Personal Story

Daniel Roomer PDP. 7 â€Å"Every man and woman is born into the world to do something unique and something distinctive and if he or she does not do it, It will never be done. † Benjamin E Mays. This is the essence of this whole story. The understanding of such a philosophy eluded me as did it many people of my age at the time; some are not introduced to this concept until they are far into their adulthood. I had been born and raised Into a Christian household with no real father figure for most of my life, although I saw him frequently he was never around enough to really raise me maybe a few bits and pieces of advice and teachings.The real parenting came from my sister mother and grandmother. My mother had a lot of work to do considering she was a lone parent of two and had my Grandmother come live with us from Nicaragua (Central America) a few years prior to my birth and could barely pronounce â€Å"hello†. Because of my mother's long work hours I didn't see her much and the Job of a nurturing loving mother really fell upon my Grandma. Now this doesn't mean my mom didn't love me or TLD show It she Just wasn't as present as my grandmother was because my grandma didn't work and took care of me all day.For thirteen years f my life I was shown love and care by this Incredible woman. Like I said before I grew up in a Christian house hold and my grandmother, mother and sister all had a pretty good understanding and very inclined spirituality so they took it upon themselves to teach me who God was and why he was important and so Important to our everyday lives. I had never questioned what they taught me I just received and didn't think much of It. I was a typical church boy, going to church listening to what the teachers In Sunday school had to say, waking up every morning at eight to get ready, try to live by hat was taught to me etc. Etc. It was never really hard Just do as you were told and keep your mouth shut so it can all be over quicker. Granted I never consciously thought this way but as a child you know you Just want to live In the moment. As you start to reach the age where life starts to show it's struggles and now it's not mommy and daddy making the decisions as much for you, you begin to put forth the things you have learned over the course of you relatively short existence so far.For me that began at about 11 or 12 years old. I began to be a little preacher showing there kids who God was and why he was important just like my family had shown me and considering that I read the bible on my own I had a level of wisdom about the bible, life, history and in general Just overall that most kids didn't possess at my age. In my seventh grade year when I was 12 my grandmother had become very weak. She wasn't the once strong, fun, larger than life grandmother that I was used to having around.Although I knew so much I still wanted to preserve the innocence of a child and expected this to be like all the cartoons I had grown up watching; where nothing ever bad truly happened to the good guys and those around him. I visited my grandmother in the hospital on a regular basis and I began to see how real this situation had become in my life. My grandmother showed misery and sadness in her eyes whenever she had to be seen in her pitiful state, she was skinnier than she had ever been in her life, and was completely drained of the energy she once had.The visits continued for a few months and she had undergone two surgeries. I had now learned what cancer was and what this evil was doing to my grandmother. I was 13 now and one morning during school it hit me that my ornamented wasn't going to make it I had flashbacks of some of the happiest memories I could think of with her. That same day when walking home I saw my sisters, moms, and dads car in the front yard and I thought nothing of it. As I walked into the house I noticed solemn, saddened faces. My father sat me down on my mother's bed and looked me directly in my eyes and told me that my grandmother didn't make it.It didn't take long for the tears to stream down my face and then began wailing frantically as if one of my appendages had been ripped from my body. The news didn't bode well and my grades slipped drastically. I was a vessel of grief wearing fake smiles and laughs Just to avoid anyone asking me what was wrong and the images of my grandmother would rush back to fill my mind. It was at this point where I came to question everything I was ever taught about this God my family, friends, and teachers were so fond of. , the product of my families teachings was now shattered left to rebuild myself how I saw fit. I had always known what the people around me wanted me to follow or what they wanted me to be and in return I blindly followed what they said. Predestined by birth to fulfill what they anted me to do. I wondered, was everything they told me Just crap? Is there really a God who sent his son to die for me so the inhabitants on thi s earth could be saved? Do I really want to do what I'm doing now? If there is such a God why would he take away my source of love?All these questions and more filled my head and now I would search what I would truly follow and what I would do with myself. I started to do my research on religion and other belief systems. I researched many western eastern belief systems, their history, stories, purposes, etc. Etc. Hopefully ending something that would explain why my grandmother died, what happened to her and why did it have to happen to me now. Nothing was helping if anything it made me angrier and resentful toward these principles god's or god these people impossible to actually fulfill as a human being.My impatience grew and months and months of studying brought no results. My grandma died and there was no positive showing itself from it. After a while it Just seemed as if there was no hope, that crap like this Just happens for no reason and no benefit comes from living life with t he fear of this God. Religion throughout history only seemed to result in the demise of man and was a tool of destruction used by those in power. After a few more weeks passed by I recalled the many times I would see my grandmother writing notes in her bible and notebooks, watching preaching's on T.V. And always seeming to enjoy her time this way. To me it seemed strange that it brought so much Joy to my Grandmother to do these things I wondered if it was because she never found out she was being lied to or that she had seen something I had failed to find. I continued my studies but this time on Christianity. I had taken the time to study it through the historical aspect and the perspectives of many and had concluded that it was a broken philosophy but now I would try a different approach.I took my grandmother's bilingual bible and began to read it and study it this time and use her example of what she did with it. During this time my identity began to take form and the pieces were reassembling to make something new. I learned from the stories and teachings of this book combined with the historical knowledge I had of this bible, I could see how a lot of it made sense. It still didn't get e exactly what I needed but it was a start. I still wondered, why a God who did such wonderful things would allow for me to lose someone so essential in my life.I continued onward and started catching onto a very important theme, the relief from suffering. Soon combined with other themes I had learned in the bible it finally hit me. I was a selfish Jerk who failed to realize what was going on cause I was too busy worrying for myself. This God truly loved my grandmother more than I ever did. She had been suffering for so long with so much pain and I still wanted her to be around. I had never Hough that she had gone to heaven to rest and to leave the pain of humanity behind.I found how religion was a manmade tool and that my grandmother had never followed a religion but she foll owed a God willing to die for her on the cross. Man and God can never mix and the guy who can tell me what's going on in the world 2000 + years before my existence is the guy I should be following. I had come to grips with why my grandma died when she did. I was old enough to make my own decisions and wise enough to execute to decisions. With all the knowledge I had learned I finally could have a better understanding of those around me and What God wants me to do with those around me.Although my grandma died her love for me did not and it would guide me and show me how to share the love she demonstrated to me with other people. God never left me, he had his own way to In the end I had made my own identity and now could fulfill my own unique purpose in the world the only thing left was for me to decide to do it. I have chosen to do so and my something unique I was born to do is now coming to fruition. The struggles that come in life always serve a purpose no matter how painful. The c hoice is yours to allow it to hinder or you or push you forward.

