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Little is known on the financial well-being of families raising children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Family financial well-being has important impacts on the development of children with ASD. The study uses a 2019 survey collected from Chinese families raising a child with ASD (N = 3064) to examine their financial well-being and its association with health expenditures for children. Extensive control variables (i.e., demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of children, respondents, and their families) are adjusted in analyses. Findings suggest that the amount of health expenditures is negatively associated with respondents' perception of their financial status. The significance of health expenditures disappears after household material hardship is adjusted. Health expenditures affect financial well-being mainly through resource competitions against family needs., Author(s): Ling Zhou [sup.3] , Jiebiao Wang [sup.2] , Jin Huang [sup.1] [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.262962.b, 0000 0004 1936 9342, Saint Louis University, , St. Louis, MO, USA (2) [...]

Issues on women's deprivation, marginalization and empowerment are well documented in literature. The impact of women's empowerment on the well-being of unemployed women in Yakurr Local Government Area of Cross River State, Nigeria, is yet to receive sufficient investigation from scholars. Thus, this study explores the relationship between women's empowerment and the well-being of the unemployed women, aged 18-45 years in Yakurr Local Government Area of Cross River State, Nigeria. It specifically examines the types and access to available women's empowerment programmes, the nature of empowerment programmes that women have benefitted from, as well as areas of positive impact in the context of socio-economic well-being. The study adopted an exploratory design using quantitative and qualitative data, obtained from 660 unemployed women recruited via multi-stage sampling technique. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Chi square in testing the two hypotheses. Results indicate that 31.9% of respondents reported the provision of agricultural facilities as the most common women's empowerment programme, while 58.3% acknowledge that they have benefitted from any given women's empowerment programme. A total of 19.9% indicated that they have benefitted from micro-credit facilities, while 20.8% reveal that women's empowerment programmes have positively impacted their well-being. Findings further reveals a statistically significant relationship between education and the impact of women's empowerment programmes; and a statistically significant relationship between place of residence and the impact of women's empowerment programmes. Based on the findings, it was concluded that women's empowerment programmes have positively impacted the well-being of unemployed women in Yakurr, Nigeria. Thus, there is an urgent need for the Cross Rivers State Government to develop grassroot women's empowerment programmes that will enable these women to take advantage of available resources and to know that apart from non-governmental organisations and the government, women are endowed to actively help themselves and be drivers of their own destiny. Keywords: Deprivation, Empowerment, Unemployed, Unemployed Women, Nigeria, Wellbeing, Women, Introduction Unemployment is a socio-economic problem that has besieged the entire global community, with developing countries suffering the most (Adebayo, 2011; Agetue & Nnamdi, 2011). The problem of chronic unemployment [...]

The currently accepted global wisdom holds that the most important and decisive challenge for humankind is to reach sustainable circumstances; societal, geophysical, and biophysical. However, there is little readiness to go beyond the inherited fundamental assumptions of a 'modern industrial capitalist market society.' This is oriented on the commodification and marketization of natural and cultural resources for making profit. Seen from a Russian perspective, this article argues that this approach causes a destruction of sustainable living conditions. The social quality approach, the Russian interpretation of quality of life approach, and the noosphere paradigm of global societal development offer space for considerations that questions the dominant socioeconomic and financial societal practices not only on the phenomenological level. Instead, the authors name gnoseological, ontological, and axiological prerequisites of sustainable global societal development. This will contribute to the wider and diverse debates on what can be called people's humanistic socialism. Keywords: global sustainable development, noospheric paradigm, humanistic socialism, quality of life, social quality, The Social Quality Approach's Pathway to the Challenge of Sustainability Globally, experts have broadly examined the matter of social quality in Europe, Asia, and Australia since the end of the [...]

Our premise is that researchers have much to gain from an understanding of the global marketplace experiences of impoverished consumers. We argue that influences of absolute and relative restriction, across [...]

