Examining the relationships between income inequalities and different dimensions of well-being in selected Central Eastern European (CEE) countries.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Szczepaniak M
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8081245 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:ObjectivesPerceived income adequacy is positively associated with self-rated health (SRH) and quality of life (QOL) among adults in higher-income countries. Additionally, older individuals often report higher levels of income adequacy. However, it is unclear if these associations, documented primarily in high-income countries, are also evident across economically and culturally distinctive low- and middle-income countries.MethodsData were drawn from the World Health Organization's Study on global AGEing and adult health (SAGE), a study of adults aged 50 years or older in China, Ghana, India, Mexico, the Russian Federation, and South Africa. Smaller samples of younger adults (18-49 years) were included for comparison purposes. Participants reported income adequacy, SRH, and QOL. Associations between age and income adequacy and between income adequacy and SRH/QOL were examined using country-specific logistic regression analysis.ResultsOlder adults in China and Russia were more likely to report better income adequacy than their 18- to 49-year-old counterparts; however, the opposite was observed in Ghana and India. SRH and QOL improved as income adequacy increased in all countries.DiscussionAs expected, income adequacy was correlated with SRH and QOL. However, the relationship between age and income adequacy varied cross-culturally, potentially due to differences in familial and governmental financial support.
| S-EPMC7179842 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Family relationships are enduring and consequential for well-being across the life course. We discuss several types of family relationships-marital, intergenerational, and sibling ties-that have an important influence on well-being. We highlight the quality of family relationships as well as diversity of family relationships in explaining their impact on well-being across the adult life course. We discuss directions for future research, such as better understanding the complexities of these relationships with greater attention to diverse family structures, unexpected benefits of relationship strain, and unique intersections of social statuses.
| S-EPMC5954612 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Using specific panel data of German welfare benefit recipients, we investigate the non-pecuniary life satisfaction effects of in-work benefits. Our empirical strategy combines difference-in-difference designs with synthetic control groups to analyse transitions of workers between unemployment, regular employment and employment accompanied by welfare receipt. Working makes people generally better off than being unemployed but employed welfare recipients do not reach the life satisfaction level of regular employees. This implies that welfare receipt entails non-compliance with the norm to make one's own living. Our findings allow us to draw cautious conclusions on employment subsidies paid as welfare benefits.
| S-EPMC7363631 | biostudies-literature
Project description:It is well documented that earnings inequalities have risen in many high-income countries. Less clear are the linkages between rising income inequality and workplace dynamics, how within- and between-workplace inequality varies across countries, and to what extent these inequalities are moderated by national labor market institutions. In order to describe changes in the initial between- and within-firm market income distribution we analyze administrative records for 2,000,000,000+ job years nested within 50,000,000+ workplace years for 14 high-income countries in North America, Scandinavia, Continental and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. We find that countries vary a great deal in their levels and trends in earnings inequality but that the between-workplace share of wage inequality is growing in almost all countries examined and is in no country declining. We also find that earnings inequalities and the share of between-workplace inequalities are lower and grew less strongly in countries with stronger institutional employment protections and rose faster when these labor market protections weakened. Our findings suggest that firm-level restructuring and increasing wage inequalities between workplaces are more central contributors to rising income inequality than previously recognized.
| S-EPMC7196797 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Background: Research has highlighted the multitude of factors that are negatively associated with coach mental well-being but has failed to investigate how the determinants of mental well-being can affect the coach both positively and negatively. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to investigate levels of mental well-being among sport coaches and assess whether areas of work life-specifically workload and control-are related to levels of mental well-being. Method: An online survey comprising demographic and coaching experience details, the Areas of Work Life Scale (AWS), and the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale was completed by 464 Australian coaches involved in a range of sports. Differences in coach mental well-being according to key demographic and coaching-related subgroups were assessed using separate t-test and ANOVA analyses and the magnitude of effects was determined using Cohen's d and the eta-squared (?2) statistics. Multiple linear regression was used to examine relationships between both workload and control and mental well-being after controlling for age, gender, coaching setting and weekly coaching activity. Results: The findings indicate poorer mental well-being among both male and younger coaches and indicate that coach mental well-being is related to the ability to self-manage the workload associated with their role as a coach as well as greater autonomy over coaching-related tasks and activities. Specifically, a one-unit increase in AWS workload and AWS control were associated with ~three- and ~four-unit increases in coach mental well-being, respectively. Conclusion: Greater provision of resources and education is required to assist coaches to manage their own mental well-being, while being supported by the organisation they coach for. Enabling coaches to balance their coaching requirements and to have control over their environment will improve their ability to constantly coach at a high standard.
