Springer Science and Business Media LLC

A holistic approach to the subject of animal well-being suggests that it cannot be attributed to (or measured by) a single biological factor, but rather results from a summation of all influences upon an individual's quality of life with a satisfactory overall outcome. The application of traditional mathematical methods (such as indexing) to the assessment of animal quality of life is limited by the lack of a meaningful unit of comparison, and by the difficulty of determining the relative importance of the wide range of welfare-relevant factors. The principle of cost-benefit dominance (CBD) offers significant methodological advantages in this regard. CBD does not require a standard unit of measurement, since only qualitative comparisonswithin attributes are required. This eliminates the necessity of weighting, relatively or absolutely, the importance of satisfying animals' different biological needs. In addition, if some interattribute information is known, CBD offers the flexibility of four strategies to improve its effectiveness. A combination of these strategies with a functional classification of welfare-relevant information provides a useful methodological framework for the more objective assessment of animal husbandry systems.

This paper documents the variation in living standards of the poorest fifth of children in rich (and some middle-income) nations, with a focus on the relative importance and interaction of social transfers (net of taxes) and labour market incomes. Overall, the cross-national variation in the disposable income of disadvantaged children is comprised equally of variation in market and transfer income (with the two negatively correlated). The English-speaking countries stand out as all having relatively low market incomes, but substantial variation in transfer income. Their low market incomes reflect low employment hours in Australia and primarily low hours in the UK and Ireland, while in the US and Canada low hours and low pay contribute equally. Comparing incomes prior to and after the 2008 financial crisis, the real disposable incomes of the poorest fifth decreased substantially in Greece, Spain and Ireland, but were relatively stable in other rich nations.

Recent cross-national health studies growingly refute the income inequality hypothesis on the relationship between income inequality and aggregate health after adjusting for control variables with updated international datasets. Few of them, however, use a market income inequality indicator as an independent variable. While the latter measures the exact amounts pocketed by each individual, the former could be related to an individual’s social or economic status. The pooled TSCS regression for the selected 26 industrialized nations over 1995–2010 test the hypothesis with three different income inequality indicators: disposable and market income Gini and ‘tax and transfer effect’. We used the OECD dataset. The disposable income inequality does not have a statistically significant relationship with any of the health indicators except for infant mortality. The market income Gini does have a statistically significant association only with female life expectancy. The relationship between income inequality indicators and health outcomes are dynamic and not consistent.

Job insecurity (threat of job loss) is widespread and becomes a permanent phenomenon for a lot of employees. Based on the response of 926 Finnish employees, this study investigated the direct lagged relationship between job insecurity, coping resources (job control, social support, and optimism), and employees’ work- (vigor at work and job satisfaction) and family-related outcomes (work-family enrichment). Particular interest was in the moderating role of job control, support, and optimism in the job insecurity–employee outcome relationship. Our analyses of three-wave longitudinal data, collected in 2008, 2009, and 2010, showed that job control was the strongest lagged buffer against job insecurity in relation to vigor at work. In addition, social support longitudinally buffered against the negative effects of job insecurity on job satisfaction and vigor at work. However, optimism did not function as a buffering factor in any of the tested models.

Health as defined by World Health Organization (WHO) is not only freedom from disease but also normal physical and psychological well being. Metabolic diseases are becoming more common due to our faculty life style and adjustment to very fast changing environments and demands. Diabetes is one of them. Currently up to 10 percent of Indian's urban population and 2 percent of rural population above the age of 15 have diabetes. An earlier WHO report had noted that it is no longer considered a disease of affluence, given the changing life styles and diets of third world communities. Even the median age when an urban Indian is likely to develop diabetes is falling alarmingly, with men and women in their mid 30's and early 40's showingfull blown symptoms of a type diabetes that usually occurs only much later.

The importance of panel, or longitudinal, survey data for analyzing subjective wellbeing, and especially its dynamics, is increasingly recognized. Analyses of such data, however, have to deal with two potential problems: (1) non-random attrition; and (2) panel conditioning. The former is a much researched topic. In contrast, panel conditioning has received much less attention from the research community. In this analysis, longitudinal survey data collected from members of a large national probability sample of households are used to examine whether self-reported measures of psychological well-being exhibit any tendency to change over time in a way that might reflect panel conditioning. Regression models are estimated that control for all time invariant influences as well as a set of time-varying influences. We find very little evidence that mean life satisfaction scores vary with length of time in the panel, especially once non-random attrition is controlled for. In contrast, scores on a measure of mental health do vary with time, and surprisingly men and women exhibit opposing patterns. For men, scores decline over time (though the estimates are not statistically robust), whereas for women the effects are both large and rise with time. Further, for both outcome measures there is a clear narrowing in the dispersion of reported scores over the first few waves of participation. The findings have implications for empirical research employing longitudinal data.

This study was conducted with a group of 30 problem students who have been identified as irregular in class attendence, non-attentive to class lectures, creating disturbances in the class, etc. The problem students were compared with a group of equal number of normal students with respect to a Purpose in Life (PIL) scale. It was found that the problem students had lower scores (M=59.87, SD=18.09) as compared to those of normals (M=87.93, SD=0.68). These scores differed significantly (t=7.230). From this study it was concluded that the problem students demonstrated such activities due to a lack of purpose in their lives, although it was granted that some causality probably runs in both directions. It is hypothesised that counseling may be helpful in order to improve such behaviour.

With China’s rapid urbanization, more and more peasants are forced to relocate in urban communities. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of community participation in older women’s relocation adjustment and to further examine the moderated mediation mechanism with sense of community as a mediator and personal resilience as a moderator. Using a cross-sectional design, 205 older women relocatees (50–88 years old) in Chongqing, China, completed measures of community participation, sense of community, resilience, and relocation adjustment (well-being, depression, and loneliness). The results showed that community participation had a positive effect on adjustment. In addition, sense of community mediated the association between community participation and adjustment. Moreover, community participation’s indirect effect on adjustment through sense of community depended on older women’s personal resilience. Specifically, sense of community mediated the association between community participation and adjustment for older women with low resilience but not for older women with high resilience. This study highlighted the importance of community resources to older women’s relocation adjustment. Interventions focused on enhancing community participation and personal resilience should be combined to improve older women’s relocation adjustment.