While there is a vast and contentious literature devoted to the debate over 'politics versus markets,' scholars have devoted little empirical attention to the fundamental question of how the choice between these two approaches to public policy affects the overall quality of human life. Contending arguments make powerful claims for the superiority of each as the best mechanism for generating and distributing well-being. We attempt an empirical appraisal of this issue, using the extent to which individuals find their lives to be satisfying as an evaluative metric. Considering individual levels of life satisfaction in advanced industrial democracies using the most recent wave of survey data from the World Values Survey, we find that citizens are more satisfied with their lives as the level of state intervention into the market economy increases. Keywords: Happiness, Life Satisfaction, Politics, Welfare, Policy. Aunque existe una vastay polemica literatura dedicada al debate acerca de 'politica contra el mercado,' los academicos han dedicado poca atencion empirica a la pregunta fundamental de como la eleccion entre estos dos enfoques en laspoliticaspublicas afectan en conjunto la calidad de la vida humana. Argumentos opuestos hacen fuertes afirmaciones sobre la superioridad de cada uno como elmejor mecanismo para generar y distribuir el bienestar. Utilizando los niveles de satisfaccion de los individuos como sistema de medicion, intentamos realizar una evaluacion empirica de este tema. Considerando los niveles individuales de satisfaccion de vida en democracias avanzadas industriales y utilizando la mas reciente oleada de datos en encuestas del World Values Survey, encontramos que los ciudadanos estan mas satisfechos con sus vidas a medida que el nivel de intervencion del estado en el mercado aumenta., The study of the market economy is as old as social science itself. This is hardly surprising given that since the emergence of capitalism, market principles have come to structure [...]

In this paper poverty during midlife (ages 40-64) is explored through objective measures such as income, assets, housing tenure and poverty thresholds, and through subjective measures of financial adequacy. Statistical analyses were used to determine which of the objective measures were associated with satisfaction with economic living standards and satisfaction with life overall. The associations between these variables provide insights into the impacts of poverty on wellbeing during this stage of life. In particular, living on a low income, living below the poverty threshold and living with few assets in midlife were all negatively associated with wellbeing. In addition to the immediate impact on wellbeing, the lower level of asset accumulation and home ownership, compared with older cohorts, suggest key challenges for policy as these midlife cohorts move into old age in larger numbers. The preservation of the purchasing power of New Zealand's universal superannuation scheme presents a further policy challenge., Midlife, defined here between the ages of 40 and 64, is the life stage where many people have become established in their family and employment roles. It is often characterised [...]

Byline: Aldo Rosano (1), Federica Mancini (2), Alessandro Solipaca (3) Keywords: Capability; Disability; Equivalence scales Abstract: People with disability are particularly exposed to poor living conditions: on one hand they have more difficulties in getting an income cause to their inabilities, on the other hand conditions of poverty increase the risk of disability. However, little rigorous quantitative research has been undertaken to measure the real impact of disability on poverty. Methods based on monetary set (income and consumption) may not reflect the real possibility to convert resources into the fulfilment of personal goals. The capability approach, developed by A. K. Sen, offers a useful framework for the evaluation and assessment of individual well-being considering both monetary and non-monetary resources. The study describes a methodology, derived from the capability approach, to estimate the additional income needed for various types of household with and without disabled members to ensure the same satisfaction with economic resources. The method has been applied to the Italian contest, where 2.6 million people with disability live, and then the results are compared with the findings from an analogous study conducted in UK. The study reveals that disabled people in Italy need an income level two times higher to enjoy the same level of economic satisfaction, while in UK 50% of extra resource are sufficient. The findings suggests that traditional evaluations based on consumption lead to an underestimation of the needs of household containing disabled members. It follows that the financial benefits envisaged by actions planned by government through current instruments may not be completely effective. Author Affiliation: (1) Regional Agency of Public Health, Rome, Italy (2) Laboratory of Social Sciences, Italian Institute of Social Medicine, Rome, Italy (3) National Institute of Statistics, Rome, Italy Article History: Registration Date: 06/10/2008 Received Date: 23/06/2008 Accepted Date: 05/10/2008 Online Date: 19/10/2008

Economic shocks are sudden events causing a significant impact on the local economy. Disaster community literature predicts that community outcomes from shocks will depend on the kind of shock. Consensus crisis shocks will be followed by increases in social capital and quality of life. Corrosive community shocks will result in declines in these factors. Using longitudinal data from small towns, we find that shocks are not associated with declines in quality of life or social capital, however, certain kinds of shocks are followed by increases. The strength of shocks and the net cumulative effects of multiple shocks are related to social capital and quality of life. This analysis advances conceptualizations by unpacking shock events and suggesting that strength and effect of multiple shocks are as important as shock type.

