the transformation of gender relationships at home. However, little is known about how partners perceive time shared together. While the household division of labor still remains heavily gendered, it can be expected that what partners do, even when they are together, is also gendered. The aim of this paper is to address the question of the discrepancy (or mismatch) in couples’ reporting of time together as well as the potential discrepancy in the activities engaged in during shared time. Using the 2015 UK Time Use Survey, I show that there is no gender difference in how partners report being together; however, important gender imbalances exist in what partners do when together. In particular, I find that, when together with their partner, men are much more likely to watch TV and enjoy leisure while women do domestic chores. I conclude by discussing different concepts of time together and the usefulness of couple-level diary data for studying gender relationships at home.

Because the value of preschool child care is under intensive debate among both policy-makers and society in general, this paper analyzes the relation between preschool care and the well-being of children and adolescents in Germany. It specifically examines differences in outcomes based on child socioeconomic background by focusing on the heterogeneous effects for migrant children. Our findings, based on data from the German Health Interview and Examination Survey of Children and Adolescents (KiGGS), suggest that children who have experienced child care have a slightly lower well-being overall. For migrant children, however, the outcomes indicate a positive relation. These results remain robust after controlling for selection into child care on observables and using an instrumental variable approach to address potential endogeneity.

For the last 5 years, the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Gender Gap Index has been reporting that Nicaragua is one of the most gender equal countries in the world. This is the culmination of a remarkable increase in gender equality in Nicaragua during the past decade, charted by the same index. This paper discusses the Index and the Nicaraguan context and then refers to the results of several waves of the Latinobarometer to investigate whether the change in gender equality has affected Nicaraguans’ (and particularly Nicaraguan women’s) perceptions of their lives. The underlying question is therefore whether satisfaction with life, and opinions about gender equality have, for Nicaraguans, altered between the period when Nicaragua was placed low on the gender equality ranking to when it had attained a high rating on the index just a few years later. The findings, which come from ordered probit regression analysis, reveal slight evidence of improvements over this time period and emphasise the importance of economic fundamentals.

This study examines the prevalence and the gender differences in the perceptions and experiences of flexibility stigma—i.e., the belief that workers who use flexible working arrangements for care purposes are less productive and less committed to the workplace. This is done by using the 4th wave of the Work-Life Balance Survey conducted in 2011 in the UK. The results show that 35% of all workers agree to the statement that those who work flexibly generate more work for others, and 32% believe that those who work flexibly have lower chances for promotion. Although at first glance, men are more likely to agree to both, once other factors are controlled for, women especially mothers are more likely to agree to the latter statement. Similarly, men are more likely to say they experienced negative outcomes due to co-workers working flexibly, while again mothers are more likely to say they experienced negative career consequences due to their own flexible working. The use of working time reducing arrangements, such as part-time, is a major reason why people experience negative career outcomes, and can partially explain why mothers are more likely to suffer from such outcomes when working flexibly. However, this relationship could be reverse, namely, the stigma towards part-time workers may be due to negative perceptions society hold towards mothers’ commitment to work and their productivity. In sum, this paper shows that flexibility stigma is gendered, in that men are more likely to discriminate against flexible workers, while women, especially mothers, are more likely to suffer from such discrimination.

Gender equality has been widely explored, but there is limited research investigating its variability at regional level. This paper aims to fill this gap by developing and validating a new, regional gender gaps index, compatible with previous indices used to compare gender equality across nations but now fit for the purpose of measuring gender equality across regions, within nations. To this end, we (i) reviewed existing indicators of gender equality; (ii) assessed the contribution of the indicators most frequently used in previous research to measure gender equality; (iii) developed an extended, regional version of the gender gaps index (eRGGI), by extending it to include new indicators able to capture female empowerment in developed countries, like Italy; and, (iv) explored the variability of gender equality across Italian regions. In developing our eRGGI, some indicators traditionally used to measure gender equality were removed and others were introduced to capture new dimensions of gender equality to suit modern conditions regarding contexts where equality is considered important, in contemporary Europe. Results showed that gender equality varies dramatically across regions, also confirming the relevance of the new indicators we proposed to add. Such results call for more caution in interpreting results based on nationally aggregated data to inform policy and practice, arguing for regional comparisons to become more prominent.

