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Research in wellbeing has been growing in recent decades, yet the questions as to what is wellbeing and if there is a human right to wellbeing remain unresolved. Drawing upon the “NIC theory of rights”, this study seeks to put forward a human rights-based concept of wellbeing as an alternative to the objective and subjective accounts of wellbeing.

Paper long abstract

Despite decades of investigations of wellbeing at different levels from micro to macro, and in different disciplines from economics and philosophy to law and social policy, there is as yet no or little consensus on the definition of wellbeing. Most theories of wellbeing can be categorized into two groups: objective and subjective accounts of wellbeing. Whereas the objective list theories have been accused of being elitist and paternalistic, the subjective approaches have been challenged as being too subjective to form a firm ground for wellbeing policy making. Moreover, it is still largely unclear whether there is a human right to wellbeing or not, and if so, how to make a distinction between such human right and other related rights in particular the right to health.

This present paper is intended to form a chapter of a book project on human rights and well-being. Drawing upon the “NIC theory of rights”, this study seeks to put forward a human rights-based concept of wellbeing as an alternative to the objective and subjective accounts of wellbeing. This new model of wellbeing is built upon the NIC theory of rights, advanced by this author elsewhere (Chalabi, OUP, 2018). NIC stands for Need, Interest and Capability. The NIC theory of rights was advanced to integrate the interest theory of rights, the needs-based approach to rights and the capability approach to rights. The NIC theory seeks to reconcile these three theories indicating that basic needs, interests and capabilities are interdependent, and all together form the foundations of basic human rights. The central proposition of the NIC theory is that ‘being endowed with a basic right consists of being capable of meeting one or more of basic needs in accordance with interests’ (Chalabi, OUP 2018). By explicating the conceptual definitions of human needs, interests and capabilities and illuminating the relationships among these three concepts and basic human rights, the NIC theory lays the foundation for developing a new model of wellbeing. Adopting the NIC theory of rights, this article puts forward a human rights-based account of wellbeing as an alternative to the subjective and objective accounts. This alternative account helps further the sharpness of the definition of wellbeing and clarifies the distinction between wellbeing and other interconnected concepts in particular health and happiness. This new account also lays the ground for answering the question as to whether wellbeing is a human right which will be addressed in another chapter of the book project, mentioned above, from ontological, axiological, sociological and practical perspectives.

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Wellbeing is a critical aspect of SDGs. We analyze the intertemporal changes in the role of safety and health on wellbeing by a multidimensional index for 47 countries. The result reveals that wellbeing varies worldwide but increases over time. In particular, safety and health are significant contributors to wellbeing—the contribution of safety increases over time while it varies for health.

Paper long abstract

Research Context:

Human wellbeing is a critical aspect of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UN, 2015). Overall wellbeing is determined by various social and economic domains such as health, finance, culture, safety and security, governance, religion, and science and technology (Cummins et al., 2003; Hasan et al., 2024). In the post-Cold War era, there has been a significant evolution in security perspectives. It now extends beyond the traditional focus on a state's worries about external military threats, encompassing non-state concerns like terrorist attacks carried out by individuals or groups, such as the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers (Asaka, 2021). Moreover, the emergence and spread of infectious diseases with pandemic potential (avian influenza, swine flu, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV), Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), and recent, COVID-19) occurred throughout history (Piret and Boivin, 2021) and severely affected human health and wellbeing. Thus, security and health have become essential elements of human wellbeing in recent years due to the pandemic and other domestic and international global security concerns.

It has been found that when citizens feel safe and protected from danger, risk, or injury, both mentally and physically, their wellbeing is enhanced (Cummins et al., 2003; OECD, 2011). To this end, we carry out a cross-country study of forty-seven countries across the globe examining the extent to which safety and health contribute to human wellbeing. The motivation of the study is three-fold: (1) the countries encompass varied and diverse landscapes, climates, societies, cultures, religions, and economies and are characterized by increasing interdependence in terms of natural resources, finance, domestic and regional security, and trade (IGES, 2024); (2) several major wars took place across the globe, such as the Afghanistan war and the Iraq war, and continuous safety threats from terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaida, and Islamic State (IS) (Asaka, 2021) that created safety and security concerns and tensions; and (3) several pandemics that created health issues such as swine flu, avian influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV), and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, (MERS-CoV) occurred across the globe (Piret and Boivin, 2021). However, the global impact of safety and health on human wellbeing is unmeasured.