Inequalities in Titanic Essay

Titanic was a British passenger liner separated by a class system that would end up colliding with an iceberg resulting in it to sink. There were limited lifeboats that’s seating would be greatly outnumbered by the passengers. If one was to survive the sinking of Titanic they were likely a woman, child, or upper class male. In the film there were two main sociological concepts that were overwhelming when compared to the rest, gender roles and class inequality. Gender roles are continually reinforced in Titanic. Women would work towards impressing men because there was no other way women could take care of themselves without a man. Rose’s mother pressures Rose to marry rich because their family is out of money and insists because they’re women they don’t have choices, and within the film this appears to be true. Women would sacrifice their comfort for beauty in order to impress the men. Men would discuss business and politics amongst themselves because it was believed women weren’t capable of understanding such issues. Rose’s fiancà © commands her on how to behave similar to an animal, when she speaks up for herself her fiancà © becomes aggressive until Rose becomes submissive and complies with his orders. Rose’s fiancà © doesn’t see his treatment towards Rose as inappropriate because he grew up with social privilege and was treated like a hero because of the set power structure, this is s imilar to the treatment of athletes and their violence acts towards women (Preventing Violence Against Women & Girls: Steubenville & Sport, Mayeda, 2013). The athletes grew up receiving social privilege without it being earned and their negative actions were overlooked because of their athletic performance. If you were to ask â€Å"If her fiancà © had been spending time with another woman would rose have yelled at him and flipped a table?† the answer would likely be no, because the female gender isn’t to be viewed as masculine and aggressive. Class separated the passengers aboard Titanic and would dictate the treatment of individuals. The class system in the film and can be directly  referenced to the class system in â€Å"From Gap to Gucci† (From Gap to Gucci, Witt, 2007), when Rose’s fiancà © identifies Jack dressed as a rich man, he says â€Å"Amazing, you could almost for a gentleman†, indicating Jack cannot and will not be considered gentleman without money. Aboard Titanic the rich were displayed as sophisticated and intelligent, while the poor were displayed as a dirty group who drinks beer, gets overly obnoxious during gatherings, and have a lack of intelligence. Upon boarding the ship lower class went through health inspections, while the higher class had their bags carried and would board the ship immediately without being inspected because of their socioeconomic status. While Titanic was sinking it became Jack and Rose’s fiancà ©Ã¢â‚¬â„¢s mission to save Rose, but if the genders were to switch between those three it would be likely that Rose would be the hero and at would be Rose’s duty to save the other two. This reinforces gender roles and the idea of heroism attributed to men. After Titanic sunk Molly, who was labeled as â€Å"New Money† proposed the lifeboat go back for the disadvantaged because of the extra room available, her proposal was immediately dismissed and she was threatened by the captain of the lifeboat if she continued to rebel, this depicted the women in the film as weak. This compliance to the captain immediately reflects Milgram’s study on obedience. Molly is similar to the participants electrocuting the stranger and the captain is like the doctor in the lab coat, and because the captain is in charge nobody considers questioning his authority (If Hitler asked you to electrocute a stranger, would you? Probably, Meyer, 1970). Jack was accused of theft, and because he’s not advantaged like the upper class it was easier for him to be punished, despite him being set up by Rose’s fiancà ©. Jacks lower class standing made his word invalid when put against someone of a higher class, which was similar to the Roughnecks, whose word generally meant nothing to the police because of their social class and viewing within society (The Saints and the Roughnecks, Chambliss, 1973). The poor were locked into their living quarters while the upper class was being loaded onto the lifeboats. It was apparent that the comfort of the upper class was more important than the lives of anyone beneath their  socioeconomic status. Throughout the film there are multiple patterns, men are heroic and to be pleased by women, women are helpless and can’t attain a comfortable lifestyle without a rich man, and the treatment of an individual will be entirely based on their standing within the social class system. The white men are in power because of socially constructed gender roles that were created by white men. Rose’s fiancà © says â€Å"I make my own luck† and doesn’t realize this â€Å"luck† he makes isn’t really made, but rather a system of advantages and disadvantages put in place by rich white males which perpetuates both gender and class inequality. Works Cited: Mayeda, David. â€Å"Preventing Violence Against Women & Girls: Steubenville & Sport.† Sociology In Focus. Sociology In Focus, 03 Apr. 2013. Web. 01 Dec. 2013. Witt, Jon. â€Å"From Gap to Gucci.† The Big Picture: A Sociology Primer. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2007. N. pag. Print. Meyer, Philip. â€Å"If Hitler Asked You To Electrocute A Stranger, Would You? Probably.† The Practical Skeptic: Readings In Sociology. New York: McGraw-Hill Education, 2013. 63-70. Print. Chambliss, William J. â€Å"The Saints And The Roughnecks.† The Practical Skeptic: Readings In Sociology. New York: McGraw-Hill Education, 2013. 265-276. Print. Titanic. Dir. James Cameron. Perf. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, 1997. DVD