| S-EPMC6926512 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundWorldwide, disaster exposure and consequences are rising. Disaster risk in New Zealand is amplified by island geography, isolation, and ubiquitous natural hazards. Wellington, the capital city, has vital needs for evacuation preparedness and resilience to the devastating impacts and increasing uncertainties of earthquake and tsunami disasters. While poor quality of life (QoL) is widely-associated with low levels of engagement in many health-protective behaviors, the relationships among health-related quality of life (HrQoL), well-being, and preparedness are virtually unknown.MethodsWe hypothesized that QoL and well-being affect household evacuation preparedness. We performed a quantitative epidemiologic survey (cross-sectional design) of Wellington adults. Our investigation assessed health-promoting attributes that build resiliency, conceptualized as health-protective attitudes and behaviors. Multidimensional QoL variables were measured using validated psychometric scales and analyzed for associations with evacuation preparedness, and we determined whether age and gender affected these relationships.ResultsWe received 695 survey responses (28.5% response rate; margin of error ±3.8%; 80% statistical power to detect true correlations of 0.11 or greater). Correlational analyses showed statistically significant positive associations with evacuation preparedness for spiritual well-being, emotional well-being, and life satisfaction. No associations were found for mental health, social well-being, or gender; physical health was weakly negatively associated. Evacuation preparedness increased with age. Regression analyses showed that overall health and well-being explained 4.6-6.8% of the variance in evacuation preparedness. Spiritual well-being was the only QoL variable that significantly and uniquely explained variance in preparedness.ConclusionsHow well-being influences preparedness is complex and deeply personal. The data indicate that multidimensional readiness is essential, and meaningfulness is an important factor. Inadequate levels of tangible preparedness actions are accompanied by gaps in intangible readiness aspects, such as: 1) errors in perceived exposure to and salience of natural hazards, yielding circumscribed risk assessments; 2) unfamiliarity with the scope and span of preparedness; 3) underestimating disaster consequences; and 4) misinterpreting the personal resources required for self-managing disaster and uncertainty. Our results highlight that conceptualizing preparedness to include attitudes and behaviors of readiness, integrating well-being and meaningfulness into preparedness strategies, and prioritizing evacuation planning are critical for resiliency as a dynamic process and outcome.
| S-EPMC4062284 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundWealth quintiles derived from household asset indices are routinely used for measuring socioeconomic inequalities in the health of women and children in low and middle-income countries. We explore whether the use of wealth deciles rather than quintiles may be advantageous.MethodsWe selected 46 countries with available national surveys carried out between 2003 and 2013 and with a sample size of at least 3000 children. The outcomes were prevalence of under-five stunting and delivery by a skilled birth attendant (SBA). Differences and ratios between extreme groups for deciles (D1 and D10) and quintiles (Q1 and Q5) were calculated, as well as two summary measures: the slope index of inequality (SII) and concentration index (CIX).ResultsIn virtually all countries, stunting prevalence was highest among the poor, and there were larger differences between D1 and D10 than between Q1 and Q5. SBA coverage showed pro-rich patterns in all countries; in four countries the gap was greater than 80 pct points. With one exception, differences between extreme deciles were larger than between quintiles. Similar patterns emerged when using ratios instead of differences. The two summary measures provide very similar results for quintiles and deciles. Patterns of top or bottom inequality varied with national coverage levels.ConclusionResearchers and policymakers should consider breakdowns by wealth deciles, when sample sizes allow. Use of deciles may contribute to advocacy efforts, monitoring inequalities over time, and targeting health interventions. Summary indices of inequalities were unaffected by the use of quintiles or deciles in their calculation.
