Paradox and Perception Measuring Quality of Life in Latin America

by Graham, Carol L.; Lora, Eduardo

• ISBN13: 9780815703266
• ISBN10: 0815703260
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-09-29
• Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Summary

The "quality of life" concept of quality of life is a broad one. It incorporates basic needs but also extends beyond them to include capabilities, the "livability" of the environment, and life appreciation and happiness. Latin America's diversity in culture and levels of development provide a laboratory for studying how quality of life varies with a number of objective and subjective measures. These measures range from income levels to job insecurity and satisfaction, to schooling attainment and satisfaction, to measured and self-assessed health, among others.Paradox and Perception greatly improves our understanding of the determinants of well-being in Latin America based on a broad "quality of life" concept that challenges some standard assumptions in economics, including those about the relationship between happiness and income.The authors' analysis builds upon a number of new approaches in economics, particularly those related to the study of happiness and finds a number of paradoxes as the region's respondents evaluate their well-being. These include the paradox of unhappy growth at the macroeconomic level, happy peasants and frustrated achievers at the microlevel, and surprisingly high levels of satisfaction with public services among the region's poorest.They also have important substantive links with several of the region's realities, such as high levels of income inequality, volatile macroeconomic performance, and low expectations of public institutions and faith in the capacity of the state to deliver.Identifying these perceptions, paradoxes, and their causes will contribute to the crafting of better public policies, as well as to our understanding of why "populist" politics still pervade in much of the region.

Author Biography

Carol Graham is senior fellow and Charles Robinson Chair at the Brookings Institution and College Park Professor at the University of Maryland. She has also served as a special adviser to the executive vice president of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Eduardo Lora is general manager of the Research Department and chief economist at the IDB. He has been the executive director of Fedesarrollo, in Bogot, Colombia.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
How Latin Americans Assess Their Quality of Life: Insights and Puzzles from Novel Metrics of Well-Being	p. 1
Objective and Subjective Deprivation	p. 22
The Conflictive Relationship between Satisfaction and Income	p. 57
Satisfaction beyond Income	p. 96
Vulnerabilities and Subjective Well-Being	p. 118
Health Perceptions and Quality of Life in Latin America	p. 158
Education and Life Satisfaction: Perception or Reality?	p. 192
Job Insecurity and Life Satisfaction	p. 227
Contributors	p. 149
Index	p. 251
List of Figures, Tables, and Boxes
Figures
Happiness and Income per Capita, 1990s	p. 4
Current, Past, and Future Life Satisfaction	p. 41
Growth of Gross Domestic Product per Capita by Region and Decade, 1981-2006	p. 60
Gross Domestic Product per Capita by Region and Decade, 1981-2006	p. 60
Growth of Gross Domestic Product per Capita, Average 2001-2006	p. 61
Gross Domestic Product per Capita, Average 2001-2006	p. 62
Perceptions of Satisfaction with Life and the Situation of the Country	p. 64
Perceptions of Personal Economic Situation and Economic Situation of the Country	p. 65
Perceptions of Own Health and National Health System	p. 66
Perceptions of the Education System	p. 67
Perceptions of Employment and Labor Public Policy	p. 68
Perceptions of Own Housing and Housing Market	p. 69
Relation between GDP per Capita and Life Satisfaction, 122 Countries	p. 71
Relation between Economic Growth and Life Satisfaction, 120 Countries	p. 75
Life Satisfaction in Rich and Poor Countries	p. 99
Food Insecurity and per Capita Income	p. 107
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