UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III DE MADRID

SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH
SOCIOLOGY
GROUP 38

DIVERSITY & WELL-BEING

CADENAS ESCLUSA, NATALIA 100431604

CHIOIBASU, CARLA-ELENA 100423944
GEORMANEANU, MIHAI ALEXANDRU 100423945
PALACIOS SABÁN, MANUEL 100431767
SALES MANCA, GONZALO

2019-2020

DIVERSITY & WELL-BEING SOCIOLOGY SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

!2
DIVERSITY & WELL-BEING SOCIOLOGY SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

ÍNDICE
1. INTRODUCTION, TOPIC AND QUESTION ......................................................4
2. THEORETICAL FRAME AND INITIAL HYPOTHESIS ..................................4
3. METODOLOGY .....................................................................................................7
4. BODY OF WORK ...................................................................................................9
4.1.QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS ..........................................................................................9

COMENTARLA ............................................................................................................9
4.2.QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS ............................................................................................9

5. CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................... 10
6. BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................10

!3
DIVERSITY & WELL-BEING SOCIOLOGY SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

1. INTRODUCTION, TOPIC AND QUESTION

Our project arises from our empirical perception about ethnic diversity. In other words, we
noticed how most multicultural cities (i.e. London, São Paulo, Amsterdam, New York,
Toronto, Paris…1 ) seem to be prosperous, peaceful and democratic as well. Thus, a question
suddenly came up;

Is diversity somehow correlated with a country well-being?

In order to give a reasoned response, we will proceed to review the existing literature.

2. THEORETICAL FRAME AND INITIAL HYPOTHESIS

Why is cultural diversity a good thing? First of all, the term culturally diverse is often used
interchangeably with the concept of multiculturalism. Some several action involved in the
definition of multiculturalism are: recognition of the different cultures, respect for the
differences, valuing what other cultures offer, empowering people to strengthen themselves
and others to achieve their maximum potential by being critical of their own biases and
celebrating rather than tolerating.

Cultural diversity is important because our country increasingly consist of various cultural,
racial and ethnic groups. This fact helps society to learn from each other and this also helps
individuals to understand different perspectives within the world in which we live.

Multiculturalism is the key to achieving a high level of cultural diversity. Diversity occurs
when people if different races, nationalities, religions… come together in a community.
Diversity makes humanity stronger and it is vital to its long-term survival. According to the
General Conference of Unesco, “cultural diversity is as necessary for humankind as
biodiversity is for nature’’2 .

What is more, multiculturalism is one of the most controversial idea in contemporary politics.
Describes the manner in which a given society deals with cultural diversity, and refers to the

1 Migiro, Geoffrey . (2019, March 28). The Most Diverse Cities in the World.
2Matsuura, K. (2005). Appendix I UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity
UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity. Diogenes, 52(1), 141-145.

!4
DIVERSITY & WELL-BEING SOCIOLOGY SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

way in which societies are enriched by preserving, respecting and encouraging cultural
diversity, and these societies choose to formulate and implement policies dealing with the
treatment of the different cultures.
When we talk of multiculturalism, the term can take place either on a nationwide or within
nation’s communities and this process can occur naturally (immigrations) or artificially (such
as the French-English Canada).

There are two theories that take place in this phenomena:

- The melting pot theory (Zangwill, 19083). Assumes that various immigrant groups
will tend to ‘’melt together’’, abandoning their individual cultures and becoming
assimilated into the predominant society. The main example is the integration of
immigrants to the United States. However, this method has been criticized for
reducing diversity, causing people to lose their identities or traditions.

- The salad bowl theory. Is a more liberal theory that asserts society is heterogeneous,
a place where people coexist but retain at least some of the unique characteristics of
their traditional culture. Different cultures are brought together but not losing their
traditions, a clear example is Chinatown in New York, or in Canada, also known as
the cultural mosaic.
All in all, we group together the characteristics of a multicultural society in: individuals of
different races, ethnities and nationalities living together in the same community. People can
celebrate their traditions, languages and impose their behaviors.