A Common Intention Trust in the Case Oxley vs Hiscock Study

A Common Intention Trust in the Oxley vs Hiscock - Case Study Example A common intention trust has been helpful in establishing the need for fairer distributions of assets of trusts which must take into account the changing social equations of the day, where the traditional institution of marriage has begun to shed its conventional form and cohabitation has become more common. In the case of disputes over shared property, the case of Oxley v Hiscock has served to consolidate the principles of the common intention trust and the extent of proprietary estoppel that may be exercised by the contending parties.The case concerned a couple Ms Oxley and Mr. Hiscock, in reference to a property that was purchased by them, to which Ms Oxley had contributed about a 35% share while the major burden of the investment was borne by Mr. Hiscock out of his own savings and the proceeds of another home they had owned together. Ms. Oxley and her children lived in the new home with Mr. Hiscock and the couple had cohabited together for many years, although the sole title owne r was Mr. Hiscock. This was a case in which no trust declarations had been made, however there was evidence available to lead to an inference of common intention for both parties to enjoy beneficial shares in the property, although the extent of these beneficial shares were not specified. At the lower Court, the Judge found evidence to indicate the existence of a common intention trust and inferred an equal beneficial share in the property. However, this was appealed by Mr. Hiscock on the grounds that he had made a larger contribution to the property in question and allocating the beneficial interests on an equal 50:50 basis was unfair to his interests. At the Court of Appeal, the Court examined the issues and framed two salient issues to be examined where there is no express declaration of trust:- the existence of a common intention trust based upon the expressed intent of the parties to share beneficial interests and- the extent of the beneficial interests that could be attributed to each party.

Health Care Crisis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Health Care Crisis - Essay Example The high cost of the multi-payer system is at the core of the unsustainable medical care costs in America. Medical care does not obey the laws of demand and supply. This makes the seller set the price as far as they can. In the U.S, the price has been set too high making it impossible to provide universal health care. The federalism form of government also makes it difficult to initiate changes to government policies. Furthermore, America does not have a uniform medical care system, making it difficult for the implementation of universal health coverage. The nation has substitute programs that have extended insurance coverage to the legal American citizens in place of universal healthcare coverage. There are already costly related programs, such as Social Security Disability Insurance. If the universal health coverage is implemented, it will put the American firms at a global competitive loss. Next, the insurance policies that have been bought abroad stops being effective in America, especially for those people travelling from the home countries to the U.S. Universal health care coverage would reduce the competition the competition between the American biotechnological and pharmaceutical sector that has resulted in numerous medical breakthroughs. These issues have made it difficult for the United States to have universal health coverage. Health care is a very crucial component in any economic system. Borger et al. (2006) observe that universal health coverage entails some certain form of government action that is aimed at expanding medical care as far as possible in addition to setting minimum standards. Numerous distinct organizations in the U.S provide medical care. Most of the medical care facilities are operated and owned by the private sector enterprises. Statistics have indicated that about 56% of the American community hospitals are non-profit, with the remaining 22% are either state-owned or operate as non-profit organizations (Niles, 2014). The U.S

This is an individual assignment in two parts (1 and 2). Part 1 - 1

This is an individual in two parts (1 and 2). Part 1 focuses on a critical review of a published academic article on - Assignment Example There are many ways on how students can effectively evaluate the validity and credibility of each article published online. Aside from examining the rationale behind the needs to conduct a research study, it is necessary to critically analyze the main argument presented in the paper and originality of the research study (Colorado State University 2011). In line with this, whether or not the author has a bias conclusion can be noted by considering not only the personal background and credibility of the author but also the research evidences presented in the appendixes. With regards to the validity of the information gathered in the research study, it is best to check the date of each article, books, or website listed in the bibliography or reference page. Likewise, students should take note that reading materials gathered more than 10 years ago is often considered out-dated not unless the author is pertaining to information that happened in the past. Other than critically analyzing th e valid literature, charts and graphs that strongly supports the argument presented in the study, the credibility of the author in terms of his/her expertise in the field of study should also be considered (Colorado State University 2011). About the Author Wei Song is currently working as assistant professor at the School of Business Economics at Thompson Rivers University in Canada. Her educational background includes: PhD in Management at the University of Edinburgh in UK, MSc in Management Science by Research at the University of Edinburgh in UK, MBA at Frostburg State University in US, and BA at East China Normal University in Shanghai China (Thompson Rivers University 2011). As an assistant professor, she is teaching MBA courses related to strategic management, financial management, marketing management, strategic marketing, advanced marketing management, directed research project, project management, organizational behaviour, international business and research design among ot her subjects offered in BBA courses (Colorado State University 2011). Aside from having written a long-list of publications, she is also affiliated with the International Journal of Management and Business as editorial board and honorary advisory board member, the American Collegiate Retailing Association (ACRA), International Academy of Management and Business, and Journal of Academy of Business and Economics as a member of review board (ibid). This increases the author’s credibility in writing the article being examined in this paper. Critic on Published Article Title and Publication Date of the Article There is no problem with regards to the publication date of the article being examined. Since the article will be published on February 2011, this article is up-to-date. With regards to the article’s title, it is aligned with the research topic and purpose of the study. Thus, it gives a clear direction about what the readers would expect in the study. Abstract The abs tract is clear and specific in terms of discussing the purpose of the study, the research method, the sample population and the site where the primary research was conducted. The abstract also provided the readers with a clear overview with regards to the significance of the research findings to future research studies. Since the research abstract was written in 175 words, this section did not discuss the research findings and conclusion. The abstract also failed to mention the implications, limitations and future direction of the

