WRC seminar: Cheerful Discontent? Charting Happiness in Nine Nations Beyond the West
November 18 @ 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm
The Well-being Research Centre (WRC) will host a seminar by Professor Sergiu Bălţătescu, University of Oradea, Romania, entitled: Cheerful Discontent? Charting Happiness in Nine Nations Beyond the West
This hybrid event will take place in Classroom 10 on Wednesday, 18th November at 12:30-13:30, and online.
Cheerful Discontent? Charting Happiness in Nine Nations Beyond the West
Description:
How happy are people in nations that rarely feature in happiness research, and how can we tell? This talk draws on the special issue Happiness in Nations: Levels, Trends and Correlates of the International Journal of Happiness and Development (IJHD, Editor-in-Chief: Professor Parviz Dabir-Alai). Using the World Database of Happiness, it charts happiness in Croatia, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Romania, South Africa, Turkey and Uzbekistan: how happy citizens are on average, how unequal happiness is, how it has changed over time and what goes with it. The talk also looks at a striking pattern found in most of these countries, especially in Africa and in Central and South Asia: people feel considerably better than they judge their lives. Veenhoven himself called this “cheerful discontent”.
The talk is dedicated to the memory of Ruut Veenhoven (1942–2024), pioneer of happiness research, founder of the World Database of Happiness and lead guest editor of the special issue
Biography:
Sergiu Bălţătescu is a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Happiness and Development, and co-edited with Ruut Veenhoven its special issue on Happiness in Nations. He also serves on the boards of Social Indicators Research, Journal of Happiness and Well-being and Health Psychology Report. He is Professor of Sociology and doctoral supervisor at the University of Oradea, Romania, where he teaches Quality of Life and Social Indicators. His doctoral book on happiness in post-communist Romania received the “Dimitrie Gusti” Award of the Romanian Academy. He leads Romania’s part in Children’s Worlds, the International Survey of Children’s Wellbeing.