Methodology:

We use a multidimensional wellbeing index (MDWI) following Hasan et al. (2024). We further extend our analysis on the intertemporal changes in wellbeing and the contribution of safety and health domains to the MDWI globally. We evaluate the changing pattern of safety and health’s contribution to wellbeing with a view to providing valuable policy insights to the governments and policymakers in formulating policies that ensure the safety and better health of the citizens. In doing so and based on availability of data we consider eighteen countries in Asia and the Pacific, namely (1) Australia, (2) China, (3) Hong Kong, (4) Indonesia, (5) Iran, (6) Iraq, (7) Japan, (8) Jordan, (9) Kyrgyzstan, (10), Lebanon, (11) Malaysia, (12) New Zealand, (13) Philippines, (14) Singapore, (15) South Korea, (16) Taiwan, (17) Thailand, and (18) Vietnam; twelve countries in Europe, namely (1) Armenia, (2) Cyprus, (3) Germany, (4) Great Britain, (5) the Netherlands, (6) Romania, (7) Russia, (8) Slovenia, (9) Spain, (10) Sweden, (11) Turkey, and (12) Ukraine; seven countries in Africa, namely (1) Egypt, (2) Libya, (3) Morocco, (4) Nigeria, (5) South Africa, (6) Tunisia, and (7) Zimbabwe; three countries in North America, namely (1) Canada, (2) Mexico, and (3) the United States; and seven countries in South America, namely (1) Argentina, (2) Brazil, (3) Chile, (4) Colombia, (5) Ecuador, (6) Peru, and (7) Uruguay.

We utilize four different waves (Wave 4: 1999-2004; Wave 5: 2005-09; Wave 6: 2010-14; and Wave 7: 2017-22) of the World Values Survey (WVS) data to determine the contributions of safety and health domains and associated indicators of human wellbeing to the MDWI. In addition to these domains, we also included finance, culture, governance, religion, and science and technology, as these have been identified to determine overall human wellbeing (Cummins et al., 2003; Hasan et al., 2024; OECD, 2011). The WVS provides nationally representative samples that span diverse information, such as perceptions of political, economic, cultural, social, and religious beliefs (Ergin and Mandiracioglu, 2015; Hasan et al., 2024).

Analysis and conclusions:

Our preliminary analysis reveals that, in general, and at present, countries across the globe enjoy moderate to moderately high levels of wellbeing, ranging from MDWI=0.462 (Peru) to MDWI=0.744 (the Netherlands). Overall, the MDWI has increased over time with some fluctuations. Notably, it has decreased in some countries, such as Iraq, Nigeria, Tunisia, Zimbabwe, and Ecuador. Domain contribution to the MDWI varies over time; however, safety (10-20%) and health (20-40%) significantly contribute to the MDWI in all countries and all waves. The contribution of safety and security to wellbeing has increased over time in almost all countries. This implies that people’s wellbeing increases when they feel safe at home, have higher self-perceived feelings of security, experience a low frequency of crimes, and have never been victims of crime. On the other hand, the contribution of the health domain to the MDWI fluctuated over time and across countries but remains one of the largest contributors. This implies that people’s wellbeing increases with higher self-perceived feelings of physical and mental health, and when they do not suffer from hunger and treatment or medicine. In conclusion, our analysis suggests further investigation into why people value safety, security, and health as significant contributors to the MDWI, and we suggest policy formulation should be in such a way that the citizens feel safe and remain healthy in order to enjoy higher wellbeing.

