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UNU-WIDER Understanding Human Well-being

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A teenager wears torn rubber boots in a muddy local market in Bac Ha, Viet Nam. As of 2005 figures, half the world population—more than 3 billion people–is estimated to live on less than USD 2.50 a day. Bac Ha, Viet Nam. UN Photo/Kibae Park.

Table of contents

Understanding Human Well-being

understanding-human-well-being-jacket.jpg
Publisher:
UNU Press
Title:
Understanding Human Well-being
Authors:
Edited by Mark McGillivray and Matthew Clarke
Publication date:
November 2006
ISBN Printed:
9280811304
ISBN 13 Print:
9789280811308
Copyright holder:
© UNU-WIDER
Copyright year:
2006
Keywords:
well-being, poverty, inequality, empirical applications, traditional monetary concepts, measurements, educational achievement, longevity, health, subjective well-being
JEL:
A13, I32, D63
Project:
Social Development Indicators - Measuring Human Well-being
Format:
paperback book
 
A low-price edition was published by Bookwell (India) in October 2007
 
‘[This volume has] emerged at a time when work on well-being is expanding rapidly across the social sciences in response to changes in global conditions, new research priorities, more sophisticated concepts and methods, and improved data resources. The [UNU-WIDER works] in question are remarkable not just for tackling difficult conceptual and methodological issues …, but for their content, scope and coverage – which touches upon most, if not all, of the central topics and emerging issues in well-being research. … [A] diverse collection of papers on poverty, inequality and well-being in developing countries [that] tackle a wide range of conceptual, methodological and technical issues that are likely to be of interest to scholars, policy-makers and practitioners alike. More importantly perhaps, they also draw out key policy conclusions and help identify promising directions for future research. Among other things they recognize that poverty and well-being are inherently multidimensional, highlight the need for further conceptual and empirical work to combine quantitative and qualitative indicators of well-being, call for the availability and quality of existing data for measuring well-being to be improved, show that some countries are better at converting income into broader well-being achievements than others, and stress the importance of human security for realizing well-being. While … skewed towards measurement, they successfully incorporate key chapters on conceptual and foundational issues while cashing in on UNU-WIDER’s comparative advantage in quantitative economics and practical research. … [H]ighly recommended and likely to become leading works of reference.’ – David A. Clark, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town, South Africa, Journal of Human Development vol. 9, no. 1 March 2008

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