| S-EPMC5414946 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Despite substantial improvements in survival from childhood cancer during the last decades, there are indications that survival rates for several cancer types are no longer improving. Moreover, evidence accumulates suggesting that socioeconomic and sociodemographic factors may have an impact on survival also in high-income countries. The aim of this review is to summarize the findings from studies on social factors and survival in childhood cancer. Several types of cancer and social factors are included in order to shed light on potential mechanisms and identify particularly affected groups. A literature search conducted in PubMed identified 333 articles published from December 2012 until June 2018, of which 24 fulfilled the inclusion criteria. The findings are diverse; some studies found no associations but several indicated a social gradient with higher mortality among children from families of lower socioeconomic status (SES). There were no clear suggestions of particularly vulnerable subgroups, but hematological malignancies were most commonly investigated. A wide range of social factors have been examined and seem to be of different importance and varying between studies. However, potential underlying mechanisms linking a specific social factor to childhood cancer survival was seldom described. This review provides some support for a relationship between lower parental SES and worse survival after childhood cancer, which is a finding that needs further attention. Studies investigating predefined hypotheses involving specific social factors within homogenous cancer types are lacking and would increase the understanding of mechanisms involved, and allow targeted interventions to reduce health inequalities.
| S-EPMC6238081 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Well-being inequalities arising from different healthcare expenditure public policies is currently a hot topic at a national scale, but especially so at a sub-national level because the inequalities in question are among citizens of the same country. Spain is an optimal study area to carry out research on this topic because it is considered to have one of the best health systems in the world, it is one of the top-ranking countries in terms of life expectancy rates (the indicators we use for well-being), and it has a decentralized public health system with significantly different regional healthcare expenditure public policies. Given that the factors involved in the complex direct, indirect, and second-order relationships between well-being and health spending are latent in nature, and that there are more hypotheses than certainties regarding these relationships, we propose a partial least squares structural equation modeling specification to test the research hypotheses and to estimate the corresponding impacts. These constructs are proxied by a set of 26 indicators, for which annual values at a regional scale were used for the period 2005-2018. From the estimation of this model, it can be concluded that mortality, expenditure and resources are the factors that have the greatest impact on well-being. In addition, a cluster analysis of the indicators for the constructs included in this research reveals the existence of three clearly differentiated groups of autonomous communities: the northern part of the country plus Extremadura (characterized by the lowest well-being and the highest mortality rates), Madrid (with the best results in well-being and mortality, the lowest public health expenditure per inhabitant and percentage of pharmaceutical spending, and the highest percentage in specialty care services and medical staff spending), and the rest of the country (south-eastern regions, with similar well-being values to those of the first group but with less health expenditure). Finally, a principal component analysis reveals that "healthiness" and "basic spending" are the optimal factors for mapping well-being and health spending in Spain.
| S-EPMC9533108 | biostudies-literature
Project description:PURPOSE:Subjective well-being (SWB) in youths positively relates to family income, however its association with income during childhood is unclear. Using longitudinal data from the US Panel Study of Income Dynamics (n = 2234 adolescents, age 12-19 years), we examined whether the timing and duration of low family income in childhood was associated with adolescent SWB. METHODS:We categorized family income during childhood into state-specific quintiles. Adolescent SWB was assessed using a 12-item questionnaire (score range 3-18). We used marginal structural modelling to test for sensitive periods of exposure to low income and tested cumulative effects of income by modelling the number of years spent in the poorest income quintiles. RESULTS:A period in early childhood (age 0-2 years) was particularly sensitive to low family income. Adolescent SWB was 1.65 (95% CI 0.40, 2.91) points lower in those who grew up in the poorest income quintiles during early childhood compared with the top quintile. Further, each childhood year spent in the poorest income quintiles was associated with a 0.10 point (95% CI 0.04, 0.16) lower SWB score in adolescence. CONCLUSIONS:The timing and duration of low family income in childhood both predict individual differences in adolescent SWB. Further studies are needed to clarify the mechanisms of these models and inform public policies.
| S-EPMC5513414 | biostudies-literature