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This study examines the pandemic response of Sri Lanka's wearing apparel industry to COVID-19. A Thematic analysis was done using the NVivo software. Findings underscore the need for targeted interventions to enhance industry resilience and mitigate future crises effectively, while prioritizing gender-sensitive policies and equitable strategies

Paper long abstract

Context: This abstract presents findings from a thematic qualitative analysis of the pandemic policy response of the wearing apparel industry, to identify the gaps in knowledge, capacity, and technology for an effective gender-inclusive mitigatory response. In addition, procedural adaptations of the industry throughout the progress of the pandemic, policy gaps and implications, and, their impact on the female workers, the majority, in the ready-made garment industry are discussed.

Methodology: Key informant interviews (KIIs) were conducted representing various stakeholders aiming to identify gaps and success stories in the industry's response to the pandemic. Participants were recruited through purposive sampling depending on category of respondents, taking into account different stakeholders involved in the industry response mechanism. A total of 16 KIIs were conducted including 6 workers, 6 factory managers representing small-scale, medium-scale and large-scale garment factories, 2 from employer organizations, and 2 from supportive government agencies. The questions of the KIIs were structured giving the focus on 4 main domains identified namely, Knowledge, Capacity, Policy, and Process. For the knowledge domain the respondents were asked about the availability, accessibility and quality of the knowledge during the pandemic. Capacity domain focused on the availability and access to different resources and services to respond to the pandemic. Policies, guidelines and protocols that was implemented and that were good if exist, as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic were asked under the policy domain. Finally in the process domain, the actual response scenario was asked from the respondents. A thematic analysis was used to analyze the data (Jones-Konneh., 2023), and all transcripts were coded and analyzed using NVivo (14). This approach was employed to identify recurring themes across the interviews (Groot, 2023), focusing on four main domains. These domains provided a framework for organizing and interpreting the qualitative data, allowing for a comprehensive understanding of the industry's response to the pandemic (Kabwama., 2022).

Analysis: The industry's response to the COVID-19 pandemic showcased a mixture of challenges and successes in the “dissemination and gaining of knowledge on responding to the pandemic”. Managers of the factories had to make critical decisions with rapidly changing information, including evolving government regulations in imports, transport restrictions and health guidelines. Amidst the crisis, managers had to simultaneously plan for short-term survival and long-term recovery. For that knowing the changing market conditions, explore new business opportunities, and position the company for future growth was challenging for them while keeping employee morale high during a period of uncertainty and stress. On the other hand, they were successful in disseminating the knowledge on health guidelines, preventive measures to the employees effectively, since they used online platforms like Zoom for awareness programs and distribution of leaflets, showcasing notices within the factory on important guidelines and preventive measures.

Most of the challenges were reported under the “capacity” domain. Employers faced difficulties in maintaining wage levels and job security, because of extending the payment time for the orders by the customers. Even though the garment factories who are operating in large-scale were able to pay at least the wages, they also had to cut the bonuses and OTs from the employees. Meanwhile the small-scale and medium-scale garment factories had to pay half of the salary to the employees considering the working days that were reduced due to the roster system. Large-scale companies were able to give paid leaves to employees while ensuring their job security, while small and medium scale factories had to pay a half of the salary or give no pay leaves. Challenges occurred in distributing protective gears such as masks and sanitizers and implementing vaccination efforts, due to the difficulty to find a new source of supply chain for all these bulks and the additional cost incurred. Unions played a pivotal role in requesting the factories to provide masks and hand sanitizers to the workers. As success stories some factories sewed masks for their employees, and some had the capacity to provide steaming machines to ensure worker safety. Such safety measures demonstrated efforts to ensure worker well-being, although social impacts such as stigma and community resistance compounded challenges faced by the industry resulting in increased absenteeism among workers.

An examination of “policy implications of industry policies” revealed critical gaps and successes in addressing the socio-economic ramifications of the pandemic. Identified gaps included the absence of gender-sensitive policies, delays in information dissemination, inconsistent implementation of health protocols within the factory, restricting union formations, lack of Standardized and factory-scale specific Protocols and inadequate compensation for workers. Success stories emerged in grouping workers to continue the production process, concerns on sick workers’ mental health, interventions by unions, having a health committee inside the factories even before the pandemic and efforts to provide financial support to workers. These findings underscore the importance of addressing industry policy gaps and replicating successful interventions to navigate future crises effectively.

