Well-being and consumer culture: a different kind of public health problem?

The concept of well-being is now of interest to many disciplines;as a consequence, it presents an increasingly complex and contested territory. We suggest that much current thinking about well-being can be summarized in terms of four main discourses: scientific, popular, critical and environmental. Exponents of the scientific discourse argue that subjective well-being is now static or declining in developed countries: a paradox for economists, as incomes have grown considerably. Psychological observations on the loss of subjective well-being have also entered popular awareness, in simplified form, and conceptions of well-being as happiness are now influencing contemporary political debate and policy-making. These views have not escaped criticism. Philosophers understand well-being as part of a flourishing human life, not just happiness. Some social theorists critique the export of specific cultural concepts of well-being as human universals. Others view well-being as a potentially divisive construct that may contribute to maintaining social inequalities. Environmentalists argue that socio-cultural patterns of over-consumption, within the neo-liberal economies of developed societies, present an impending ecological threat to individual, social and global wellbeing. As the four discourses carry different implications for action, we conclude by considering their varied utility and applicability for health promotion

Italian Consumer Attitudes Toward Products for Well-being: The Functional Foods Market

Functional foods, Italian consumers, Market segmentation, Consumer/Household Economics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Institutional and Behavioral Economics,

ウェルビーイング志向の価値共創とその分析視点

The purpose of this paper is to propose viewpoints for analysing well-being oriented value co-creation. We firstly explain the concept of transformative service research: TSR which centres on consumer well-being in service and discuss its importance in serviceology as well as service marketing. Based on the systematic literature review, this paper divided into four categories of TSR studies by using two axes of “resource scarcity and resource development” and “micro and meso-macro”. We analysed two Japanese transformative service cases which include capability development in both micro and meso-macro level as the final value of service, thereby proposing additional perspectives for analysing about the resource integration for well-being oriented value co-creation

The well-being of universal consumers and consumer innovations

Today, creativity is becoming a major feature, both of producers and consumers, based on which the innovations are born. The employees of firms as well as and consumers themselves become a generator of innovation. Today, the world's leading manufacturers carried out "mass customization" - a permanent process of adaptation of producing goods to the consumers requirements. As a result, the mass customization and innovative development of modern industry and the service sector, delivers sufficient market group of universal consumers. Their main difference is a large amount of information about market innovations and neglecting of attachment to some specific brands. It makes the synergy of information exchange and the production of goods, which puts social welfare to a new level

The Economic Well-Being of Farm and Nonfarm Households: Evidence from Two National Surveys

This study compares the economic well-being of farm and nonfarm households using data from the 2004 Agricultural Resource Management Survey and the 2004 Survey of Consumer Finances. Comparisons are made in terms of income and wealth using Tukey-Kramer mean separation tests, regression analysis, and inequality distributions. The results show that the economic well-being of households differs based on their degree of involvement in business activities and their life-cycle stages. The most interesting conclusion is that the well-being of rural residence and intermediate farms is comparable to that of wage-earning nonfarm households, while commercial farms are similar in well-being to nonfarm households with businesses.International Development,

Consumerism and well-being in early adolescence

It has been suggested that consumerism is negatively related to well-being in children and adolescents, as well as adults. Few studies have explored whether certain aspects of consumerism have stronger associations with well-being than others, or between-group differences in associations. This article uses data from a sample of early adolescents to examine: levels of consumerism; relationships between different aspects of consumerism and well-being; and differences according to gender, school year group and family affluence. Data were obtained in 2010 via secondary school pupil surveys (N=2934). Consumerism measures comprised number of ‘standard’ and ‘premium’ possessions and four dimensions of consumer involvement; well-being measures comprised self-esteem, psychological distress and anger. There was evidence of high penetration of consumerist values. There were positive associations between number of possessions and anger, and between ‘dissatisfaction’ and poorer well-being, regardless of how measured. ‘Brand awareness’ was associated with positive male well-being, but negative female well-being. Many relationships between consumerism and well-being were stronger than those between family affluence and well-being. These results suggest only certain aspects of consumerism are associated with poorer adolescent well-being. Although, for some sub-groups, other aspects might be associated with better well-being, there was no evidence that modern consumer goods promote happiness

Economic Well-Being Based on Income, Consumer Expenditures and Personal Assessments of Minimal Needs

Responses to minimum income and minimum spending questions are used to produce economic well-being thresholds. Thresholds are estimated using a regression framework.  Regression coefficients are based on U.S. Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) data and then applied to U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE) data. Three different resource measures are compared to the estimated thresholds.  The first resource measure is total before-tax money income, and the other two are expenditure based.  The first of these two refers to expenditure outlays and the second to outlays adjusted for the value of the service flow of owner-occupied housing (rental equivalence). The income comparison is based on SIPP data while the outlays comparisons are based on CE data. Results using official poverty thresholds are shown for comparison. This is among the earliest work in the U.S. in which expenditure outlays have been used for economic well-being determinations in combination with personal assessments, and the first time rental equivalence has been used in such an exercise. Comparisons of expenditures for various bundles of commodities are compared to the CE derived thresholds to provide insight concerning what might be considered minimum or basic. Results reveal that CE and SIPP MIQ thresholds are higher than MSQ thresholds, and resulting poverty rates are also higher with the MIQ.  CE-based MSQ thresholds are not statistically different from average expenditure outlays for food, apparel, and shelter and utilities for primary residences.  When reported rental equivalences for primary residences that are owner occupied are substituted for out-of-pocket shelter expenditures, single elderly are less likely to be as badly off as they would be with a strict outlays approach in defining resources.well-being, sufficiency, poverty, income, expenditures, Consumer Expenditure Survey, Survey of Income and Program Participation

Can a click buy a little happiness? The impact of business-to-consumer e-commerce on subjective well-being

This paper presents the first empirical investigation into the effect of e-shopping on subjective well-being. The analysis relies on an Italian nationally and regionally representative dataset from Italy (n = 4,130) drawn from the 2008 wave of the Survey of Household Income and Wealth (SHIW) carried out by the Bank of Italy. Probit, OLS regressions and instrumental variables estimates show that e-shopping is strongly and positively associated with subjective well-being.happiness; subjective well-being; Internet; business-to-consumer e-commerce; B2C; e-shopping; instrumental variables; Italy

An Extension and Further Validation of a Community-based Consumer Well-being Measure

Cataloged from PDF version of article.The goal of this study is to extend the research and further validation of Lee and colleagues' measure of community-based consumer well-being. The measure is based on the notion that consumers experience well-being to the extent that they are satisfied with local marketplace experiences related to (1) shopping for desired consumer goods and services in the local area, (2) preparing locally purchased consumer durables for personal use, (3) consuming locally purchased goods and services, (4) owning consumer durables purchased in the local area, (5) using repair and maintenance services in the local area, and (6) using selling, trading-in, and disposal services in the local area. Data were collected from ten localities in nine countries/states (California, Minnesota, Canada, Australia, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Turkey, Egypt, and China) using the mall intercept method. The data provided support for the predictive/nomological validity of the measure by providing empirical support for the relationship between the consumer well-being construct and other well-being constructs such as life satisfaction