There is a very strong positive relationship between per capita gross domestic product and life satisfaction around the world. Changes in the expectation of life affect well-being and not longer life expectancy.

Byline: Pavle Sicherl (1) Keywords: S-time-distance; Economic and social indicators; Well-being; Societal progress; USA; EU Abstract: The perceptions on well-being and societal progress are influenced also by the quantitative indicators and measures used in the measurement, presentation and semantics of discussing these issues. The article presents a novel generic statistical measure S-time-distance, with clear interpretability that delivers a broader concept to look at data, to understand and compare situations. This methodology can provide a new insight to many problems, an additional statistical measure, and a presentation tool for policy analysis and debate expressed in time units, readily understood by policy makers, media and general public. The benefits of this new view in comparisons, competitiveness issues, benchmarking, target setting and monitoring for economic, employment, social, R&D and environment indicators at the world, OECD, EU, country, regional, city, sector, socio-economic groups, company, project, household and individual levels could be immediately applied to a wide variety of substantive fields at macro and micro levels using existing data and indicator systems from international, national, state, city and local sources. These suggestions are illustrated by comparisons between EU15 and USA. Author Affiliation: (1) Socio-economic Indicators Center, Brajnikova 19, Ljubljana, 1000, Slovenia Article History: Registration Date: 19/12/2006 Received Date: 01/09/2006 Accepted Date: 19/12/2006 Online Date: 15/02/2007

Byline: Dionysia Lambiri (1), Bianca Biagi (2), Vicente Royuela (3) Keywords: Quality of life; Urban economics; R00; I31; R12 Abstract: Quality of life (QoL) is increasingly becoming a concept researched empirically and theoretically in the field of economics. In urban economics in particular, this increasing interest stems mainly from the fact that QoL affects urban competitiveness and urban growth: research shows that when households and businesses decide where to locate, QoL considerations can play a very important role. The purpose of the present paper is to examine the way economic literature and urban economic literature in particular, have adopted QoL considerations in the economic thinking. Moreover, it presents the ways various studies have attempted to capture the multidimensional nature of the concept, and quantify it for the purposes of empirical research. Conclusions are drawn on the state of affairs regarding the study of QoL in economics, as well as the problems of measurement arising mainly from the complex nature of the concept. Author Affiliation: (1) School of Business, Department of Economics, University of Reading, Whiteknights, PO Box 219, Reading, RG6 6AW, UK (2) Dipartimento di Economia, Impresa e Regolamentazione and CRENoS, Universita di Sassari, Via Torre Tonda 34, 07100, Sassari, Italy (3) Facultad CC. Economicas, Grup d'Analisi Quantitativa Regional-AQR (Universitat de Barcelona), Av. Diagonal, 690, 08034, Barcelona, Spain Article History: Registration Date: 10/10/2006 Received Date: 28/09/2006 Accepted Date: 03/10/2006 Online Date: 17/11/2006

Wealth maximization is compared to the economics of survival. Two kinds of rationality are analyzed and five propositions on which economists and psychologists are in agreement are presented.

In this article, people's assessment of an adequate poverty line is contrasted against the minimum income they can accept for themselves. The analyses are related to theoretical assumptions about adaptation of preferences, risk exposure, and welfare-state attitudes. It is shown that adaptation of preference increases the "evaluation gap" between the two measures. Risk exposure generally does not lead to a more generous evaluation of the poverty line or to a narrower evaluation gap. Positive sentiments toward redistribution are connected with a generous assessment of the poverty line and a small evaluation gap. Those who believe that welfare benefits are misused have a restrictive view of both the poverty line and the minimum income they can accept for themselves., Why should a relatively well off and seemingly financially secure person be willing to support the poor? It is presumably not because of an expectation that they will get the […]

Individual and county level statistical data are used to estimate amenity prices for England and Wales for calculating a per-county quality of life index, which was estimated to be more than 2,000 pounds sterling annually. One significant finding highlighted is a negative price for air pollution.