Fair Values in Accounting for Financial Instruments Assignment - 1

Fair Values in Accounting for Financial Instruments - Assignment Example AASB 139 defines a fair value as â€Å"the amount for which a liability or an asset may be exchanged between willing and knowledgeable parties in an arms length business deal†. Therefore, fair value accounting is a financial measurement of liabilities and assets of a company at fair value (Kemp, 2005, pp. 1-2). As a consequence of the synchronization of international accounting standards and additional disclosure requirements regarding risk and volatility, companies are changing from historical cost accounting to fair value accounting. Fair value accounting provides the users of financial statements present economic state of affairs of a company and presents a better manifestation of market values liabilities and assets, and consequently, the actual company’s worth. The companys financial statements become more relevant and useful in the marketplace for decision-making. In addition, fair value shows changes in economic conditions; thus, application of fair value for all financial assets allows investors to obtain a fairer and truer view of the actual financial situation of a company (Ryan, 2008, pp.3-4). Fair value accounting offers more comparable, accurate and timely information to investors and reflects recent information regarding future cash flows. Furthermore, in view of the fact that fair value reveals current conditions of the market, it offers comparability of the financial instruments value purchased at dissimilar times in determining the risks and value of financial instruments range (Landsman, 2006, pp.4-5) Fair value accounting also comprises of the significance and probability of all promising future cash flows and brings up to date the sharing of cash flows in future for fresh information regularly. Consequently, stakeholders and capital providers become more up to date when there is an adverse sharing of cash flows in future. Fair value accounting

MRT Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

MRT - Essay Example al.). But taping when applied correctively by a skilled trainer or physician can have many more benefits. One of the most important is its ability to regulate the flow of lymphatic fluids throughout the injured area, as well as the regulation of swelling and improvement of bloodflow. These benefits, however, are not fully recognized by trainers; in one study more than half of people experiencing an elbow injury – an injury that should respond well to taping – never received the treatment (MacDermid et. al.). However, even given the fact that taping is sometimes underutilized in rehabilitation of soft-tissue injuries, it retains a broad applicability. It has been demonstrated to improve healing in a wide variety of injuries including ligament damage, hand fractures from repetitive stress (van Aken et. al.), ankle strains (Abian-Vicen et. al.), and elbow fractures (MacDermid et. al.). The most impressive aspect of taping is the fact that it seems to have no affect on many aspects of health and performance among people using it. While many medical and therapeutic techniques carry the risk of significant side effect, recent studies have indicated that taping has no affect on either jump or balance tests among trained gymnasts (Abian-Vicen et. al.). Given these results, people who are not participating in sports should notice only very minimal impact on their day to day lives. Taping, while valid in many situations, is obviously no panacea. While it responds well to some fractures, there are many which would be better if left untreated (MacDermid et. al.). Bruises and any surface injuries to soft tissues can be exacerbated by taping. Furthermore, there is a risk of misuse with taping, which can limit bloodflow, especially if patients begin attempting to treat themselves with taping rather than leaving it to skilled

Pilando Golf Resort Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Pilando Golf Resort - Essay Example There are usually some bookings during lunch hours especially on weekends and during dinner hours. The hotel serves a range of dishes due to the diverse nature of the clientele. Besides serving food to guests and other recreational facilities, the hotel offers golf tournaments to its clientele. My experience at the facility as a volunteer exposed me to the various operations of business and the relations with guests at the facility. The experience at the resort exposed to various processes that relate to businesses. An important aspect of the business involved the development of a range of strategies including communication skills. Good communication skills are important in handling of the customers. Customers are different are usually relate to workers in different ways. In the hospitality industry, it is necessary for waiters to develop good communication skills in order to attract and retain the clients. Pilando Golf Resort has a very strong work ethic. Workers are usually motivat ed to provide their best services in order to attract and retain the clientele. The management also helps the workers to develop key skills that are necessary for proper handling of the guests. Usually, the management handles most of the issues that concern the welfare of the guests. The organizational structure of the resort involves a team of managers at the top, followed by supervisors, and finally the workers. The top-level management usually handles decision-making at the resort. Various departments coordinate to ensure the smooth running of the facility. Some of the departments include customer care department, finance department, planning department, and many others. Each department operates according to the mission and vision of the business.

