Quality of Life and Well-Being in the Anthropocene: Long-Term Trends, Recent Developments, and Future Prospects

Monday, 7 July 2025: 09:00-10:45
Location: FSE007 (Faculty of Education Sciences (FSE))
RC55 Social Indicators (host committee)

Language: English

Quality of life and well-being, both at the individual and societal levels, have substantially increased over the past decades in most societies of the Global North and South. Several consecutive and partly overlapping (financial, economic, ecological, sanitary, social, and political) global crises, together with the adverse impact of current wars and rising geopolitical conflicts, and the impact of profound social and technological change (like digitalization, Artificial Intelligence, climate change and green transition) are threatening quality of life and well-being of current and future generations. This session aims to review empirical evidence on the long-term evolution of quality of life and well-being in its various dimensions and domains in countries of the Global North and Global South, as well as to examine the impact of recent developments and challenges. For this session, we invite papers focusing on the (long-term and short-term) trends in quality of life and the (short-term and long-term) impact of current and recent crises on citizens’ quality of life and levels of well-being (including its various dimensions). Papers may focus on single countries (or regions) or make comparisons across countries.
Session Organizer:
Christian SUTER, Université de Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Chair:
Christian SUTER, Université de Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Oral Presentations
Faculty Well-Being during the Intermediate Stage of the COVID-19 Pandemic
Catherine WHITE BERHEIDE, Skidmore College, USA; David COTTER, Union College, USA; Megan CARPENTER, St. Lawrence University, USA
Generational Shifts in Subjective Well-Being: Do Younger Cohorts Experience Lower Levels of Life Satisfaction?
Marc CALLENS, Research Centre of the Flemish Government, Belgium; Dries VERLET, Universiteit Gent, Belgium
Youth Subjective Well-Being: Explaining Variations By Micro and Macro Social Factors
Haridhan GOSWAMI, Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom
Exploring the Nexus between Democracy and Subjective Wellbeing
Batsugar TSEDENDAMBA, Mongolia; Bold TSEVEGDORJ, Independent Research Institute of Mongolia, Mongolia; Dolgion ALDAR, Independent Research Institute of Mongolia, Mongolia
Wealth, Inequality, and Life Satisfaction: The Impact of Economic Changes across Age Groups and Generations in Europe
Dragan STANOJEVIC, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Serbia; Anja GVOZDANOVIC, Institute for Social Research in Zagreb, Croatia; Bojan TODOSIJEVIC, Institute of social sciences, Serbia
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