Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 189-198
Author(s):  
Jennifer Patico
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Parental Care ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Children's Nutrition ◽  
To Come

The book’s concluding chapter considers further how Hometown conceptualizations of parental care and engagement bespeak the neoliberal labor burdens middle-class parents take upon themselves as individuals, and how these practices can work at cross-purposes with their politics of inclusivity. Parents’ choices, the problems they perceive, and the resources they bring to bear are embedded within larger structures of inequality that are sometimes acknowledged but appear less salient when individualized motivations are foregrounded. This reinforces a neoliberal situation in which responsibility for well-being and advancement rests on individual actors and how much they “care.” Meanwhile, middle-class parents also strive not to come across as caring too much, in effect depoliticizing and obscuring their own protective labor. How else could this labor be directed, and the relationships among childhood, food, and community well-being reconceptualized?This final chapter draws comparisons between contemporary U.S. discourses and postsocialist European perspectives to raise questions about how the burdens and challenges of children’s nutrition might be differently imagined.

The Uses of Affordable Social Investment

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anton Hemerijck
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
First Century ◽  
Paradigm Change ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Welfare Capitalism ◽  
Methodological Innovation ◽  
Policy Paradigm ◽  
Fiscal Austerity ◽  
Second Use

The final chapter concludes with five contemporary ‘uses’ of social investment, in full recognition of limits underscored by critics. The first ‘use’ of social investment therefore concerns its ‘paradigmatic’ bearings. To what extent does social investment represent a distinct policy paradigm for twenty-first-century welfare capitalism? A second ‘use’ relates to paradigm change, in the sense of theoretical progress inspiring interdisciplinary methodological innovation, in particular with respect to the empirical assessment of well-being ‘returns’ on social investment. The third more practical ‘use’ covers the identification of virtuous social investment policy mixes of ‘stocks’, ‘flows’, and ‘buffers’. The fourth ‘use’ is geographically confined to the European conundrum of overcoming the fiscal austerity to make way for social investment reform, as means to reignite socioeconomic convergence, at least for the Eurozone. The more general final use of social investment bears on the ‘politics of social investment’ in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

Roman Age Structure: Evidence and Models

2001 ◽  
Vol 91 ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter Scheidel
Keyword(s):  
Age Structure ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
High Fertility ◽  
Average Life Expectancy ◽  
Specific Distribution ◽  
The Status ◽  
To Come

For many Romans, life was short. In consequence, the young greatly outnumbered the elderly. Historians have long accepted these basic truths, even if they are only beginning to come to terms with the social implications of an alien demographic regime. But how short is ‘short’, and how many Romans were children, how many adults? Does it matter, and can we know?The importance of demographic structure is not in doubt. High mortality causes scarce energy resources to be wasted in pregnancies and nursing, and poses a disincentive to investment in education. It destabilizes families and households, exposes orphans and widows to risk and potential hardship, and shortens the time-horizons of economic activity. In the long term, average life expectancy is the principal determinant of fertility. Poor chances of survival trigger high birth rates to ensure genetic survival. High fertility, in turn, is negatively correlated with the status and well-being of women, and constrains female participation in economic and public affairs. Overall age structure, in conjunction with cultural practices from marriage to child care, determines the prevalence of orphans and widows, and affects the age-specific distribution of fertility. In sum, age structure is instrumental in framing and shaping expectations and experiences. For this reason alone, our understanding of life in the Roman world is critically dependent on our knowledge of demographic conditions.

scholarly journals Natural Meanings and Cultural Values

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon P. James ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Standard Model ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Causal Powers ◽  
New Model ◽  
Service Value ◽  
Natural Entities ◽  
The Standard Model ◽  
To Come

In many cases, rivers, mountains, forests, and other so-called natural entities have value for us because they contribute to our well-being. According to the standard model of such value, they have instrumental or “service” value for us on account of their causal powers. That model tends, however, to come up short when applied to cases when nature contributes to our well-being by virtue of the religious, political, historical, personal, or mythic meanings it bears. To make sense of such cases, a new model of nature’s value is needed, one that registers the fact that nature can have constitutive value for us on account of the role it plays in certain meaningful wholes, such as a person’s sense of who he or she is.

scholarly journals Standard of economic sustainability of family a new orientation of income policy

POPULATION ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 122-127
Author(s):  
Lyudmila Rzhanitsyna
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Stability ◽  
Economic Sustainability ◽  
Income Policy ◽  
Active Population ◽  
Russian Economy ◽  
The Social ◽  
Market Relations

Improving labor incentives is a condition for the Russian economy to recover from the crisis, increase the well-being of the population, and further develop the country. In this regard, in the policy and organization of remuneration, it is proposed to switch from an orientation towards the physiological minimum to a standard of income that would allow an employee to earn a decent income on himself and the child, to the standard of economic sustainability of a family with children. A fair salary exempts the worker from dependence on the social assistance of the state, determined by the decision of the official. The transition of the state policy of personal income is a way to reduce the poverty of workers, to ensure material well-being for the economically active population, thereby creating a middle class, the basis of social stability and social peace in society. And the account of expenses for children is an objective component of the price and reproduction of labor in the system of market relations.

scholarly journals Changing Nature of Power and Leadership: How do They Matter in Rural Nepal?