Being at the core of sustainable growth, food insecurity is one of the most important issues in determining a country’s level of development. The first aim of this paper is to compare food insecurity in different subpopulations across countries. The second goal is to assess which factors affect individual food insecurity in the world, while taking into account the level of a country’s development. This has not been possible until very recently. Through the FAO Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) module of the Gallup World Poll, the same information has been collected with an identical methodology and instrument all over the world of more than 150 thousand individuals from 147 countries. Food insecurity presents marked differences depending on the level of development of the country under consideration. To take this into account, countries have been grouped together using a cluster analysis, based on the indicators from the UN Human Development Index. The model was estimated by means of an ordered logistic regression, both at the global level and for each group of countries. The model permits identification of the economic, social, and demographic characteristics related to food insecurity. Level of education, composition and number of children in the household, and location of dwellings had a significant impact on the risk of food insecurity. These results provide valuable insight into the phenomenon and can support policies aimed at ending hunger and improving the well-being of population.

This paper documents the variation in living standards of the poorest fifth of children in rich (and some middle-income) nations, with a focus on the relative importance and interaction of social transfers (net of taxes) and labour market incomes. Overall, the cross-national variation in the disposable income of disadvantaged children is comprised equally of variation in market and transfer income (with the two negatively correlated). The English-speaking countries stand out as all having relatively low market incomes, but substantial variation in transfer income. Their low market incomes reflect low employment hours in Australia and primarily low hours in the UK and Ireland, while in the US and Canada low hours and low pay contribute equally. Comparing incomes prior to and after the 2008 financial crisis, the real disposable incomes of the poorest fifth decreased substantially in Greece, Spain and Ireland, but were relatively stable in other rich nations.

There is a burgeoning literature on wealth in the rich world. It mainly focuses on the top. This paper shows that assets can also matter for the analysis of poverty and financial vulnerability. We introduce the concept of triple precariousness, afflicting households that not only have low income but also very low or non-existent assets to draw on for consumption needs, especially liquid assets. We ask whether these householdswhom we might call the truly vulnerablehave different characteristics from those that we identify as poor or needy on the basis of income based metrics. This study looks in detail at Belgium, a country that represents a particularly interesting case because households are known to have levels of household wealth that are among the highest in the Eurozone, especially around and below the median, and yet it also has a comparatively high poverty rate, measured using disposable household income, as is commonly done in poverty studies. Drawing on HFCS data, we show that households with a reference person that is young, unemployed, low educated, migrant, single, and above all a tenant are especially financially vulnerable. By contrast, our assessment of the extent and depth of financial need among the elderlya segment of society that is at a relatively high risk of income povertyalso changes. A substantial share of income poor elderly households own significant assets. We draw out some tentative consequences of these findings for anti-poverty and redistributive policies.

The literature on inequality in Tanzania has been dependent on limited rounds of methodologically different household budget surveys. The literature in question seldomly goes beyond analysis of inequality trends between two rounds of surveys, thereby ignoring longer period inequality trends. This study makes use of six rounds of methodological stable Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) to present a half-century trend in education and wealth inequality in Tanzania. Education inequality persists but has been declining between rural and urban areas and particularly between Dar es Salaam and other regions. Gender inequality in education has also consistently been on the decline across different age ranges, more so for older individuals than younger ones. Wealth inequality as measured by a composite index has been declining as well—mostly an outcome of the declining proportion of households in the poorest quantile in rural areas compared to an increasing proportion of urban households in the same quantile. In other words, using the DHS’s composite index of selected assets, the Tanzanian society is increasingly becoming equal in both education and wealth. The paper also discusses policy options to further reduce inequalities.

The objectives of this paper are twofold. First, it reviews the empirical evidence showing the existence of linkage between wellbeing and possible co-benefits, investigating in particular the positive effect that happiness and life satisfaction can have on health, social outcomes, employment, education and environmental behaviours. Second, it presents the valuation methods that have been proposed in the literature to place a monetary value on these outcomes. With wellbeing having become more and more relevant for individuals and policy makers, the full understanding of the co-benefits of wellbeing is central for the design and development of wellbeing interventions. As a consequence, the evaluation of the co-benefits of wellbeing is of crucial importance for the appropriate allocation of resources towards such strategies.

