Assessing sustainable wellbeing in Africa through “Years of Good Life”

IF 4.7 2区环境科学与生态学 Q2 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

Environmental Development Pub Date : 2025-01-20 DOI:10.1016/j.envdev.2025.101140

Aayushma KC , Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi , Ilse Eigelaar-Meets , Anastasia Aldelina Lijadi , Claudia Reiter , Erich Striessnig , Wolfgang Lutz

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The ultimate end of sustainable development can be defined as achieving sustainable human wellbeing. With the intention of measuring this, an indicator that aims to capture the universal constituents of sustainable human wellbeing titled “Years of Good Life” (YoGL) was designed (Lutz et al., 2021). Based on the demographic life table approach, YoGL assumes that being alive is the fundamental prerequisite for enjoying any quality of life. However, as mere survival is not seen as sufficient, being above minimum thresholds in the dimensions of material, physical and cognitive wellbeing, as well as the subjective dimension of life satisfaction, is required. This paper aims to explore the concept of sustainable wellbeing and assess it in Africa through YoGL, using a mixed methods approach.

Firstly, the paper presents results from focus group discussions in South Africa aimed at understanding cultural differences in the perception of human well-being. Secondly, a comparative analysis of YoGL across 46 African countries over the period of 1950–2015 is carried out, giving special emphasis to the differentiation by gender. Again, taking South Africa as a case study, trends in the different constituents of gender-specific wellbeing are examined. Turning to the future, the paper looks at YoGL as the output variable in a multi-sector global systems model which also incorporates feedbacks from social, economic and environmental change on human wellbeing over the rest of this century.

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通过“美好生活年”评估非洲的可持续福祉

可持续发展的最终目的可以定义为实现可持续的人类福祉。为了衡量这一点，设计了一个指标，旨在捕捉可持续人类福祉的普遍组成部分，名为“美好生活的岁月”（YoGL）（Lutz et al., 2021）。根据人口统计学生命表方法，YoGL认为活着是享受任何高质量生活的基本先决条件。然而，仅仅生存是不够的，需要在物质、身体和认知健康方面以及生活满意度的主观方面超过最低阈值。本文旨在探讨可持续福祉的概念，并通过YoGL在非洲使用混合方法进行评估。首先，本文介绍了南非焦点小组讨论的结果，旨在了解人类福祉感知的文化差异。其次，对1950-2015年期间46个非洲国家的YoGL进行了比较分析，特别强调了性别差异。再一次，以南非为案例研究，研究了性别特定福利的不同组成部分的趋势。谈到未来，该论文将YoGL视为多部门全球系统模型的输出变量，该模型还包含了本世纪剩余时间内社会、经济和环境变化对人类福祉的反馈。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Environmental Development Social Sciences-Geography, Planning and Development

CiteScore

8.40

自引率

1.90%

发文量

审稿时长

74 days

期刊介绍： Environmental Development provides a future oriented, pro-active, authoritative source of information and learning for researchers, postgraduate students, policymakers, and managers, and bridges the gap between fundamental research and the application in management and policy practices. It stimulates the exchange and coupling of traditional scientific knowledge on the environment, with the experiential knowledge among decision makers and other stakeholders and also connects natural sciences and social and behavioral sciences. Environmental Development includes and promotes scientific work from the non-western world, and also strengthens the collaboration between the developed and developing world. Further it links environmental research to broader issues of economic and social-cultural developments, and is intended to shorten the delays between research and publication, while ensuring thorough peer review. Environmental Development also creates a forum for transnational communication, discussion and global action. Environmental Development is open to a broad range of disciplines and authors. The journal welcomes, in particular, contributions from a younger generation of researchers, and papers expanding the frontiers of environmental sciences, pointing at new directions and innovative answers. All submissions to Environmental Development are reviewed using the general criteria of quality, originality, precision, importance of topic and insights, clarity of exposition, which are in keeping with the journal''s aims and scope.