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 79-89
Author(s):  
Mahendra Sapkota
Keyword(s):  
Local Governance ◽  
Local Development ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Power Structure ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Local Power ◽  
To Come ◽  
Rural Nepal ◽  
Ontological Position

Globally, power and leadership are considered as two unavoidable factors of social change and local development. In Nepal’s federal context, the nexus of power and leadership has been less addressed in academic research though most of the studies are focused on local governance. The present study attempts to analyze the nature of leadership and its power structure in the context of rural Nepal. It follows a critical ontological position of the development of power and leadership. Methodologically, a complete leadership of Dogana village in Suddhodhan Rural Municipality of Rupandehi district (Lumbini Province) was undertaken to assess the rural leadership. It is found that the most important factor for holding the rural leadership was ‘affiliation with the political party’, which was followed by ‘well-being ranking’ and ‘caste/ ethnic status’ of the leadership. The rural leaders used to change their policies and strategies to create and sustain power, such as doing multiple professions and building networks other than politics. The paper, therefore, concludes that a significant change occurred in leadership pattern and power structure of rural Nepal from informal to formal, and less inclusive to more inclusive and representative. Despite this, the changes are still elite-centric, politically vested, and economically favorable either to the upper-class people or middle-class mediators (bichauliyas). The study predicts that the contestations in leadership and power-sharing could be more critical in the days to come with the implementation of federalism in the rural context. The implication of this study largely relies on the context of local power structure and village politics in Nepal.

scholarly journals Ideologia healthismu jako fons et origo mody na bieganie

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-152
Author(s):  
Jakub Ryszard Stempień
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Survey Research ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Empirical Verification ◽  
Life Values

This article concerns the contemporary fad for running and its connection with the ideology of healthism, which consists in a concentration on health as the sine qua non condition for individual well-being, and the assumption that health can be assured by proper lifestyle. In accordance with the ideas of Robert Crawford, the ideology of healthism is linked with the medicalization of society and is especially attractive to members of the middle class. The author attempts an empirical verification—in regard to Polish conditions—of the connection between healthism and the popularity of running. The author utilizes the findings of his own survey research in the years 2013–2016 among participants of the annual marathon in Łódź. The findings confirm that healthism could be one of the sources of the vogue for running, as is shown by: the pro-health motivations of the runners; their popular conviction that individuals can influence their own health; and their belief that health is one of two primary life values (alongside family happiness). In correspondence with Crawford’s theory, it is chiefly members of the Polish middle class who engage in running.

Waste

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eiko Maruko Siniawer
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Mass Consumption ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many ◽  
Central Forces

Affluence of the Heart explores the many and various ways in which waste—be it of time, stuff, money, possessions, and resources—was thought about in Japan from the immediate aftermath of devastating war to the early twenty-first century.It shows how questions about waste were deeply embedded in the decisions of the everyday and shaped by the central forces of postwar Japanese life from economic growth and mass consumption to material abundance and environmentalism.What endured from the late 1950s onward was a defining element of Japan’s postwar experience: the tension between the desire to achieve and defend the privileges of middle-class lifestyles made possible by affluence, and the discomfort and dissatisfaction with the logics, costs, and consequences of that very prosperity. This tension complicated the persistent search in these decades for what might be called well-being, happiness, or a good life. Affluence of the Heart is a history of how people lived—how they made sense of, gave meaning to, and found value in the acts of the everyday.

The Buddhist Style in Consumer Culture: From Aesthetics to Emotional Patterns

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 28-54
Author(s):  
Zuzana Bártová
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Consumer Culture ◽  
Personal Development ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Identity Style ◽  
And Behavior

Abstract This paper contributes to the sociological theorization of religious lifestyles in consumer culture, analyzing one of its most important identity markers: style. Based on a three-year comparative ethnographic research project into five convert Buddhist organizations in France and the Czech Republic, it finds that style is expressed through aesthetics with its adornment practices apparent in everyday life materializations of Buddhist symbols. The stylistic dimension is also found in practitioners’ attitudes towards Buddhism, as they may use the discourse of taste. Moreover, Buddhist style stands for the collective, coherent, and systematic emotional patterns expressed in Buddhist symbols, individual and collective experiences, and the ethics and behavior they display in everyday life. The paper also explores how this style is adapted to the educated, middle-class, city-dweller practitioners and how it respects dynamics of consumer culture with its emphasis on identity, style, and values of well-being, authenticity, and personal development.

From Welfare States to Planetary Well-Being

2021 ◽  
pp. 900-920
Author(s):  
Ian Gough
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
The Social ◽  
Welfare Systems ◽  
Basic Services ◽  
Rich Countries ◽  
The Welfare State

This final chapter concentrates on global environmental challenges to rich-country welfare states: climate breakdown and associated ecological disasters. These common threats add two new raison d’êtres for welfare states: first, that the security and equity they seek should be sustainable through time; second, that their scope is broadened to take account of global equity and well-being. With a few notable exceptions, these fundamental questions have been ignored in the social policy community. I argue here that we need to transform our understanding of social policy in four ways, each more difficult than the previous one. First, we need to develop novel eco-social programmes to tap synergies between well-being and sustainability via transformative investment programmes such as a Green New Deal. Second, we need to recompose consumption in rich countries in two ways: to realize the best principles of the welfare state by extending the range of universal basic services and to work towards a private ‘consumption corridor’ to end waste, meet basic needs, and reduce inequality. Third, we must develop strategies of ‘reduce and redistribute’ to adapt welfare systems for a future of slower, if not negative, economic growth. And finally, we need to develop a global equity framework to meet climatic and ecological threats in a globally just way that recognizes current international inequalities.

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