Demographic aspects of human wellbeing

The scientific literature addressing human wellbeing is rapidly expanding in economics, psychology, sociology, and the health sciences, and is also becoming increasingly important in interdisciplinary studies of sustainable development. A large number of wellbeing indicators have been proposed in order to quantitatively capture and monitor progress towards better human wellbeing and study its determinants. Many of these indicators have demographic components such as life expectancy or studies explicitly address age- and gender-specific differentials in economic standing, life satisfaction, health/disability or consider other demographic differentials.

Researchers at the Wittgenstein Centre (Univ.Vienna, IIASA, VID/ÖAW) are currently involved in several studies around economic and health aspects of human wellbeing, and at IIASA an ERC Advanced Grant funded project led by Wolfgang Lutz is particularly looking at the demography of sustainable human wellbeing. In this context and with partial funding from this grant the conference wants to bring together researchers from around the world working on different aspect of human wellbeing with a specifically demographic perspective. The aim is to put demography more prominently on the table as a discipline that has much to contribute to the scientific study of human wellbeing, both in terms of its measurement and the analysis of its determinants.

The conference will look into the following topics:

• Life expectancy based indicators of wellbeing;
• Wellbeing over the life course and over time;
• Applying demographic metabolism model to forecast wellbeing along cohort lines;
• Demographic differentials/inequalities in wellbeing;
• What matters more for wellbeing: age or gender, education or income?
• Wellbeing and intergenerational support;
• Feed-backs from environmental change to human wellbeing.
  

The keynote speakers at the conference will be Carol Jagger, Newcastle University Institute for Ageing (NUIA), Richard E. Lucas, Michigan State University, and Paul Frijters, The London School of Economics and Political Science.

Event details:

Title: Demographic aspects of human wellbeing

Date: 11-12 November 2019

Location: Vienna University of Economics and Business, Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020 Vienna

Registration: There are no participation fees, but the participants are expected to cover their own travel and accommodation expenses.

Due to limited space, interested participants, who will not give a presentation are required to contact before registering..

For detailed information and registration please visit the event website.

Last edited: 26 November 2019