Understanding Human Well-being

With more than a billion people living on less than one dollar per day, human well-being is a core issue for both researchers and policymakers. The Millennium Development Goals are a powerful reminder of this point. We now know more about human well-being and the related concepts of poverty and inequality than ever before, as a result of many conceptual and methodological advances and better data. Yet despite this progress, the vitality of underlying concepts and the quality of data are repeatedly challenged and still leave much to be desired, particularly with regard to the world's poorest countries. This book looks at advances in underlying well-being, poverty, and inequality concepts and corresponding empirical measures and case studies. Traditional monetary concepts and measurements are examined as well as educational achievement, longevity, health, and subjective well-being. Among the measures examined is the Human Development Index, which has done much to refocus attention on the importance of nonmonetary measures of human wellbeing. Chapters review pre-existing concepts and measures, with a view of future developments, while others propose new concepts or measures. Understanding human well-being......Page 5 Contents......Page 7 List of figures......Page 10 List of tables......Page 12 Contributors......Page 17 Foreword......Page 21 Acknowledgements......Page 23 Acronyms......Page 24 Introduction......Page 27 Introduction......Page 29 Volume orientation and contents......Page 32 Key conclusions......Page 37 REFERENCES......Page 39 Part I: Human well-being concepts......Page 43 Introduction......Page 45 Common problems encountered in defining and measuring poverty......Page 46 The monetary approach......Page 50 The capability approach......Page 56 Social exclusion......Page 61 Participatory methods......Page 64 A comparative overview......Page 66 Some empirical evidence on the approaches to poverty measurement......Page 70 Conclusions......Page 74 REFERENCES......Page 75 Introduction......Page 80 Characteristics of poverty and well-being indicators......Page 81 The meaning and measurement of poverty and well-being......Page 82 Economic well-being measures of well-being......Page 87 Non-economic well-being measures of well-being......Page 90 Composite measures of well-being......Page 93 Concluding discussion......Page 94 REFERENCES......Page 96 4 The four qualities of life: Ordering concepts and measures of the good life......Page 100 Grouping qualities of life......Page 101 Outer and inner qualities......Page 102 Four qualities of life......Page 103 Meanings within quality quadrants......Page 105 Difference with other classifications of qualities of life......Page 108 Meanings in comprehensive measures of quality of life......Page 110 Measures for specific qualities of life......Page 115 Can quality of life be measured inclusively?......Page 120 Why cross-quadrant sum scores make no sense......Page 121 Use of this taxonomy......Page 122 REFERENCES......Page 124 Introduction: Inequalities and the capabilities approach......Page 127 Inequality and well-being......Page 128 Inequality and agency......Page 132 Incorporating agency and inequalities in development indicators: Challenges of measurement......Page 134 Conclusions and implications......Page 137 Notes......Page 139 REFERENCES......Page 140 Part II: Well-being measures and applications......Page 143 Introduction......Page 145 Human well-being, human development and Sen’s capability approach......Page 146 A fuzzy-set-based approach for HDI computation......Page 148 Computation of fuzzy-set-based human well-being subindices: A simple illustration......Page 153 Concluding remarks......Page 161 REFERENCES......Page 162 Introduction......Page 165 Meta-index of sustainable development......Page 167 Benefit-of-the-doubt weighting......Page 168 Methodological extensions......Page 170 Existing ISDs: A selective survey......Page 171 Human Development Report (2001)......Page 172 Environmental sustainability index (2002)......Page 174 Ecological footprint (1996-1998)......Page 175 Model specification......Page 176 Country rankings......Page 177 Cluster-level analysis......Page 182 Weights......Page 183 Discriminatory power......Page 185 Correlation analysis......Page 187 Concluding discussion......Page 189 Appendix......Page 191 Notes......Page 192 REFERENCES......Page 193 Introduction......Page 195 The GDI and GEM......Page 196 Data and statistical methods......Page 200 Results......Page 201 Conclusion......Page 203 REFERENCES......Page 206 Introduction......Page 208 On the approach......Page 209 On the main findings in the literature and their explanations......Page 211 The database......Page 212 Poverty and sample inference......Page 213 Subjective well-being in the survey......Page 214 Subjective well-being and income......Page 215 Subjective well-being and access to public services......Page 216 Subjective well-being and socio-economic indicators: Correlation analysis......Page 217 Subjective well-being and heterogeneity in perceptions......Page 218 Personal expenditure and poverty