A subjective quality of life measurement method is introduced to calculate the compensating income variation for diseases and handicaps. This approach avoids some of the limitations of existing methods. The method is based on the direct measurement of life satisfaction of individuals. We apply the method to severe headache and migraine. It is found that severe headache and migraine have a large effect on well being and that the compensating income variation for severe headache and migraine is substantial. Keywords: Migraine; Life satisfaction; Willingness to pay

This paper assesses the effects of the growth of democracy on various measures of well-being in transition economies throughout the world and in post-communist countries over the past three decades. The results suggest that the effects of democratization on quality of life differ across gender. Specifically, while democracy has positive effects overall, the quality of life for women declines on several key measures, especially in the area of economic opportunities. The results also demonstrate vast differences in the effects of democratization between the world in general and the post-communist region. The study suggests that comprehensive investigation of democratization requires regional and gender-specific analyses. These differing effects of democracy need to be considered as policies develop in transitional democracies.

Twelve measures of material well-being in the U.S. States were subjected to factor analysis. Four factors emerged: Security, Mastery, Harmony and Autonomy. Five self-reported measures of stress, mental health and general health are regressed upon the four quality of life measures. Only Harmony proved to be significantly associated with the stress-health factors. The elements of Harmony are shown to have a reasonable causative linkage to the stress-health factors. For another demonstration, money income of a representative sample of the U.S. population is shown to be associated with self-reported happiness, but with variation, enabling a classification of the population as to its Well-Being, Dissonance, Adaptation or Deprivation in the income-happiness relationship. Material well-being, thus, is shown to be linked to non-material, self-reported stress and health conditions.

The purpose is to present a behavioral model to enable individuals to change self-defeating behavior patterns to reduce financial stress and optimize financial quality of life. Strategies for reducing financial stress include identifying and naming the source of financial stress as well as identifying behavioral and financial strategies to reshape behavior to create an optimal quality of life. The paper discusses how behavior patterns are learned, how emotional distortions evolve, and how emotional distortions can be dissolved.

The author examines sustainable global resource creation and allocation and its relationship to economics and ethics. The author concludes that corruption is the major threat to sustainable development.

Four replicable findings have emerged regarding the relation between income and subjective well-being (SWB): 1. There are large correlations between the wealth of nations and the mean reports of SWB in them, 2. There are mostly small correlations between income and SWB within nations, although these correlations appear to be larger in poor nations, and the risk of unhappiness is much higher for poor people, 3. Economic growth in the last decades in most economically developed societies has been accompanied by little rise in SWB, and increases in individual income lead to variable outcomes, and 4. People who prize material goals more than other values tend to be substantially less happy, unless they are rich. Thus, more money may enhance SWB when it means avoiding poverty and living in a developed nation, but income appears to increase SWB little over the long-term when more of it is gained by well-off individuals whose material desires rise with their incomes. Several major theories are compatible with most existing findings: A. The idea that income enhances SWB only insofar as it helps people meet their basic needs, and B. The idea that the relation between income and SWB depends on the amount of material desires that people's income allows them to fulfill. We argue that the first explanation is a special case of the second one. A third explanation is relatively unresearched, the idea that societal norms for production and consumption are essential to understanding the SWB-income interface. In addition, it appears high SWB might increase people's chances for high income. We review the open issues relating income to SWB, and describe the research methods needed to provide improved data that will better illuminate the psychological processes relating money to SWB.

This review of the literature examines the impact of poverty on the quality of life in families of children with disabilities. Twenty-eight percent of children with disabilities, ages 3 to 21, are living in families whose total income is less than the income threshold set by the U.S. Census Bureau. This review found a variety of impacts of poverty on the five dimensions of family, including health (e.g., hunger, limited health care access); productivity (e.g., delayed cognitive development, limited leisure opportunities); physical environment (e.g., overcrowded and unclean homes, unsafe neighborhoods); emotional well-being (e.g., increased stress, low self-esteem); and family interaction (e.g., inconsistent parenting, marital conflict over money). Implications of the findings for policy, research, and practices are suggested., If you have no money, it's very difficult to be--to do--to be together, to do fun things, to be at peace, to come home to a haven.... Because if you [...]

The World Bank formulated the Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) to help governments in developing countries create sound economic policies based on data on quality of life in households. The LSMS survey presents detailed data on consumption. It takes into consideration the value of home grown food products, as well as different sources of income. It also provides data on commodity prices. Countries such as Ecuador and South Africa have used LSMS data for programs aimed at remedying poverty.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) fails to account for changes in the quality of products and the consequent improvement in the quality of lives of purchasers of these products. Aside from these, the CPI also does not reflect price shifts caused by the introduction of new products, modifications in delivery of health services, and major technological innovations. As the CPI handles data for hundreds of thousands of commodities and services, the only feasible alternative is to limit the calculations to selected items.

