Well-Being in Latin America: Drivers and Policies

200 Pages·2020·5.56 MB·English

by  Mariano Rojas

Human Well-Being Research and Policy Making
Series Editors: Richard J. Estes · M. Joseph Sirgy
Mariano Rojas
Well-Being in
Latin America
Drivers and Policies
Human Well-Being Research and Policy Making
Series Editors
Richard J. Estes, School of Social Policy & Practice, University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, PA, USA
M. Joseph Sirgy, Department of Marketing, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State
University, Blacksburg, VA, USA
This series creates a dialogue between well-being scholars and well-being public
policy makers.
Well-being theory, research and practice are essentially interdisciplinary in
nature and embrace contributions from all disciplines within the social sciences.
With the exception of leading economists, the policy relevant contributions of
socialscientistsarewidelyscatteredandlackthecoherenceandintegrationneeded
to more effectively inform the actions of policy makers.
Contributions in the series focus on one more of the following four aspects of
well-being and public policy:
(cid:129) Discussions of the public policy and well-being focused on particular nations
and worldwide regions
(cid:129) Discussions ofthe public policy andwell-being in specializedsectorsof policy
makingsuchashealth,education,work,socialwelfare,housing,transportation,
use of leisure time
(cid:129) Discussions of public policy and well-being associated with particular popula-
tion groups such as women, children and youth, the aged, persons with dis-
abilities and vulnerable populations
(cid:129) Special topics in well-being and public policy such as technology and
well-being, terrorism and well-being, infrastructure and well-being.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15692
Mariano Rojas
Well-Being in Latin America
Drivers and Policies
123
Mariano Rojas
Universidad Internacional
deLaRioja (UNIR)
Logroño,Spain
Universidad PopularAutónoma
del EstadodePuebla(UPAEP)
Puebla, Mexico
ISSN 2522-5367 ISSN 2522-5375 (electronic)
Human Well-Being Research andPolicy Making
ISBN978-3-030-33497-0 ISBN978-3-030-33498-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33498-7
©SpringerNatureSwitzerlandAG2020
Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpart
of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission
orinformationstorageandretrieval,electronicadaptation,computersoftware,orbysimilarordissimilar
methodologynowknownorhereafterdeveloped.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publicationdoesnotimply,evenintheabsenceofaspecificstatement,thatsuchnamesareexemptfrom
therelevantprotectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained
hereinorforanyerrorsoromissionsthatmayhavebeenmade.Thepublisherremainsneutralwithregard
tojurisdictionalclaimsinpublishedmapsandinstitutionalaffiliations.
ThisSpringerimprintispublishedbytheregisteredcompanySpringerNatureSwitzerlandAG
Theregisteredcompanyaddressis:Gewerbestrasse11,6330Cham,Switzerland
With the aspiration for public policy and the
social organization to foster the conditions
for people to lead a life they are satisfied
with.
Contents
1 Latin America and Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 High Well-Being in Latin America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Relevance of Latin American Well-Being Research . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 The Latin American Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3.1 Latin America: Not Just a Geographical Region. . . . . . 4
1.3.2 The Latin American Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3.3 The Latin American Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.4 The Structure of the Book. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2 Conceptual Framework of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.1 Well-Being as the Experience of Being Well . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2 Information on Well-Being from People’s Report . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.3 On Drivers and Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.4 Actors for Well-Being. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.5 The General Message of the Book. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Reference. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3 Well-Being and Its Conceptualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.1 Well-Being as the Experience of Being Well . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.1.1 Essential Experiences of Being Well: Human
Condition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.1.2 Evaluative Experiences. Failure and Achievement . . . . 20
3.1.3 Affective Experiences. Joy and Suffering. . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.1.4 Sensory Experiences. Pleasure and Pain. . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.1.5 Flow Experiences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.1.6 Essential Experiences Overlap and Are Intertwined . . . 22
3.2 The Overall Well-Being Synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.2.1 Domains of Life and Life Satisfaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.2.2 Well-Being and Human Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
vii
viii Contents
3.2.3 Do not Confuse Drivers of Well-Being
with the Experience of Being Well . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.3 On the Measurement of Well-Being: Life-Satisfaction
Conception. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4 The Well-Being Situation in Latin America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.1 Well-Being Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.1.1 Well-Being Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.1.2 Different Sources of Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.2 Well-Being: Latin America and the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.2.1 High Life Satisfaction in Latin America. . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.2.2 EssentialExperiencesofBeingWellinLatinAmerica
and the Rest of the World. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.3 Well-Being in Latin America. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
4.3.1 Life Satisfaction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
4.3.2 Essential Experiences of Being Well. Life
Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
4.3.3 Essential Experiences of Being Well. Affective
