Kenneth C Land

Handbook of Social Indicators and Quality of Life Research Kenneth C Land 2012 edition

Marc Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.; The aim this handbook is to create an overview of the field of quality of life studies in the early years of the 21st century that can be updated and improved upon as the field evolves and the century unfolds. Biographical Note: Kenneth C. Land is the John Franklin Crowell Professor of Sociology and Demography at Duke University. His research focuses on the methodology of social indicators and quality-of-life measurement and is the principal developer of the Foundation for Child Development Child Well-Being Index. M. Joseph Sirgy is Professor of Marketing and Virginia Real Estate Research Fellow in the Department of Marketing at Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, Virginia, USA. Alex C. Michalos is the Founder (1973) and Editor of "Social Indicators Research," Professor Emeritus in Political Science from the University of Northern British Columbia and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Brandon University."Jacket Description/Back: The aim of the "Handbook of Social Indicators and Quality of Life Research" is to create an overview of the field of Quality of Life (QOL) studies in the early years of the 21st century that can be updated and improved upon as the field evolves and the century unfolds. Social indicators are statistical time series used to monitor the social system, helping to identify changes and to guide intervention to alter the course of social change . Examples include unemployment rates, crime rates, estimates of life expectancy, health status indices, school enrollment rates, average achievement scores, election voting rates, and measures of subjective well-being such as satisfaction with life-as-a-whole and with specific domains or aspects of life. This book provides a review of the historical development of the field including the history of QOL in medicine and mental health as well as the research related to quality-of-work-life (QWL) programs. It discusses several of QOL main concepts: happiness, positive psychology, and subjective wellbeing. Relations between spirituality and religiousness and QOL are examined as are the effects of educational attainment on QOL and marketing, and the associations with economic growth. The book goes on to investigate methodological approaches and issues that should be considered in measuring and analysing quality of life from a quantitative perspective. The final chapters are dedicated to research on elements of QOL in a broad range of countries and populations. "Table of Contents: Acknowledgments.- Prologue: The Development and Evolution of Research on Social Indicators and Quality-of-Life (QOL): Kenneth C. Land, Alex C. Michalos, and M. Joseph Sirgy.- 1. The Good Life: Eight Century to Third Century BCE: Alex C. Michalos, and Steve R. Robinson.- 2. Happiness, Also Known as Life Satisfaction and Subjective Well-Being: Ruut Veenhoven.- 3. Subjective Well-Being Homeostasis: Robert A. Cummins, Anna L. D. Lau, and Melanie Davern.- 4. Positive Psychology and the Quality-of-Life: Cross Sectional and Time Series Evidence: Richard A. Easterlin, and Laura Angelescu.- 6. National Accounts of Well-Being: Ed Diener, and William Tov.- 7. Time Use as a Social Indicator: John P. Robinson, and Steve Martin.- 8. Issues in Composite Index Construction: The Measurement of Overall Quality of Life: Michael R. Hagerty, and Kenneth C. Land.- 9. Measuring the Quality of Life and the Construction of Social Indicators: Filomena Maggino, and Bruno Zumbo.- 10. Quality of Life in General Medicine, Psychiatry and Mental Health: Michael Frisch.- 11. Education and Quality of Life: Jason D. Edgerton, Lance W. Roberts, and Suzanne von Below.- 12. Review of Research to Quality-of-Work-Life (QWL) Programs: Joe Sirgy, Nora P. Reilly, Jiyun Wu, and David Efraty.- 13. Spirituality, Religion and Subjective Quality of Life: Ralph Piedmont, and Philip Freedman.- 14. Consumer Well-Being (CWB): Various Conceptualizations and Measures: Dong-Jin Lee, and M. Joseph Sirgy.- 15. Perceived Quality of Life of Children and Youth: Scott Huebner, Rich Gilman, and Claudia Ma.- 16. The Quality of Life of Adults: Elizabeth Eckermann.- 17. Cross-National Comparisons of Quality of Life in Developed Nations, Including the Impact of Globalization: Wolfgang Glatzer.- 18. Quality of Life in Developing Nations: Laura Camfield.- 19. Economies in Transition: Revisiting Challenges to Quality of Life: Richard J. Estes.- 20. Quality of Life in Australia: Robert A. Cummins, Jacqueline Woerner, Adrian Tomyn, and Adele Gibson.- 21. Quality of Life in Est Asia: The Case of Hong Kong: Daniel T. L. Shek.- 22. The Quality of Life of Muslim Populations: The Case of Algeria: Habib Tiliouine, and Mohamed Meziane.- 23. Quality of Life in Latin America and the Caribbean: Mariano Rojas.- 24. Quality of Life in Argentina: Graciela Tonon.- 25. Failed and Failing States: Is Quality of Life Possible?: Richard J. Estes.-"Publisher Marketing: The aim of the "Handbook of Social Indicators and Quality of Life Research" is to create an overview of the field of Quality of Life (QOL) studies in the early years of the 21st century that can be updated and improved upon as the field evolves and the century unfolds. Social indicators are statistical time series ..".used to monitor the social system, helping to identify changes and to guide intervention to alter the course of social change." Examples include unemployment rates, crime rates, estimates of life expectancy, health status indices, school enrollment rates, average achievement scores, election voting rates, and measures of subjective well-being such as satisfaction with life-as-a-whole and with specific domains or aspects of life. This book provides a review of the historical development of the field including the history of QOL in medicine and mental health as well as the research related to quality-of-work-life (QWL) programs. It discusses several of QOL main concepts: happiness, positive psychology, and subjective wellbeing. Relations between spirituality and religiousness and QOL are examined as are the effects of educational attainment on QOL and marketing, and the associations with economic growth. The book goes on to investigate methodological approaches and issues that should be considered in measuring and analysing quality of life from a quantitative perspective. The final chapters are dedicated to research on elements of QOL in a broad range of countries and populations.