THE CONCEPT OF WELL-BEING/QUALITY OF LIFE.

Quality of life! refers to an evaluation about major aspects of a life or a society.

Well-being! used to refer to the quality of many valued aspects of life. (Gasper, 2007).
The first term is used to speak of communities and societies, context and enviroments, while
the other term refers to individuals and the actual experience.

3Zangwill, I. (2017). The melting-pot. Broadview Press. With his play, the usage of the term was
generalized and spread throughout the states.

!5
DIVERSITY & WELL-BEING SOCIOLOGY SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

There is an increasing awareness of the importance of happiness and satisfaction with life,
both among individuals and policy makers. The way the individual perceives how well his or
her life is going should be considered with objective indicators of economic and social well-
being. Subjective well-being leads to a number of better life outcomes, better health status,
better relationships among individuals and way higher productivity when it comes to
educational achievements.

The co-benefits of the subjective well-being are the outcomes that are not the main objective
of a policy intervention, where the main or primary outcome targeted is taken to be that of
subjective wellbeing. Benefits in terms of improved health, education and social relationships
may for example occur, but these are secondary or “co-benefits”.

For the policy-makers, the assessment of the co-benefits is the most important. These co-
benefits are often measurable and can be considered more tangible by policy-makers than
subjective wellbeing in and of itself, and so it is important that they are properly assessed. It
enables the design of new policies and the comparison of costs and benefits of different
interventions. The evaluation of co-benefits of subjective wellbeing lead to gains over and
above the direct benefits to individuals.

Happiness is a central component of subjective wellbeing. It is also important to stress that

the feeling of happiness in contrast to having all the things that should theoretically make
someone happy, such as money and good health, is the difference between objective and
subjective wellbeing.

There are two problems in the well-being analysis: adaptation to current life circumstances
(Lucals et al. 2003) and changing aspirations, aspiration changes depending on the income
(Easterlin 2001, 2003).

From the policy perspective, to ensure the appropriate allocation of resources towards
subjective wellbeing, it is important to be able to value the overall benefits of enhanced
happiness in monetary terms. This enables decision makers to compare the benefits of
subjective wellbeing-based actions against those for other policy objectivesThe paper is
organised as follows: Sect. 2 clarifies the concept of subjective wellbeing and the importance

!6
DIVERSITY & WELL-BEING SOCIOLOGY SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

of subjective wellbeing evaluations for policy makers. Section 3 reviews the literature
analysing the link between subjective wellbeing and life outcomes.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HEALTH AND SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING.

Maccagnan, A., Wren-Lewis, S., Brown, H., & Taylor, T. (2019). Wellbeing and society: Towards
quantification of the co-benefits of wellbeing. Social Indicators Research, 141(1), 217-243.

This relationship may have been the most investigated one. The positive effect of subjective
wellbeing and positive emotions is independent from the harming effects of negative
emotions. Steptoe (2015) gives a clear example ! The positive effects of positive indicators
of subjective wellbeing on health is confirmed even after controlling for symptoms of
depression.

Positive and negative emotions are not only the ‘’opposite ends of a continuum’’ and so, they
can have independent effects from each other.

As we have explained, previous research argues the positive side of diversity. However, it has
a especial impact in youngsters, as some authors claim the importance among students of
“socializing across racial lines and discussing issues of race” (Chang, 20014).

According to the existing literature, it appears to be a consensus on the positive effects of

ethnic and racial diversity in aspects such as education, economy and even policy. Thus, our
initial hypothesis would be:

The better the well-being, the higher the diversity will be.

3. METODOLOGY

Our research is built on a broad and global radio of analysis; thus, is meant to follow a
quantitative method; this is, emphasizing our social investigation in numerical data, by
manipulating pre-existing statistics, surveys.. .