Nurses' Responsibility in the Prevention of medications errors Essay

Nurses' Responsibility in the Prevention of medications errors - Essay Example The nurse administrators can reduce the nurses’ workloads in order to help reduce the errors. Another remedial procedure is to requiring all nurses to implement error reduction procedures. Reduction of nurse burnouts reduced medical errors. Nurses must responsively prevent or lessen of medication errors to permissible levels. Evidently, the findings indicate healthcare professionals, especially nurses, should responsively prevent or reduce medication errors to allowable occurrences. Keywords: medication errors, remedial action, burnout Nursing Professional’s Responsibility to End/lessen Medications Errors Introduction Healthcare entails the nurses’ role in the patient’s recuperation. The research delves on the types of medication errors. The research delves on medication error reduction strategies. Medical errors may cause the patients’ death. Medical errors can be reduced. Healthcare professionals, especially nurses, and other healthcare facility w orkers are responsible for the prevention of medication errors. The nurses are required to exert all efforts to eliminate medication errors. Most of the medication errors occur during certain situations. One of the situations is during the nurse duty shifts. One medication error occurs when the prior shift nurse forgets to give the medication to the patient. The next duty nurse erroneously does not scrutinize whether the prior duty nurse gave the patient the required medication. The error can be prevented by requiring all the next duty nurses to compulsorily scrutinize the prior nurses’ chart notations (Kalra, 2011). Further, Dorit Pud and Anat Zahavy reiterated â€Å"one of the best strategies to reduce medication errors is to scrutinize possible loopholes in the entire healthcare process and not focus on individual isolated medication error cases† (Dorit & Anat, 2010, p. 794). The loopholes include unintentional recording of medication intakes. Forgetting to record t he patient’s actual medicine intakes may persuade the next nurse to erroneously give the same medicine to the patient. The overdose may cause severe health effects on the patient. Further, M. Wernli and D. Schwappach insist that â€Å"patients can play an important part in reducing medication errors by persuading the patients to immediately report any perceived errors to concerned medical professionals for immediate remedy† (Wernli & Schawppach, 2010, p. 285). Another possible medication error may occur during patient transfers. The patient is originally staying at hospital’s left wing. The patient is transferred to right wing in order to lessen the time needed for the resident medical doctor to move from doctor’s office to the patient’s ward bed. When the patient is transferred to the right hospital wing, another nurse committed medication error when she made a new chart. The error can be avoided by requiring all nurses to exert more time and effo rt to ensure that the patient’s chart is religiously replicated to eliminate the medication errors (Kalra, 2011). Nurses must implement medical intervention requirements to eliminate medication errors (Zerwekh & Claborn, 2010). When the nurse discovers an error in the drug order, the nurse should immediately question whether the drug order is correctness. When the nurse gathers enough evidences to prove there was a medication error, the nurse must immediately report the medication er

Part 2 report Speech or Presentation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Part 2 report - Speech or Presentation Example The linear function of the equation is can be given by. The second equation describes the exponential growth of the payroll. It can be given by . Both the linear and exponential equations describe the relationship between the two variables in question. If the general form of the equation for the variables is given by, then the equation for the exponential growth will be given by. When the value of x is 6 in 2004, the linear function. The exponential equation 40.546277. In the form of, the value of N becomes -335544.32 in both cases. The growth factor in this scenario becomes 1.0475 and the growth rate is therefore 4.75%. The graph below shows both the linear and exponential models for the average NHL team payroll. To help in getting a more insightful understanding of both the linear and exponential trend are the trend lines. For the linear functionthe value of while for the exponential function the value of The next step in the analysis will require the application of both the linear and exponential models to predict the average NHL team payroll between the years 2012 and 2020. This data is shown in the table below. Comparing the values obtained using the two models; the NHL team should use the exponential model for economic planning as it offers lower values as compared to the linear model. From the analysis above, the both the linear and exponential models can be used to estimate the trend and the rate of growth of a certain dynamic product. Using these mathematical concepts, it becomes easier to plan for the future as it has been shown by the prediction of the expected payroll between 2012 and

Hebrew Wisdom Essay Example for Free

Hebrew Wisdom Essay This is my introduction to describe the teachings of Hebrew wisdom on diligence and laziness and how does this correspond with the contrast between wisdom and folly? I first want to give the definition of each of the words that I will be addressing during this essay. Diligence means â€Å"the attention and care legally expected or required of a person†. Laziness means â€Å"resistant to work or exertion; slow-moving; sluggish†. Wisdom means â€Å"the ability to discern or judge what is true, right or lasting; insight:. Folly means â€Å"a lack of good sense, understanding, or foresight. Now that we have the definition of the important words that I will be focusing on, lets beginning the discussion of Hebrew wisdom regarding these attributes. The Book of Proverbs was written mostly by Solomon. Solomon asked God and received the wisdom of The Lord and Solomon teaches us about the importance of diligence and not being lazy. Solomon states in Proverbs 13:4 â€Å"The soul of a lazy man desires, and has nothing; But the soul of the diligent shall be made rich†. When we continually seek after wisdom it will enable us to not become lazy. If we continue to be diligent we reap the rewards by  obtaining the knowledge we need to help us in our daily walk and every aspect of our life. Solomon states in Proverbs 4:13 â€Å"Take firm hold of instruction, do not let go; keep her, for she is your life†. The Word of God is our foundation to live a diligent life. The Book of Proverbs emphasizes the fear of the Lord as the key to wisdom and knowledge. His wisdom is available to those of us who trust Him and keep His commandments (Proverbs 2:7-10). The Book of Proverbs gives you the lifestyle to follow, the life of diligence or the life of laziness. The choice is ours to make in what path we will follow. The lazy person is one that does not count up the costs, one that want something for nothing, one that will sleep during the day instead of working (Proverbs 13:4; 24:30). As believers we must understand the importance of being diligent and not lazy. We must apply the knowledge given to us through the Word of God and apply it to our lives so that we will not be as a folly person. Folly is one that is lead by the pleasure of this world. According to The Essence of the Old Testament â€Å"under the sun† indicates an earthly perspective, in other words, a life without God. In Proverbs 14, Solomon describes the difference between wisdom and folly. Solomon states that foolishness destroys his own, willfully avoids fearing the Lord, speaks words that are undependable and immature and the fool has no harvest for lack of spiritual strength. The fool leaves no room for accountability to God. Then in Proverbs 15, Solomon speaks of the wise person. He will build his own, maintain integrity because of the fear of the Lord, he produces a harvest, he tells the truth, he maintains a teach spirit and finds gracious favor from the Lord. In my conclusion, I will sum up the teaching of the Hebrew wisdom. We have a choice to obtain wisdom and be diligent or be foolish and lazy. Our reward will be greater if we choose to follow God and use the wisdom that God has given us and be diligent in everything that we do for God so that we will not be like the foolish person and head towards destruction due to self indulgence and doing and speaking evil against God. Those that have the wisdom and diligent, need to be careful that they do not rejoice when their enemy falls (Proverbs 24:17). As stated in Ecclesiastes 12:13, Fear God and keep His commandments, For this is man’s all. Let’s all seek to be like Solomon and ask God for wisdom, daily so that we can do and say those things that are pleasing to our Heavenly Father. Wisdom is meant to be applied, not just studied or memorized (The Essence of the Old Testament). BIBLIOGRAPHY Edward Hindson and Gary Yates,,The Essence of the Old Testament: A Survey, Nashville, 2012 Broadman Holman Publishers, The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Nashville, 1996 Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition principal copyright 1993

