This paper explores the development of survey questions to measure autonomy, interpreted as the degree of choice and control a person has in key areas of his or her life. A review of the theoretical literature leads to a conceptualisation of autonomy as consisting of three components: (1) self-reflection, (2) active or delegated decision-making,…

Since the 1980s, many employment relationships in Taiwan have evolved from regular and long-term to contingent and short-term, with widespread downsizing adding a considerable amount of instability. Since these changes are part of a global trend, there is a growing literature concerning their influences on worker attitudes and work life quality.…

This paper seeks to analyze the influence of the weather on a person's self-reported life satisfaction. On a theoretical level, it is claimed that "nice" weather can improve the affective well-being of a person. Given this, it is argued that affects can, in turn, have an impact on that person's general assessment of his or her life. In…

The increase in leisure time over the last century is well documented. We know much less, however, about the quality of the use of leisure time. Quite divergent predictions exist in this regard: Some authors have argued that the new, extensive free time will lead to new forms of time pressure and stress; others have foreseen an expansion of…

Research on happiness casts doubt on the notion that increases in income generally bring greater happiness. This finding can be taken to imply that economic migration might fail to result in increased happiness for the migrants: migration as a means of increasing one's income might be no more effective in raising happiness than other means of…

The paper explores attitudes to chronic poverty in a cross-section of developed and developing countries contributing data to the World Values Survey Wave Three (1994-1998). The analysis finds a consistent belief among a majority of respondents that poverty is persistent. The paper also explores the factors influencing public attitudes to chronic…

The article covers the main steps of official statistics in the second half of the Nineties through the illustration of the transition from economic oriented official statistics to the quality of life approach. The system of the Multipurpose Surveys introduced in 1993 to give an answer to questions at social level and to provide indicators for…

The quality of relationships is now recognised as an important aspect of children's subjective well-being. This article focuses on both positive and negative quality of relationships. It includes six areas of children's relationships--family, neighbourhood adults, positive affect friendship, negative affect friendship, experiences of being bullied…

Using 2008 Afrobarometer survey data, we examine the relationship between religion and subjective well-being (SWB) in Ghana, as well as religious group differences in their experiences of SWB. Two measures of religion--religious affiliation and religious importance, and two measures of SWB--absolute SWB (own perceived living conditions) and…

Using data from the US General Social Survey 1972-2004, we study the role of perceptions and status in self-reported happiness. Reference group income negatively relates to own happiness and high perceptions about own relative income, quality of dwelling, and social class relate positively and very significantly to happiness. Perceptions about…

This study demonstrates how self-evaluation processes explain subgroup differences in ratings of life satisfaction (population heterogeneity). Life domains differ with regard to the constraints they impose on beliefs in internal control. We hypothesized that these differences are linked with cognitive biases in ratings of life satisfaction. In…

Using data from surveys on "social quality survey questionnaires", carried out by the Asian Consortium for Social Quality between 2009 and 2011, this study investigates the causes of social exclusion in six Asian societies. About 6,460 questionnaires were completed and the analysis of the data reveals the features and the causes of…

This study explored how people perceive the causes of poverty. Literature revealed that there are three broad theoretical explanations of perceptions of the causes of poverty, namely individualistic explanations, where blame is placed squarely on the poor themselves; structural explanations, where poverty is blamed on external social and economic…

Many researchers working with children in materially poor communities in Ethiopia have observed that they report high levels of well-being, for example, they are happy and satisfied with their lives. This is taken as an example of resilience, or what may be defined as the capacity to bounce back from adverse experiences. While many Euro-American…

This paper examines the potential of self-reported information on capabilities as an alternative indicator and aggregator for well-being. We survey a population of 18 year old first-year Bachelor students in applied economics and business studies and demonstrate a way in which capabilities can be measured on the level of life domains as well as on…