Diverse responses from stakeholders highlighted both successes and shortcomings in “actual pandemic response”. Despite challenges such as supply chain disruptions, measures were implemented to ensure production continuity and protect workers' health. Notable successes include prompt identification of cases within the factories, prompt adaptation of health guidelines and paying to the workers and maintaining their job security. However, coordination issues and barriers such as lack of monitoring whether the guidelines were practiced, unequitable distribution of welfare facilities among workers and barriers to unionization, highlights the need for equitable strategies to address socio-economic disparities and navigate future crises effectively.

Conclusion: The thematic qualitative analysis provides insights into the complexities of pandemic response within Sri Lanka's wearing apparel industry. By identifying gaps and success stories across knowledge, capacity, policy, and process domains, this study offers guidelines for policymakers, industry stakeholders, and researchers seeking to enhance resilience and mitigate future challenges effectively. Addressing these findings through targeted interventions and collaborative efforts such as increasing union participation in decision making bodies, making gender sensitive policies is essential for building a more resilient and sustainable garment sector in the face of ongoing and future crises.

Key words: Thematic Analysis, Apparel Industry Response, Covid-19, Gaps and success stories

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Paper short abstract

We develop a data-science platform to establish a relationship between basic needs consumption, subjective well-being, and capabilities integrating approaches from social psychologists, engineers, economists, sociologists, and policymakers. Analyzing data on energy, housing, food, and mobility insecurities alongside life satisfaction, we identify correlations that persist across demographics.

Paper long abstract

From Aristotle to Amartya Sen to Dan Kahneman, thinkers throughout history agree that the pursuit of well-being is a fundamental human goal. Philosophers, psychologists, environmentalists, engineers, economists, sociologists, and policymakers all bring unique approaches to the concept of well-being. Within this diversity of frameworks, there is a pressing need to balance environmental sustainability, societal flourishing, and individual well-being. Amidst this background, a fundamental question arises in this context: Who is deprived based on existing indicators of poverty, and what basic needs are reasonable for a good life? For example, are people’s reporting of food insecurity linked to the proximity of grocery stores and more importantly, with individuals’ overall assessment of their lives? Answering such questions will shed new light on the direction of human development, guided by quantitative objective descriptors, needed for flourishing based on indicators of life satisfaction, physical health, and emotional well-being.

In this paper, we develop a novel data-science platform, fusionACS, to establish the relationship between basic needs consumption, subjective well-being, and capabilities through a holistic view of household well-being lens. We use machine-learning-based data fusion techniques to link multiple U.S. household surveys, including the American Community Survey (ACS), Gallup U.S. Daily Poll, Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS), National Household Transportation Survey (NHTS), American Housing Survey (AHS), and Consumer Expenditure Survey - Interview (CEI) based on matching characteristics between the surveys as well as spatial indicators. For example, these characteristics include may variables such as gender, age, household income, race, and household size while spatial variables may include heating degree days, cooling degree days, and public transportation density. To ensure the robustness of our findings, we then establish data standards to gauge the reliability of these novel metrics using both internal methods of cross-validation as well as external validation techniques of comparing metrics to unrelated datasets. This novel dataset offers indicators of cumulative burdens at the household level with unprecedented granularity into geographic and demographic disparities. Specifically, we investigate both subjective (self-assessed) and objective indicators of energy, mobility, housing, and food insecurities along with the self-reported overall life satisfaction and the feeling of being capable.

Next, we analyze these basic needs deprivations along dimensions of heterogeneity such as gender, race, income, expenditure, housing tenure, urbanicity, and climate regions using logistic regressions and latent class analysis. We find that basic needs deprivations of energy, housing, food, and mobility show a strong correlation to self-reported life satisfaction and capabilities even after controlling for confounding factors. While increasing household income and expenditure are correlated to increasing life satisfaction, significant differences in subjective well-being scores persist between the deprived and not-deprived even for the highest level of income/spending. We also show that these newly developed indicators complement existing indicators of Federal Poverty Thresholds and Supplementary Poverty Measures by revealing the extent of deprivation that is being captured by these objective metrics. These results inform the direction of human development and social policy to support a high-quality life for all by revealing the extent of deprivations being faced currently by households from a multi-dimensional perspective.