The Dome of the Cathedral, Florence Essay Example for Free

The Dome of the Cathedral, Florence Essay The Cathedral was designed and built in between 1377-1466 by the architect and visionary Fillipo Brunelleschi and numerous others. However parts of the building appear to date back to the 11th century, by a sculptor Arnolfo di Cambio (Farfan, 2001). The cathedral itself is located north of the Piazza del la Signoria and towers over the city. Initially there had been a great deal of competition with regards to who would be granted the contract of building the dome (also known as the Santa Maria del Fiore), but Brunelleschi used the innovative idea of constructing the dome support structure without a wooden center (Farfan, 2001). In 1420, Brunelleschi was granted the contract that involved the inner support being constructed from brick alone (Farfan, 2001). The dome consists of a complicated geometrical design, with an octagonal drum that with several empty shells within to lighten up the interior of the structure, this Brunelleschi called the ‘oculus’ (the eye). Brick ribs crisscross the interior but do not serve as a support for the building. The springing put of the dome is approximately 177 feet above ground level. From the base of the drum to the top of the dome is around 108 feet, showing the massive volume of the building as a whole. The radius across the outer edges of the octagonal drum measures 176 feet. An estimated amount of bricks used is in excess of 4 million (Farfan, 2001). The octagonal domes inside the cathedral were completed in succession of one another in order to create a stable support. The process is complex and dependent of precision timing and measurement. Bricks were laid using the ‘herringbone’ method, being laid on sloping beds in a ring like fashion, the spirals are closed with protruding bricks laid lengths ways instead of breadth. The cones within the spiral are divided into 5 equal geometric points in order to locate the ‘pointed-fifth curvature’. The axis of the inverted dome corresponds directly with the domes outer structure. The slack line corresponds with the bricks beds resting on the inverted cone surface. As work commenced the domes vertex shifts upwards (Farfan, 2001). The completed dome is supported by 3 half domes on the exterior of the structure. The ‘quinta acuto’ (eight corner ribs), the method of the radius divided into four-fifths of the maximum crossing span, is visible in even the half domes (Salvadori, 1980). Sandstone bricks were used within an iron reinforcement, prevent the collapse if the dome under pressure from its parallels (Salvadori, 1980). This was the largest dome built without wooden centering. This was the first instance that Doric, Ionic and Corinthian orders were used in architecture since the ancient times. Constructed out of sandstone and iron reinforcements, Brunelleschi designed tiles for the surface of the dome that would be easy to maintain and resist the elements (Salvadori, 1980). The outer facades are constructed with visible cantilevered arches, presenting themselves as alcoves facing onto the street below. Atop the Dome is Brunelleschi’s famous lantern which is hollow marble. The ornately decorated exterior is what can be described as truly Renaissance grace, elegantly yet elaborately consisting of numerous alcoves, facades and frescoes. The main facade is pink and green. The interior has stained glass windows in order to allow as much light in as possible and the paving entering the dome is marble. The interior also has frescoes of The Last Judgement, by artists Giorgio Vasari and Frederico Zuccari. The interior is extremely vast with extraordinarily high ceilings and is extremely well lit. The oculus sheds a direct beam into the middle of the building. The Duomo itself fits in with the Renaissance architecture surrounding it, including The Baptistery designed by rival Ghiberti, whose equally Gothic sculpture and is equaled if not surpassed by Brunelleschi’s ornate facade. All machinery and hoists used in the building of the dome have been removed, however numerous modern students of architecture have rebuilt models using versions of the machinery that would have been utilized, as well as making bricks in the same way as Brunelleschi would have done. Because of the openness of the structures interior, it is easy to move around in and facilitates vast numbers of people at one time. It is also constructed so that most of the inner quadrant can be viewed from the center of the building. Brunelleschi initiated the idea of linear perspective, with all points converging to a centralized point, this is evident in his construction of the dome particularly. This was also the beginning of the humanism approach, focused on the sensibilities of people. This meant that the building itself had to be as user friendly as possible while still being an aesthetic asset to the city. The idea of perspective for Brunelleschi was the most important aspect of humanism, drawing from the postulate that art is how the person views their world. Therefore the artistry of the dome had to by some standards be appropriate to the period, social climate and what the people of the city were expecting (see footnote 2). As a result, much of the richness associated with renaissance art is visible in the construction of the dome, but it remains relatively unobtrusive, its colors being predominantly bronzes and burnt browns. The interior flagged marble floor has alternating pieces of dark ruddy brown and cream, making at more aristocratic than religious. This lends itself heavily on the idea that the initial purpose of the dome was not religious, but more a centerpiece around which the city could be arranged. It has the ‘landmark quality’ that associates it with other countries and cities almost via its competitiveness. The entrance to the dome, through Giotto’s bell tower, which was completed only after the death of Brunelleschi. Three doors mark the entrance and exits of the dome. The main door is called the Almond door due to its elliptical shape. It has a painting of The Assumption of Our Lady Into Heaven, by the painter Nanni Bianco. Rich renaissance colors mark this painting as a distinct aspect of renaissance culture. High up on the side portals of the main painting are two small statues of the prophets by sculptor Donatello. There is also a mosaic in the lunette of the portal door, by the artists Domenico and Davide Ghirlandiao. Due to the three small domes supporting the dome itself, entrances and exits are through these portals, meaning that one can basically enter and proceed through the opposite entrance if necessary. The Dome of Florence Cathedral could basically be described as a landmark that does not intrude on other buildings within the Florentine setting, instead it serves as a central point in the city and has become a tourist attraction over the years. For students, the remarkable invention of stone supported domes has also become a topic of discussion. Previously having used wooden support scaffolds, the stone version may have been costly and time consuming but it gave the opportunity to build stronger and larger constructions. IT has been used over centuries as a gathering place for local meetings and also to house the some of the nost beautiful renaissance artworks of time. It is possible that Brunelleschi’s ideas about light and space influenced more modern architects such as Lloyd Wright, whose ideology was to allow as much natural light as possible into the building. The colors of the interior of the dome allow this natural light emanating from the oculus to be expanded and rather than giving the cold internal feel such as some of the older basilica’s would, the dome gives off an intensely warm energy. This was certainly an invention that changed the face of architecture and has long held it position in the history of the art. Sources: â€Å"Dome: Almond Door†. 2008. FirenzeViva. com. Accessed: 10 February 2008. (http://www. firenzeviva. com/duomo-firenze/duomo_almond_door. htm) Farfan, Maria. 2001. â€Å"Dome Structures: Santa Maria Del Fiore (Florence). † McGill University, Philosophy of Structures. Accessed 10 February 2008). http://www. arch. mcgill. ca/prof/sijpkes/arch374/winter2001/sfarfa/ensayo1. htm Salvadori, Mario. 1980. â€Å"Florence Cathedral – Dome†. Architecture Around The World. Accessed: 10 February 2008. http://www4. bfn. org/bah/a/virtual/italy/flor/cath/dome. html â€Å"The Early Renaissance in Florence† (date unknown). NGA. Accessed: 10 February 2008. http://www. nga. gov/collection/pdf/gg04en. pdf