perception......Page 219 Personal expenditure and perception of material needs’ satisfaction......Page 220 A taxonomy of domains of life......Page 221 Life domains and subjective well-being......Page 222 Socio-economic indicators and satisfaction in the domains of life......Page 223 A conceptual referent theory study......Page 224 Conceptual referent heterogeneity, SWB and socio-economic indicators......Page 226 Conclusions......Page 227 Notes......Page 228 REFERENCES......Page 230 Introduction......Page 233 Inequality concept and measures......Page 234 Data and results......Page 236 Conclusion......Page 240 REFERENCES......Page 241 Introduction......Page 243 Maslow’s hierarchical framework......Page 244 Fulfilment of hierarchical needs and well-being......Page 246 Weights......Page 249 Aggregation......Page 251 Analysis......Page 252 FHNI and GDP per capita......Page 253 The FHNI and the HDI......Page 254 REFERENCES......Page 262 Introduction......Page 265 Existing individual and household data......Page 266 Synthetic microdata......Page 267 Spatial microsimulation......Page 268 The SYNAGI reweighting approach......Page 269 The addition of microsimulation......Page 270 Overall impact of the policy option......Page 271 Mapping results......Page 276 Results for individual postcodes......Page 277 Conclusions......Page 284 Acknowledgements......Page 285 Notes......Page 286 REFERENCES......Page 287 Part III: Well-being case studies......Page 289 Introduction......Page 291 Geographical patterns of life expectancy, variations over time and potential causes......Page 293 Theoretical grounds......Page 298 Empirical specification and estimation technique......Page 300 The data......Page 301 Estimation results......Page 306 Robustness of results......Page 312 Conclusions......Page 316 Acknowledgements......Page 317 Notes......Page 318 REFERENCES......Page 320 Introduction......Page 324 Enrolment ratios and education level......Page 326 Current education programmes......Page 327 Key characteristics of the model......Page 328 Modelling of schooling decisions......Page 329 Modelling of occupational choices and earnings......Page 332 Transmission channels between education and income distribution in the model......Page 337 Policy experiments......Page 338 Evolution of the level and distribution of education......Page 341 Impact on growth and the distribution of income......Page 342 Indirect effects through the different transmission channels......Page 345 Conclusion......Page 347 Acknowledgements......Page 348 REFERENCES......Page 349 Introduction......Page 352 Duration analysis......Page 354 Measuring vulnerability to poverty and chronic poverty......Page 355 The persistence of poverty......Page 357 Transition probabilities......Page 362 Duration analysis......Page 363 Vulnerability and its determinants......Page 370 Determinants of chronic poverty......Page 372 Concluding remarks......Page 373 Notes......Page 376 REFERENCES......Page 377 Introduction......Page 379 Trends in income distribution and poverty in Africa......Page 380 Measures of ‘‘pro-poor’’ growth......Page 382 The equity-growth trade-off......Page 387 The challenges of pro-poor growth strategies......Page 395 Conclusion......Page 398 Notes......Page 399 REFERENCES......Page 400 Index......Page 403 "With more than a billion people living on less than one dollar per day, human well-being is a core issue for both researchers and policy-makers. The Millennium Development Goals are a powerful reminder of this point. We now know more about human well-being and the related concepts of poverty and inequality than ever before, as a result of many conceptual and methodological advances and better data. Yet despite this, the vitality of underlying concepts and the quality of data are repeatedly challenged and there remains much to be desired, particularly with regard to the world's poorest countries. This book examines advances in underlying well-being, poverty, and inequality concepts and corresponding empirical applications and case studies. The authors examine traditional monetary concepts and measurements, and non-monetary factors including educational achievement, longevity, health, and subjective well-being."--Publisher's website With more than a billion people living on less than one dollar per day, human well-being is a core issue for both researchers and policy-makers. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are a powerful reminder of this point. We now know more about human well-being and the related concepts of poverty and inequality than ever before, as a result of many conceptual and methodological advances and better data. Yet despite this, the vitality of underlying concepts and the quality of data are repeatedly challenged and there remains much to be desired, particularly with regard to the world's poorest c With more than a billion people living on less than one dollar per day, human well-being is a core issue for both researchers and policy to makers. This book examines advances in underlying well-being, poverty, and inequality concepts and corresponding empirical applications and case studies.