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We examine how the Covid-19 restrictions impacted well-being of residents in Kolkata, the third largest Indian city, based on an unique survey conducted during the lockdown between May and June 2020. There are several features within our data which allows for interesting analysis. Preliminary analysis has shown that the individual life-satisfaction was worse in the red zones.

Paper long abstract

Context: The Covid-19 pandemic imposed unprecedented lockdowns across cities and countries. It lead to reduction of economic activity and substantial impact on individual physical and mental health ( Banerjee et al., 2022). While significant research is still being undertaken on the impact of Covid-19, there is little evidence, particularly for developing countries, on the impact of the Covid-19 related restrictions impacted individuals health and economic outcomes.

Aims and Objective: In this paper, we examine how the Covid-19 restrictions impacted the physical, mental and economic well-being of residents in Kolkata, the third largest Indian city with a population of 15 million, based on a survey we conducted between May and June 2020. We investigate the impact of the lockdowns on individual's well-being through a varied set of outcomes such as income, working hours, overall life satisfaction. Given the strong evidence of anxiety due to lockdowns in India (Banerjee et al. 2022) we also examine whether during the lockdown they were able to access their savings and insurance, whether they suffered any losses. Finally, for a smaller part of the sample, we also measure their blood-cortisol level as an indicator of stress. Our aim is to empirically demonstrate how all these individual outcomes were impacted by the Covid-19 lockdown in Kolkata, where in particular the city was divided in to Red, Orange and Green zones.

Data: We collected a unique data set based on surveying individuals coming for health tests at a diagnostic lab (Genu Path Labs) in Kolkata. This is a large diagnostic lab with collection centres all across Kolkata. Most of our sample came from the main lab at Salt lake in Kolkata. The survey was mainly done through over telephone, and in some contexts through survey monkey. We were able to survey 332 individuals, out of which 33 were from Red zones, 46 from Orange zones and 236 from Green zones. There were 151 females and 181 males in our sample. The average age was 52, with the minimum and maximum age being 19 and 90 respectively.

While this does not seem like a random sample, we believe that this still allows us access to individuals from varied spheres of life. During our survey period the lock down has just begun to ease and there were still no possibility of conducting city wide surveys. Most of the studies examining the health and well-being of individuals in India at that time has used online surveys (Banerjee et al. 2022). However, we wanted to move away from online surveys to capture those who may not access the internets, which includes not only the lower socio-economic groups but also senior citizens. A valid criticism may be that we are oversampling from individuals with health issues, however, in our analysis we will control for the main health issues that individuals may have.

Identification and Method: There are several features within our data which allows for interesting analysis. First, part of our data is individuals recalling their pre-covid information on income, working hours, life-satisfaction. Given that our survey was conducted within a couple of months of lockdown, it is not unreasonable to expect that individuals will have a clearer idea of the current situation vis-à-vis pre-lockdown situation. Our recall questions were not asking for detailed information about the individuals living standards, instead they were asking the broad questions about health, income and overall welfare. For instance, with income, we have asked individuals to fill in the broad income slabs, they were in rather than a precise income information. Hence, we believe that individuals have reported those outcome variables honestly and consistently. Thus, we use this recall information to understand the difference in the outcomes between the pre-lockdown and during lockdown periods. The second aspect is about the different zones in Kolkata. The different zones had different restrictions leading to different impact on individuals residing on those zones. These treatment and control zones were based on postcodes and could be considered as contiguous. This allows us to not to worry about fixed effects that typically would be the case in most analysis. We therefore can deploy as simple regression based difference analysis to understand the impact of the zones on individual outcomes.

Analysis and Conclusion: Preliminary analysis has shown that the individual life-satisfaction was worse in the red zones. We also find stress parameters such as cortisol, higher in the Red zone compared to other zones. We want to think through this analysis more carefully and want to establish a causal link between covid related restrictions and individual wellbeing.