An analytical study examined the performance of standard gamble (SG-QALY), time trade-off (TTO-QALY) and rating scale (RS-QALY) quality adjusted life years maximization models in predicting individual preference over health profiles. The study showed a high predicted and direct ranking correlation coefficients for TTO-QALYs than for RS-QALYs and SG-QALYs. QALY models are used as analytical tools in evaluation of the costs and effects of health care services. They are measured by adjusting life years for the quality of life in which they are spent.

To analyze the effect of military spending on the quality of life and economic growth, 101 countries are grouped by political system and economic conditions. Trade-offs between military spending and quality of life are correlated to peace, as manifested with the inception of the post-Cold War era, and tension, as featured by the Cold War period. Trade-offs between military spending and economic growth are absent for both the Cold War and post-Cold War periods, under any conditions of ethnic diversity, urbanization and population growth. Overall, regardless of the amount of defense burden countries shoulder, excessive population growth and ethnic heterogeneity were found detrimental to the quality of life and economic growth in both authoritarian and democratic countries during the time of tension or peace.

Total hip arthroplasty (THA) can be cost-effective in improving the quality of life. THA is commonly known as total hip replacement. Researchers used decision analysis to calculate the cost of THA for every quality-adjusted year of life (QALY) saved. They estimated the costs of THA from hospital databases. The best-case scenario found that THA saved money in men and women younger than 80 years old. The worst-case scenario revealed that THA would cost between $20,000 and $40,000 per QALY saved among 60-year-olds and between $60,000 and $80,000 in those 85 or older. Sixty-year-old women who received THA would spend only two years in severe disability whereas those who did not receive THA would spend approximately 23 years in severe disability. The high cost of THA per QALY saved in the elderly compares favorably to other high-cost procedures such as coronary artery bypass and kidney dialysis., Objective.--To quantify the trade-off between the expected increased short- and long-term costs and the expected increase in quality-adjusted life expectancy (QALE) associated with total hip arthroplasty (THA) for persons with functionally significant hip osteoarthritis. Design.--A cost-effectiveness study was performed from the societal perspective by constructing stochastic tree, decision analytic models designed to estimate lifetime functional outcomes and costs of THA and nonoperative managements. Main Outcome Measures.--A modified four-state American College of Rheumatology functional status classification was used to measure effectiveness. These functional classes were assigned utility values to allow the relative effectiveness of THA to be expressed in quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). Lifetime costs costs associated with primary and potential revision surgeries and long-term care costs associated with the functionally dependent class. Data Used in the Cost-effectiveness Model.--Probability and incidence rate data were summarized from the literature. The THA hospital cost data were obtained from local teaching hospitals' cost accounting systems. Estimates of recurring medical costs for functionally significant hip osteoarthritis and for custodial. care were derived from the literature. Results.--The THA cost-effectiveness ratio increases with age and is higher for men than for women. In the base-case scenario for 60-year-old white women who have functionally significant but not dependent hip osteoarthritis, the model predicts that THA is cost saving because of the high costs of custodial care associated with dependency due to worsening hip osteoarthritis and that the procedure increases QALE by about 6.9 years. In the base-case scenario for men aged 85 years and older, the average lifetime cost associated with THA is $9100 more than nonoperative management, with an average increase in QALE of about 2 years. Thus, the THA cost-effectiveness ratio for men aged 85 years and older is $4600 per QALY gained, less than that of procedures intended to extend life such as coronary artery bypass surgery or renal dialysis. Worst-case analysis suggests that THA remains minimally cost-effective for this oldest age category ($80 000/QALY) even if probabilities, rates, utilities, costs, and the discount rate are simultaneously varied to extreme values that bias the analysis against surgery. Conclusions.--For persons with hip osteoarthritis associated with significant functional limitation, THA can be cost saving or, at worst, cost-effective in improving QALE when both short- and long-term outcomes are considered. Further research is needed to determine whether this procedure is actually being used in this cost-effective manner, especially in older age categories.

Well-being can be defined in different ways. A sensible conceptual framework must be developed when considering well-being. Well-being is generally referred to as a state of satisfaction or happiness brought about by health, housing and family life. The different ways of defining and measuring well-being are presented. The two categories for defining well-being are the objective and the subjective categories.