From anxieties over work-life balance and entangling technologies, to celebrations of cool jobs and great places to live, quality of life frames the ways we enhance our lives and legitimate social change today. But how does the idea of quality of life envision the greater good, and what gets lost as a result? This book provides the critical framework for understanding the idea’s contexts and tensions that are conspicuously missing in popular discussions, professional activities, and scholarly research on quality of life. With multiple case studies taken across North America and Europe, it provides a sociological perspective on the contradictory ways we talk about and pursue quality of life in relation to technology, consumerism, family, work, public space, rural ways of life, and ultimately the final years of life. Drawing on contemporary and classical social theory, it provides an incisive account of the historical shifts in developed societies over the last half-century that have transformed our views and pursuits of quality of life. Originally a promise to undertake collective effort and pursue social justice at a moment of unprecedented opportunity, quality of life now enshrines a solipsistic ideal with which to accommodate the storms of market forces and political failure.

Who has the most nuclear assets in the Middle East? Whose power is waning, whose increasing? Updated annually, these tables of economic, demographic and military indicators establish the pecking order for 236 countries, with estimates of all nuclear arsenals including rarely published data on non-signatory nations. The author also brings a rational perspective to the public debates on the supposed efficiency of private health insurance versus a "public option," and the notion that taxation stifles the economy, by offering comparative statistics from different countries in the developed world.

The foundations of power politics in the nuclear age, fundamental forces that drive events in the international news and seldom-discussed factors that can shift whole economies, or trigger wars, may be discerned from the statistical tables presented in this novel yearbook first issued in 2008. This statistical annual presents fundamental data in three sections: (1) Quality of Life, (2) Balance of Power and (3) Developed Market Economies since 1960. It contains data that is generally not available elsewhere. Sections one and two give statistics for 232 countries. The World Bank and Encyclopedia Britannica provide statistical data for a maximum of about 160 countries. The actual number of countries in World Bank statistical tables is even smaller. The C.I.A. World Factbook gives data for about 230 countries, but that data is limited in scope and is imprecise. Other statistical publications are even less satisfactory. The author has managed to increase the number of countries tallied by writing proprietary software utilizing statistical regressions, selecting data which, first of all, is important and, second, allows for high correlation coefficients for these regressions. Section two includes data about nuclear delivery systems and the number of nuclear warheads of all nuclear powers. This is based on information from reputable sources. Among others, it includes estimates of the Israeli nuclear arsenal which usually do not appear in the press. Official estimates of Russian military expenditures distributed by U.S. and British intelligence communities are methodologically flawed. Such estimates claim to give a picture of military expenditures of the countries of the world at market exchange rates; at the same time, they apparently cite Russian military expense figures at purchasing power parities, thus inflating these numbers in comparison to those of other countries. Such deceptive practices of the Anglo-American intelligence services are counter-balanced by presenting two different tables, showing military expenditures estimates both at market exchange rates and by purchasing power parities. Section three gives data on the topic of health care. It seems that public health expenditures as a share of total health expenditures has a stronger correlation with the comparative level (and the rates of improvement) of the main health care indicators than the absolute level (measured as a percent of G.D.P.) of total health expenditures. The data demonstrates that the U.S. has the lowest public health expenditure of developed market economies, and is increasingly lagging behind other countries by main health care indicators. The recent legislation that was intended to provide greater access to health care for people in the U.S. was furiously attacked by opponents who suspected it would entail some sort of tax increase that would hurt the economy. The author, therefore, also seeks to shed light on modern ideological debates about the share of taxation in G.D.P. and its influence on rates of growth. Surprisingly enough, the empirical data for the developed market economies do not seem to support the popular idea that low taxes are strongly correlated with higher rates of growth; depending on how the data are analyzed, the appropriate correlations are either low or even the reverse of what is commonly believed.

Who has the most nuclear assets in the Middle East? Whose power is waning, whose increasing? Updated annually, these tables of economic, demographic and military indicators establish the pecking order for 235 countries, with estimates of all nuclear arsenals including rarely published data on non-signatory nations.

Combining theoretical and empirical research with global case studies, this innovative book examines the complex relationships between social (in)equality, community well-being and quality of life centred on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 10. Insightful and forward-thinking, it explores strategies for fostering strong communities, focusing on the importance of social connections, shared resources and a sense of belonging.

This book analyzes how Chinese people use their time, including how busy Chinese seek a healthy work-life balance, how some children win from the outset in terms of education, and how people pursue quality of life outside of or after work. General readers will get a vivid and detailed impression of the way Chinese people spend their time, while researchers will find a wealth of phenomena and data for analysis from both economic and social perspectives. The research presented here was conducted in the context of the Chinese Time Use Survey (CTUS), a nationwide initiative launched by Inner Mongolia University in 2017. The CTUS covers 29 Chinese provinces, and the database contains the time use information of 30,591 people aged 3 years and over from 12,471 households. The survey collects information at three main levels: personal, family and community.

First published in 1988, Quality of Life for Handicapped People examines developments and innovations in research and practice concerning the quality of life for those with disabilities. The book centres on the topic of rehabilitation education, with a particular focus on issues relating to quality of life, including what is meant by ‘quality of life’ and the measures and systems required to assess the variables involved. It highlights the significance of rehabilitation education in underlining the key issue of how individuals feel about themselves and how they perceive the services available to them for the purpose of rehabilitation. It considers the importance of environment and the improvement of environment in increasing quality of life, and examines a range of vocational and social programmes from a variety of perspectives. Quality of Life for Handicapped People will be of use to those with an interest in the history and development of rehabilitation education.