Benefits of Leisure on the Individual

Benefits of Leisure on the Individual Introduction / Summary In previous contributions, there should have been wide discussions to draw the limits of leisure. I would like to get assistance one that you have read those chapters, in order to write some introductory paragraph that lets the reader know if my contribution is particularly related to some other one. In this contribution, I will analyze it by using the subjective well-being approach. I will use the leisure experience dimension (as described bellow), and I will study the determinants of subjective well-being. There will be plenty of conceptual discussion, some regularities will be reported, an empirical exercise will be performed results analyzed, and some insights for future research will be presented. In this paper, we will study leisure and its beneficial aspects over individual welfare by using a quite new approach: the subjective well-being or happiness approach to measure individual welfare. Along the discussion, we will present two main points. First, we will discuss on the dimensions of leisure in order to justify that by using subjective well-being procedures, we can get a comprehensive approximation to the, somehow difficult to measure, leisure concept. Second, to determine which are the personal and environmental factors that are needed so an individual can produce and consume enjoyable leisure experiences. In this chapter, we are not going to consider that leisure is just free time, i.e. time that is not dedicated to market work, nor to household maintenance activities. We are not even going to consider that leisure is discretionary time (Goodin, et al. 2005). What we state is that leisure is a universal human need that has to be fulfilled by the production in the household and the personal consumption of what we may call leisure experiences. Each experience is a commodity that enters directly in the individuals utility function. This means that leisure is one of the arguments of the utility function of the individual, one of the instances from which she will get welfare. By doing this, we will adopt from the beginning a beckerian approach (Becker, 1965, and 1990). Other arguments are (Gronau and Hamermesh, 2006). From that list of commodities, we can agree that leisure is the most time intensive one. Individuals have this particular basic need, leisure, to be fulfilled using the most suitable combination of personal resources. As always, we are living in a scarce world where every input has some alternative use, so people have to make allocation choices about the best way to fulfill this leisure need as well as others such as food, shelter, and so on. However, we will introduce into our analysis a basic feature of leisure: the presence of enjoyable others. Only recently has this aspect been introduced in the economic analysis of leisure (Osberg, 2009). In this paper, we address the question of how personal inputs are optimally combined to satisfy the leisure need in a social context. By means the analysis of the leisure domain satisfaction, we will be able to asses how personal free time transforms into leisure and how this outcome contributes to individual welfare. Each person would define the boundaries of leisure on the basis of her tastes, on different resource availability to fulfill her needs, and may value the final outcome in many different ways depending on the social norms, her personal aspirations, social interactions and past experiences. Since using a personal definition of leisure would make any analysis impossible, we will present the main three different constructions of leisure, as proposed by Kelly (1982). The first approach of leisure is the most basic one that defines leisure as quantifiable leisure time, either residual or discretional, based on the freedom to choose. The second one defines leisure as the activity that is chosen at a given time and place so that it is the quality of the activity which defines it as leisure. The third one defines leisure as a subjective condition on the grounds of a freely chosen experience based on intrinsic motivation. The integrative approach proposed by Kelly is the one that we follow in this research, where Leisure is an action that takes place at a given time, develops an identifiable activity and is perceived as a pleasant experience by the actor. In what follows, we would refer to this last integrative approach either as leisure or leisure experience. Actually, it fits very well with the following definition of leisure satisfaction by Beard and Ragheb (1980). For them, leisure satisfaction is the positive perceptions or feelings that an individual forms, elicits, or gains as a result of engaging in leisure activities and choices. It is the degree to which one is presently content or pleased with her general leisure experiences and situations. This positive feeling of pleasure results from the satisfaction of felt or unfelt needs of the individual. Traditional economic theory studies human behavior by means of individual’s observed choices. In such a spirit, observed time allocation can be an outcome of interest recorded on time-use surveys. Actually, as we will discuss in the concluding section, time-use registers are a very valuable source of information, and many of the questions that we are going to address could be complementarily studied by testing those hypotheses with that type of data. However, even if some authors consider that time is the ultimate source of utility, time by itself provides no utility to individuals, since the mere passing of time does not fulfill any human need (possibly except from sleeping time). Moreover, since we have no means of observing the final leisure output, we have to rely on the subjective assessment of how satisfied people feel with the leisure that they enjoy. At the end of the day, the main challenge is to determine how an unobservable, such as leisure, can contribute to individual welfare. In this case, we are considering a double black-box. First, not everyone defines leisure in the same way and not everyone produces leisure experiences by using the same technology or the same inputs. For some people, the presence of others will be much more needed that for some other people. Some people could be much more materialistic than others. Some people could be much more efficient in the production of pleasurable experiences because of their higher education. Second, as indicated before, we know that leisure contributed to enhance the quality of life of people, but the valuation of those experiences is determined by societal norms and arrangements