NOTES FROM THE LAST SEMINAR, Poverty and affluence, material and spiritual
Professor Graeme Martin opened the seminar with some remarks about Integrated Human Studies. Graeme is on the Centre’s Policy and Management Committee and has a longstanding enthusiasm for the ideology of integration of disciplines. He said he sees the Centre as a first port of call for people interested in expert opinions on major issues, almost all of which will have a multidisciplinary base. He also believes The University of Western Australia, taking in the brightest young minds in WA, has a responsibility to educate them so they can fulfil their expectation of making a difference to human futures. To do this, UWA needs to deliver a broad interdisciplinary curriculum to first-year undergraduates, rather than simply swamping them with specialist subjects as soon as they walk in the door. "Happily, this is a fundamental recommendation of the recent review of our teaching, so the Centre seems ideally placed to play a major role in developing the next generation of UWA's undergraduate programs," he said.
Dr Steve Schilizzi tackled the question of economic poverty by firstly giving some background information about the nature of poverty and how many people it affects. While it is clear that poverty is about lack of access to the necessities of life, and as such it can be quantified, it is also qualitative in that it affects people’s happiness and dignity. There is no unambiguous measure of poverty because it is a multidimensional ethical notion. It cannot be measured in absolute terms because it is relative to what is valued by individuals. Steve went on to examine the process of poverty – how it appears, endures, and might end. On the macro scale, he believes that poverty is exogenous i.e. determined by outside factors beyond the control of individuals. Health, ecology, economics and politics can all play a role in causing poverty, and this poverty can endure because of family and social processes. Poverty traps can exacerbate these processes and create feedback loops that maintain poverty over generations. Ending poverty necessitated intervention of some kind. Interventions must tackle the processes rather than poverty itself. Finally, poverty is a complex issue that cannot be solved by economists alone – interdisciplinary input is necessary.
Inga Kristoffersen is currently researching the relationship between economic welfare and wellbeing. She explained that the notion that humans have any kind of control over their own happiness is relatively recent. In the distant past, happiness was considered largely a matter of luck and circumstance: a healthy child, a good crop, for example. But now that these basic needs are largely met, people have begun to reflect on the concept of happiness, and it has begun to be seen as a necessity of life itself, and lack of happiness is now considered as evidence of failure.
Happiness and its relation to economics have been studied for decades now and Inga demonstrated how different economic theories approached the issue in different ways. Now there was a huge body of survey data collected in various countries. Such studies typically collect such data by asking people to indicate how happy or satisfied they are with their lives. Data collected in Australia indicate most people are quite happy, which is consistent with other data collected around the world. This data can be used in many different applications, including economic analysis. In particular, economists are interested in the relationship between economic welfare and happiness, or wellbeing. This topic has been explored on the micro and macro level, and across time. In general, the evidence supports a positive relationship between economic welfare and happiness, but this is not always the case and the link is quite complex. The happiest individuals in a society are not necessarily the wealthiest, many poor nations have higher levels of happiness than many rich nations, and increased wealth does not always bring increased happiness – neither at the individual nor at the national level. There is still much to be explored in the area of happiness and economics. For example, it is possible that how we use our wealth matters more than how much wealth we have.
Media references
Karen Connolly
Integrated Human Studies
School of Anatomy and Human Biology
The University of Western Australia
35 Stirling Highway Crawley WA 6009
+61 08 6488 3647 email: kconnolly@anhb.uwa.edu.au
In the office on Mondays and Thursdays - for urgent enquiries please phone Neville Bruce on +61 08 6488 3292