Experiences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.3.4 Life Satisfaction, Life Evaluation
and Affective State. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4.4 Satisfaction in Domains of Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
4.5 Well-Being and Socio-demographic Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.5.1 Gender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.5.2 Age Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.5.3 Indigenous Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
4.6 Final Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
5 Income and Well-Being in Latin America. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
5.1 A Mid-Income Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
5.2 Income and Well-Being: Research Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
5.2.1 Social Comparisons and the Status-Race Treadmill. . . . 59
5.2.2 Increasing Aspirations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
5.2.3 Consumption and Habituation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
5.2.4 Economic Growth May Weaken Other Well-Being
Drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
5.3 Income and Well-Being in Latin America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
5.3.1 Which Income Proxy Should Be Used?. . . . . . . . . . . . 61
5.3.2 The Importance of Relative Income in Latin
America. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Contents ix
5.4 Gross Domestic Product and Life Satisfaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
5.5 Economic Growth and Well-Being. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
5.6 General Policy Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
6 Income Inequality and Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
6.1 High Income Inequality in Latin America. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
6.2 Income Inequality and Well-Being. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
6.3 Income Inequality and Well-Being in Latin America. . . . . . . . . 74
6.3.1 Well-Being by Income Quintiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
6.3.2 The Atypical Venezuelan Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
6.3.3 Sense of Unfairness in the Distribution of Income
and Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
6.4 Egalitarianism in the Distribution of Other Well-Being
Drivers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
6.5 General Policy Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
7 Income Poverty and Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
7.1 Income Poverty in Latin America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
7.2 Poverty and Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
7.2.1 Income Poverty and Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
7.2.2 The Abatement of Income Poverty: Conditional
Cash Transfer Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
7.3 Poverty and Well-Being in Latin America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
7.3.1 Well-Being by Poverty Classification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
7.3.2 Domains-of-Life Satisfaction by Poverty
Classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
7.3.3 Dissonances Between Poverty Classification
and People’s Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
7.3.4 Paths in Getting People Out of Poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
7.3.5 Further Problems with an Absolute-Income
Conception of Poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
7.4 Well-Being Lessons for Poverty-Abatement Programs. . . . . . . . 97
7.5 General Policy Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
8 Relational Wealth: Quantity and Quality of Interpersonal
Relations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
8.1 Traditional Concerns in the Human Relations Literature . . . . . . 104
8.1.1 Social Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
8.1.2 Trust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
x Contents
8.2 Relational Wealth in Latin America. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
8.2.1 On the Relational-Wealth Concept. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
8.2.2 High-Quality Interpersonal Relations in the Latin
American Nuclear Family. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
8.2.3 Abundance of High-Quality Relations in the Latin
American Nuclear Family. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
8.2.4 RelationalWealthandEssentialExperiencesofBeing
Well . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
8.2.5 Relational Wealth Is not Correlated with Material
Wealth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
8.3 Relational Wealth Extends to Other Relational Spheres. . . . . . . 111
8.3.1 Relational Wealth in the Extended Family . . . . . . . . . . 112
8.3.2 Relational Wealth in Other Relations: Friends,
Coworkers and Neighbors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
8.4 Relational Poverty and Well-Being in Latin America . . . . . . . . 114
8.4.1 Relational Poverty Concept. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
8.4.2 Relational Poverty Is Low in Latin America . . . . . . . . 114
8.4.3 Relational Poverty Is not Correlated to Income
Poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
8.4.4 Relational Poverty and Well-Being in Latin
America. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
8.4.5 A Closer Look at Poverty and the Affective State . . . . 116
8.5 The Importance of Person-Based Interpersonal Relations. . . . . . 118
8.6 General Policy Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Appendix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
9 Education and Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
9.1 Education in Latin America. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
9.1.1 Good Literacy Rates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
9.1.2 Deficiencies in Enrollment Rates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
9.2 Human Capital Theory. Education as Investment . . . . . . . . . . . 129
9.3 Education and Income in Latin America. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
9.3.1 The Contribution of Education to Income . . . . . . . . . . 130
9.3.2 Relative Effects in the Relationship Between
Education and Income . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
9.4 Education and Well-Being. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
9.5 General Policy Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138