This paper explores the ways in which consensually-defined, socially-constructed living standards could be helpful in providing new ways of understanding living standards in Mexico. A pilot study formulating a "Minimum Income Standard", carried out in the country in 2016, asked members of Mexican society what they consider to be necessary to achieve a dignified standard of living in urban Mexico today. Participants discussed the meaning of a dignified standard of living and translated such definition into concrete items in a hypothetical living room and in leisure time. Our study reveals that social participation, security, and employment are seen as important elements to live a dignified standard of living, which permeate the rationale for identifying the goods and services seen as needed to achieve a dignified living standard. The definition of a dignified standard of living could usefully inform and contribute to the ongoing debate on wage adequacy in the country.

As part of Sustainable Development Goals, the United Nations have set targets of upgrading slums and reducing poverty in all its dimensions by 2030. Policies towards improving the living conditions of slum-dwellers require proper assessment of their standard of living as well as understanding the associated characteristics. In this paper, using slum-level primary household survey data from three largest Indian cities, we, first, assess the standard of living of slum dwellers using both monetary and non-monetary approaches and then explore how various household and spatial characteristics are consistently or differently associated with both forms of assessments. We use standard monetary indicators, but to assess non-monetary standard of living, use a counting approach framework and justify the selection of specific indicators in the context of slums. Our analysis yields some interesting observations as some characteristics are differently associated with monetary and non-monetary living standards, which should affect policy designs in slums.

This paper demonstrates the applicability of an innovative approach towards examining child disadvantage, using a holistic, dynamic measure that not only accounts for multiple sources of disadvantage but also for the recurrence and persistence of disadvantage throughout a child’s life. We analyse child disadvantage using two longitudinal surveys of the Australian child population, one of which is specific to Indigenous children, who experience notably higher rates of disadvantage. Among Australian children, we detect that poor body weight and bullying—representative of the broad dimensions of health and emotional wellbeing—should be of significant concern to policymakers. Among Indigenous children, housing conditions, schooling and exposure to risky behaviours stand out as areas of concern. By identifying the dimensions in which rates of child disadvantage are most severe, this methodological approach can help steer targeted policy actions.

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-021-02652-4

Few studies have examined the role of religiosity and social capital on civic engagement in the context of a Muslim country. In this paper, we explore the impact of religiosity and social capital on charitable donations and volunteerism in Qatar. Drawing on a nationally representative survey from Qatar, we consider various attitudinal and behavioral measures for capturing religiosity and social capital. The results indicate that, even after controlling for a wide range of demographic variables, behavioral measures have a stronger effect than attitudes. Individuals who regularly perform daily prayers are more likely to donate than those individuals who simply describe themselves as religious. Similarly, individuals who are more active in their neighborhood engagement are more likely to volunteer than those who merely report high levels of social trust. These results suggest that when it comes to the relationship between religiosity, social capital and civic engagement, individual behavior is much more predictive than attitudes alone. We also find that even in the case of Qatar, where citizen wealth has rapidly increased in the last few decades, there is little evidence of substitution effects: citizens do not appear to trade-off or substitute between time and money. Instead, more religious and active citizens are likely to do both.

Research on immigrants’ assimilation is widespread both in the U.S. and Europe. While it has been extensively studied how immigrants fare compared to natives on socio-economic indicators, few studies have focussed on immigrants’ perception of their position. In this paper we focus on comparing life satisfaction of immigrants and natives across Europe and on the role of social embeddedness. Using data from the first six rounds (2002–2012) of the European Social Survey, a repeated cross-sectional survey, we find that life satisfaction among immigrants is lower than among natives even though differences diminish over generations. For first generation immigrants part of the life satisfaction gap is explained by the lower level of social embeddedness they have compared to natives. We also find that social embeddedness is a key explanatory factor for life satisfaction for both immigrants and natives. For two out of the three indicators of social embeddedness that we consider we however find different patterns of association with life satisfaction for immigrants compared to natives.