Contributor Bio:  Land, Kenneth C Kenneth C. Land is the John Franklin Crowell professor of sociology and director of the Center for Demographic Studies at Duke University. Contributor Bio:  Sirgy, M Joseph M. Joseph Sirgy is a social/industrial psychologist (Ph. D., U/Massachusetts, 1979), Professor of Marketing, and Virginia Real Estate Research Fellow at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). He has published extensively in the area of quality-of-life research and has been invited frequently by academic institutions and conferences as a distinguished scholar to speak on quality-of-life issues in relation to business, philosophy, measurement, and public policy. He has published extensively in social/behavioral science, managerial, and systems related journals on quality-of-life related issues. Examples include Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, European Journal of Marketing. His research focus is on developing and/or refining theoretical models in quality-of-life studies as related to business ethics, strategic marketing, macromarketing, and international marketing. He co-organized at least seven conferences related to quality of life as well as edited several conference proceedings related to quality of life and authored several monographs including: Quality of Life Studies and Social Indicators Research: An Annotated Bibliography of Selected Works 1984-98 (Blacksburg, VA: ISQOLS, 1998) and Classic Works, Literature Reviews, and Other Important References in QOL Research (Blacksburg, VA: ISQOLS, 1998). He presently serves as an editor of the Quality-of-Life/Marketing section of the Journal of Macromarketing. In a recent survey of scholarly productivity in business ethics, he was ranked as 82nd among 2,371 business ethics scholars world-wide. Contributor Bio:  Michalos, Alex C Alex Michalos is the author of 18 books, including "Militarism and the Quality of Life" and "A Pragmatic Approach to Business Ethics". He has also authored the 5-volume "North American Social Report: A Comparative Quality of Life in Canada and the United States from 1964 to 1974", and the 4-volume "Global Report on Student Well-Being". He currently teaches politics and social science at the University of Northern British Columbia.