In South Africa more than 32% of the population resides in only six metropolitan areas, and with rapid urbanization (exceeding 4% per annum) the quality of metropolitan city life will increasingly become an indication of the overall quality of life in the country. Some recent evaluations of the growth of South Africa’s urban areas have been negative, prophesizing increases in unemployment, pove...

This paper addresses three issues. First, why did market competition emerge in the U.S. health care system? Second, once free of regulatory constraints, how is the structure of the medical care system likely to evolve? Three, what are the implications of market competition for the public as well as for providers? The medical system in the U.S. was highly regulated and conventional wisdom assume...

We test the relative income hypothesis that an individual's health depends on the distribution of income in a reference group, as well as on the income of the individual. We use data on 231 208 individuals in Great Britain from 19 rounds of the General Household Survey between 1979 and 2000. Results are insensitive to the measure of self-assessed health used but the sign and significance of the...

This study extends the emerging body of research on farmer adaptation to climate change, by segmenting farmers on the basis of specific attributes (health, values, belief about climate change, sense of responsibility for climate change, desire to change, social, human and financial capitals and farmer demographics) and considering such attributes as critical social aspects of the contextualized...

In this article, we review the evidence on the effects of poverty and low income on children's development and well-being. We argue that poverty is an important indicator of societal and child well-being, but that poverty is more than just an indicator. Poverty and low income are causally related to worse child development outcomes, particularly cognitive developmental and educational outcomes....

Different family types may have a fixed flow of consumption costs related to subsistence needs. We use a survey approach in order to identify and estimate such a fixed component of spending for different families. Our method involves making direct questions about the linkup between aggregate disposable family income and well-being for different family types. Conducting a pilot version of our su...

Higher income is associated with greater well-being, but do income gains and losses affect well-being differently? Loss aversion, whereby losses loom larger than gains, is typically examined in relation to decisions about anticipated outcomes. Here, using subjective-well-being data from Germany (N = 28,723) and the United Kingdom (N = 20,570), we found that losses in income have a larger effect...

PURPOSE Different countries have different goals for social welfare policy. Consequently, it is reasonable to expect different outcomes after certain events. This article examines changes in the economic well-being of elderly women at widowhood in the United States and Germany. DESIGN AND METHODS Longitudinal data from the U.S. Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the German Socioeconomic Panel...

subjective well-being, generally through survey methods. A number of psychologists and social scientists have drawn upon this work recently to argue that the American model of relatively limited government and a dynamic market economy corrodes happiness, whereas Western European and Scandinavian-style social democracies promote it. This paper argues that happiness research in fact poses no thre...