This paper analyses the trend of the socioeconomic inequalities in infant mortality rates in Egypt over the period 1995–2014, using repeated cross-sectional data from the National Demographic and Health Survey. A multivariate logistic regression and concentration indices are used to examine the demographic and socioeconomic correlates of infant mortality, and how the degree of socioeconomic disparities in child mortality rates has evolved over time. We find a significant drop in infant mortality rates from 63 deaths per 1000 live births in 1995 to 22 deaths per 1000 live births in 2014. However, analyzing trends over the study period reveals no corresponding progress in narrowing the socioeconomic disparities in childhood mortality. Infant mortality rates remain higher in rural areas and among low-income families than the national average. Results show an inverse association between infant mortality rates and living standard measures, with the poor bearing the largest burden of early child mortality. Though the estimated concentration indices show a decline in the degree of socioeconomic inequality in child mortality rates over time, infant mortality rate among the poor remains twice the rate of the richest wealth quintile. Nonetheless, this decline in the degree of socioeconomic inequality in child mortality is not supported by the results of the multivariate logistic regression model. Results of the logistic model show higher odds of infant mortality among rural households, children who are twins, households with risky birth intervals. We find no statistically significant association between infant mortality and child’s sex, access to safe water, mothers’ work, and mothers’ nutritional status. Infant mortality is negatively associated with household wealth and regular health care during pregnancy. Concerted effort and targeting intervention measures are still needed to reduce the degree of socioeconomic and regional inequalities in child health, including infant mortality, in Egypt.

The distribution of income related health inequalities appears to exhibit changing patterns when both developing countries and developed countries are examined. This paper tests for the existence of a health Kuznets' curve, that is an inverse U-shape pattern between economic developments measured by GDP per capita) and income-related health inequalities (as measured by concentration indices). We draw upon both cross section (the World Health Survey) and a long longitudinal (the European Community Household Panel survey) dataset. Our results suggest evidence of a health Kuznets' curve on per capita income. Our findings point towards the existence of a polynomial association where inequalities decline when GDP per capita reaches a magnitude ranging between $26,000 and $38,700.That is, income-related health inequalities rise with GDP per capita, but tail off once a threshold level of economic development has been attained.

Happiness in nations is typically measured in surveys using a single question. A common question is: 'All things considered, how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with your life as-a-whole these days on a scale from 0 to 10?'.The responses typically follow a uni-modal distribution with highest frequencies between 5 and 8. Yet in some nations, the percentage of 10 responses stands out and is higher than the percentage of 9 responses. In this paper we explore the prevalence of this '10-excess' pattern and check some possible explanations. We conclude that this 10-excess phenomenon is at least partly a matter of measurement bias. A correction for this bias increases the explanatory power. Keywords: happiness, survey research, cross national, cultural bias, response tendencies

One of the most important policy objectives in the post-apartheid South African economy is to reduce poverty. Although economic growth and job creation are the preferred sources of alleviating poverty and inequality, social grant spending has contributed significantly to reduce poverty (Van der Berg et al. in Poverty trends since the transition: what we know. Stellenbosch Economic Working Papers: 19/09. Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University, 2009). Recently proposals were tabled by the Department of Social Development of South Africa (Fin24 in R3.3bn plan to extend child support grant to 21. http://www.fin24.com/Economy/R33bn-child-care-grant-extension-to-21-on-cards-20150316. Accessed August 7, 2015, 2015) to extend the age eligibility of the child support grant (CSG) to 21 years (at the time of writing children aged up to 18 years are eligible). This sparked an interest to investigate the impact on poverty of changes to the eligibility criteria of CSG, as well as its fiscal implications. Using person and household data from the 2010/2011 Income and Expenditure Survey, various simulations are performed to assess the impact on poverty rates and changes to social spending, given the following changes: (1) if all age-eligible children applied; (2) if all beneficiaries received the grant amount for the full 12-month duration; (3) if the age eligibility criterion is extended; and (4) if the monthly child grant income amount is revised upwards. We also examine how changes in the eligibility criteria affect the income distribution.

