‘Introduction’ to the ‘Material lives’ strand of Exploring Social Lives (45 minutes)
Chapter 1 of Exploring Social Lives (7 hours) .
‘Economic wealth and happiness’ (Audio CD 1) (1 hour) .
Online Activities 31 and 32 (2 hours) .
Online Quiz: Exploring Social Lives, Chapter 1 (10–15 minutes)
I am just catching up so I had a go at the Online activities and Quiz before reading Chapter 1 and managed a 5/5 on the quiz, which made me think that this Chapter may not be that taxing.... and its not.
The Chapter talks about different measures for wealth and economic output and shows that you have to be very careful that you understand the units of measurement, as slight changes to the wording of the measurement can make a huge difference in the figures.
The Chapter also examined a measurement for Happiness as although the population of the UK are more affluent than 20 years ago, levels of happiness have not increased. However, as we know that there are a small number of very rich people and a large number of comparatively poor people an average value of affluence is not very representative - perhaps a median value would have been better, and anyway, although we may earn more than 20 years ago, fuel, food, mortgages etc are also much more expensive - so we don't necessarily have more disposable cash.
The Chapter also highlighted an alternative Happiness calculation which took in to account the countries use of resources and amount of waste they produce along with average life expectancy and so other factor and surprisingly a remote pacific island in the middle of nowhere comes up as number 1 - really because they have avoided manufacturing and a modern consumer culture. Which just proves the point that you can use statistics to get any result you want.
A bit of a disappointment as I am keen to learn more about economics, but then again this isn't an economics course.
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