In order to address our first question (Is diversity somehow correlated with a country well-
being?) and provide it with solid groundwork, it relies on prestigious institutions, mainly two:

4 Chang, M. J. (2001). The Positive Educational Effects of Racial Diversity on Campus

!7
DIVERSITY & WELL-BEING SOCIOLOGY SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

➡ HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX5: the HDI was created to emphasize that people and
their capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a
country, and not only the economic growth. It can also be used to question national
policy choices, asking how two countries with the same level of GNI (Gross
National Income) per capita can end up with different human development
outcomes.

It is a measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human development: a

long and healthy life, being knowledgeable and have a decent standard of living.
The health dimension: is assessed by life expectancy at birth.

The education dimension: is measured by mean of years of schooling for adults aged
25 years and more and expected years of schooling for children of school entering age.

The standard of living dimension: is measured by gross national income per capita.

The HDI uses the logarithm of income, to reflect the diminishing importance of income
with increasing GNI. The scores for the three HDI dimension indices are the aggregated
into a composite index using geometric mean.

In conclusion, this index is basically the “alternative to traditional unidimensional

measure of development” (Sagar, 19986); for instance, GDP (Gross Domestic Product).
However, nowadays we count on different ways of measuring this sort of well-being,
by attending to the level of democracy 7…

➡ GLOBAL CREATIVITY INDEX8 : ………..

However, apart from this quantitative analysis, we have added our own qualitative
contribution by doing our own survey via Google Formularios, as well as a personal
interview. ……..

5 United Nations Development Programme. Human Development Index. HDI.

6 Sagar, A. D., & Najam, A. (1998). The human development index: a critical review. Ecological
economics, 25(3), 249-264.
7 Institutions such as Freedom House or Polity IV work on this kind
8 Florida, R., Mellander, C., & Stolarick, K. (2011). Creativity and prosperity: The global creativity
index.

!8
DIVERSITY & WELL-BEING SOCIOLOGY SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

4. BODY OF WORK
4.1.QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS

EXPLICAR POR QUÉ HACEMOS LA GRÁFICA DE CORRELACIONES ENTRE

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT Y CREATIVITY INDEX

PONERLA (es algo así)

Figura 1. Correlation between the SPI of democracy and migration

61,25 80,00
Social Progress Index
42,50
23,75

-4.000.000 -2.000.000 0
Net Migration
India Bangladesh China Pakistan South Sudan
Myanmar Zimbabwe Indonesia Sri Lanka Romania
Philippines Afghanistan Mexico Nigeria Iran
Morocco Sudan El Salvador Tanzania Mali
Central African Republic Eritrea

COMENTARLA

4.2.QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS

A)
EXPLICAR POR QUÉ HACEMOS EL CUESTIONARIO

PONER RESULTADOS

COMENTARLOS

B)
EXPLICAR POR QUÉ HACEMOS LA ENTREVISTA

PONERLA

COMENTARLA

!9
DIVERSITY & WELL-BEING SOCIOLOGY SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

5. CONCLUSIONS
6. BIBLIOGRAPHY
๏ Chang, M. J. (2001). The Positive Educational Effects of Racial Diversity on Campus.

๏ Florida, R., Mellander, C., & Stolarick, K. (2011). Creativity and prosperity: The global
creativity index.

๏ Gasper, D. (2010). Understanding the diversity of conceptions of well-being and

quality of life. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 39(3), 351-360.

๏ Matsuura, K. (2005). Appendix I UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural

Diversity UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity. Diogenes, 52(1),
141-145.

๏ Migiro, Geoffrey . (2019, March 28). The Most Diverse Cities in the World.

๏ Sagar, A. D., & Najam, A. (1998). The human development index: a critical review.
Ecological economics, 25(3), 249-264.

๏ United Nations Development Programme. Human Development Index. HDI.

๏ Zangwill, I. (2017). The melting-pot. Broadview Press.

!10