Advancing Quality Of Life In A Turbulent World

Economically advanced nations have made significant progress toward meeting the basic needs of their populations; the majority of developing countries have not. The thirteen papers in this volume explore a broad range of factors that impact on quality of life worldwide: globalization, regionalization, recently regained political autonomy, migration, health and illness, food and agriculture, the family, and the contribution of faith and spirituality in advancing personal and collective well-being in a turbulent world.

Presents and celebrates Action Learning and Action Research (ALAR) through stories, experiences, reflections and specific works of key proponents and participants in ALAR World Congresses. This title argues for the benefits of action research for sustainable development and problem solving in a turbulent world in the 21st century.

This is the first book tackling the topic of world suffering. It compiles in one place the ideas, perspectives, and findings of researchers from around the world who pioneered research-based understanding of human suffering. Some chapters use the paradigm of ‘quality of life’ to explore ways to enhance knowledge on suffering. Other chapters show how concepts and knowledge from suffering research can benefit studies on quality of life. By bringing together in one volume, ideas and research experience from the best minds and leading researchers in the fields of pain, suffering, poverty, deprivation, disability and quality of life (including well-being and happiness), this volume advances social science solutions to a number of major threads of research, most notably suffering. As a whole, the volume advances the fields of suffering and deprivation by suggesting a working typology of suffering and by pointing out the major paradigms for relief of suffering, such as humanitarianism, human rights, caring, and healing. This volume provides a wealth of insights about the interaction between suffering and quality of life, the most up-to-date characterization of worldwide suffering, and a grasp of the implications of these data for local and global policy on health and social well-being.

This handbook provides a comprehensive historical account of the field of Quality of Life. It brings together theoretical insights and empirical findings and presents the main items of global quality of life and wellbeing research. Worldwide in its scope of topics, the handbook examines discussions of demographic and health development, the spread of democracy, global economic accounting, multi-item measurement of perceived satisfaction and expert-assessed quality of life and the well-being of children, women and poor people. It looks at well-being in specific regions, including North and Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, South America and Eastern and Western Europe. In addition to contributions by leading and younger authors, the handbook includes contributions from International Organizations about their own work with respect to social reporting.

This book addresses the challenges threatening the quality of life and well-being of people living in the MENA region. It focuses on both internal / local and external / global drivers impacting their well-being particularly in the domains of economy, health, and education. Additionally, it presents a critical analysis to help readers understand the position that the MENA countries currently occupy in the world. Lastly, it provides policy analysts and decision makers with otherwise hard to obtain data and information related to socio-economic, cultural, demographic, technological, and political factors that have influenced the quality of life there.

This volume brings together leading researchers on quality of life in old age to focus on one of the most important issues in both gerontology and quality of life studies. There are very few texts available on this topic and none of an international and multi-disciplinary nature. For these reasons and the high quality of the authors we have assembled, this will be a seminal text for both gerontology and quality of life researchers.

The new millennium is widely considered to be the age of globalisation, democratisation, and human rights. We live in a knowledge society and in a time of risk and uncertainty. World society is rapidly urbanising and ageing and exhausting its natural resources. It is the interplay of such key trends of the era that calls for a fresh approach to measuring quality of life. This collection of papers presents an innovative approach to evaluating living standards and wellbeing under the new circumstances facing individuals and societies in twenty-first century. Contributions cover a wide range of issues that impact positively and negatively on wellbeing in our age. While stability, trust, equal access to resources and the social integration of disadvantaged members of society enhance well-being, poverty, social exclusion, congestion in cities, HIV/AIDS and global warming pose threats to both modern and traditional lifestyles. Methodological refinements of conventional measurement tools are presented that take into consideration the rich diversity of lifestyles and values among different populations and regions of the world. This book will be essential reading for social scientists and ordinary citizens who are concerned about the future of human well-being on our planet.

This publication addresses the gender dimensions of people’s lived experience and emphasizes how gender relationships differentially impact on women’s and girls’ as well as men’s and boys’ subjective well-being across the lifespan. It therefore fills a significant gap in the literature on quality of life and subjective well-being. The book brings together research which compares female’s and male’s subjective experiences of well-being at various life stages from a variety of countries and regions, particularly focusing on women’s subjective well-being. Sex-disaggregation of data on objective conditions of quality of life is now routinely undertaken in many countries of the world. However, despite the burgeoning of objective data on sex differences in life conditions across the world, very little gender analysis is carried out to explain fully such difference and there is still a serious dearth of data on gender differences in subjective experiences of quality of life and well-being. This publication will assist researchers, teachers, service providers and policy makers in filling some of the gaps in currently available literature on the nexus between age and gender in producing differential experiences of subjective wellbeing.