Accessible employment suited to residents’ needs is an important equity issue and social determinant of health and wellbeing, and a balanced jobs-housing ratio within a region has the potential to provide health benefits. This paper aims to provide evidence on the associations between employment and health, and the potential pathways, as well as identifying spatial indicators that can be used to measure urban employment, a construct of liveability. We used 2011 census data to create and test two area-level spatial measures of urban employment with geo-coded population health behaviour and outcome data (2011 VicHealth survey) in 5206 employed adults living in urban Victoria, Australia. Those living in areas with higher levels of local employment had reduced odds of a longer commute (OR 0.87). The odds of a longer commute time was also greater for those who lived in an area where more people commuted to work by private vehicle (OR 1.20), and less for those who lived in local areas where more people travelled to work by public transport (OR 0.85) or active travel (OR 0.80). The odds of reporting longer sitting times was less for those who lived in a local area where more people commuted to work by private vehicle (OR 0.65). Those who had a longer commute times, regardless of travel mode, had greater odds of reporting more sitting during a typical weekday (OR 1.67). In turn, those who spent more time sitting had significantly greater odds of reporting poorer self-rated health (OR 1.34). Such work provides evidence to policy-makers to help build the argument for which area-level attributes are needed to support urban employment across a region.

An individual's, and indeed the nation's, social and economic futures are highly dependent on early childhood development (ECD) outcomes, with poor ECD inhibiting future opportunities. Ecological ECD literature describes family, community and institutions as being key factors in children's wellbeing, with suggestions that community factors may ameliorate impacts of poor ECD. It is therefore important to develop a greater understanding of those modifiable factors that positively, and negatively, affect ECD outcomes so as ECD policy and practice can be designed and implemented effectively. One approach to this analysis is through the identification and analysis of influencing factors identified within off-diagonal communities-that is those communities where children have either developed well in consideration of their high-levels of socio-economic disadvantage, or developed poorly in consideration of their low levels of socio-economic disadvantage. In this paper we describe a new method for the identification of off-diagonal communities. The method provides a clear and transparent approach to community selection, including a range of methods to further interrogate the community selection ensuring a rigorous and considered selection process. This new method, based on population Census and Australian Early Development Census data, provides the first step in identifying community factors likely to facilitate childhood wellbeing. These findings could inform policy making to reduce inequities by assisting in policy and service delivery design targeted to community needs. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Numerous community indicator projects have been developed over the past 30 years and are now present in many countries including the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and South America. However, creating influence and action using community indicators requires long-term effort strengthened by partnership, policy applications, training and research. This paper provides a reflective case study analysis that reviews the development of the community indicator system of Community Indicators Victoria in Australia. The analysis includes a review of best practice indicator principles guiding the development of current and future community indicator systems and describes how these factors influenced the development, establishment, and expansion of the Community Indicators Victoria system.

Since 1999 a series of reforms have been introduced to the UK welfare system with the aim of increasing lone parents’ employment rates. Increased employment was expected not only to reduce rates of lone parent poverty but lead to wider benefits including improvements in their mental health. Yet for lone mothers there is little evidence on the relationship between work and mental health. Using data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) from 1991 to 2008 this paper assesses how lone mothers’ mental health, measured in the BHPS using the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), is influenced by employment and how this relationship changed over the period of welfare reform. We estimate a range of panel data models and compare the results for lone and partnered mothers. In the period after welfare reform being in work was associated with significant improvements in the mental health of lone mothers. This was in sharp contrast to the situation prior to reform when there was very little association between employment and mental health: both those in and out of work had a very high risk of poor mental health. The change in the relationship between work and mental health occurred alongside a sharp increase in lone mothers employment rates. For partnered mothers, employment was also associated with improved mental health, although the effect was much smaller than that for lone mothers in the period after welfare reform and showed no significant change over time. The fact that partnered mothers did not see any change in the relationship between work and mental health over time suggests that reforms to the welfare system have been an important reason for the observed improvements in working lone mothers’ mental health. We conclude that employment under a supportive policy environment employment can improve lone mothers’ mental health, but that these gains are not automatic. In the 1990s lone mothers saw no significant mental health benefits to work.