and by personal aspirations, past experiences and comparison effects. Next section will present the happiness or subjective well-being approach. We will introduce a brief discussion of the rationale for using this approach for economic research and for leisure research. To do so, we will present the domain approach; in this setting, leisure satisfaction will be considered a mediator between individual leisure experience and overall satisfaction or happiness. In section 3, we will discuss the relationship between leisure time and well-being. Other crucial aspects will be discussed in section 4, where we review a series of social and economic factors that are said to influence leisure enjoyment, so leisure has a high quality and contributes to a better quality of life. Particularly, we will report previous findings on the social dimension of leisure, one of the attributes that determine high quality leisure experiences. In that same section, some determinants of overall satisfaction, or of particular domain satisfaction will be discussed. Last, sections 5 and 6 will present, respectively, some conclusions and a brief overview of needed research to better understand the contribution of leisure to a better quality of life. Subjective well-being approach Traditional research on quality of life relied heavily on objective and materialistic indicators of living conditions. Actually, Gross Domestic Product has been the â€Å"champion† indicator when studying the evolution of living standards and when comparing economies (Mankiw, 2007). Under the realm of objective indicators, nearly all non market activities and many aspects of human development, such as leisure, are neglected. New studies have highlighted the superiority of including the subjective approach to the investigation of quality of life in developed and developing societies, and happiness research has become quite of a fashionable and popular topic (Layard, 2006). There is a growing interest on using the subjective well-being approach to analyze living conditions and there has been an emerging literature on social sciences. Among other reasons for that flourishing, we can highlight the following: (i) this approach offers richer insight about the quality of life, and considers other indicators of development apart from the traditional indicators; (ii) nowadays there is more information available about living conditions, opinions and perceptions of people and societies, and; (iii) with this approach it is possible to identify the major needs and problems of the population, which is useful for governments and policy makers (Frey and Stutzer, JEL 2002). Economists and other social scientists broadly define `happiness and `life satisfaction as subjective well-being. Following Diener and Seligman (2004, pp. 4) life satisfaction is defined as a global judgment of well-being based on information the person believes is relevant, while well-being includes all of the evaluations, both cognitive and affective, that people make of their lives and components of their lives. While according to some authors, the terms happiness, subjective wellbeing, well-being, satisfaction and quality of life are somewhat different and each have their own specific meaning, responses in different surveys are highly correlated (Fordyce, 1988; Frey and Stutzer, 2002b), and many analyses use them indiscriminately. In this current study these terms are used with the understanding that they have a similar connotation. The present study will use a bottom-up approach to the analysis of subjective well-being. This approach considers that overall life satisfaction is determined by what is called domain satisfaction; the evaluation of own personal situation on different dimensions of life such as: financial situation, housing conditions, health, leisure, job or education, among other dimensions. Some authors signal the mediator role of those domain satisfactions to determine overall happiness (Cummins, 1996; van Praag et al., 2003; Easterlin and Sawangfa, 2007). In what follows, we will consider that leisure satisfaction has leisure experiences as the main input; higher leisure satisfaction will contribute, in turn, to higher overall satisfaction or happiness. In order to assess the size of different influences upon happiness and satisfaction with life in general, psychologists have been using surveys since long ago, while only recently economists have recognized that there is useful information in a subjective well-being answer as an empirical approximation for the theoretical concept of utility. With the exception of the seminal work of Easterlin (1974), most research has taken place during the last two decades. The existing state of research suggests that, for many purposes, happiness or reported subjective well-being is a satisfactory empirical proxy of individual utility. From the information about the determinants of individual happiness, different situations of economic and social policies inside a country or a region can be analyzed . Frey and Stutzer (2002b) give some important reasons for economists to consider happiness research. First, happiness research can help to evaluate net effects, in terms of individual utilities, for different economic policies. Understanding the determinants of subjective well-being can thus usefully inform economic policy decisions. Second, this research also has relevance to economists because of the effect of institutional conditions such as the quality of governance and the size of social capital on individual well-being. It may also help to solve empirical puzzles that conventional economic theories find difficult to explain. For instance, using this approach it is possible to understand why for several countries since World War ll although they have raised their real income drastically, the self-reported subjective well-being of the population has not increased or has even slightly fallen. Data about happiness are collected through direct questioning via interviews or self-administered questionnaires in which individuals self-rate their happiness on a single item or on a multi-item scale. These scales offer a list of options, which are ranked according to the levels of happiness . Most studies of subjective well-being are based on some variation on the question How satisfied (or happy) are you with your life? The range of possible responses is defined over a scale that varies between datasets (one to four, one to seven, or one to ten), the lowest grades indicating a poor level of life satisfaction. The main use of happiness measures is not to compare levels in an absolute sense but rather to seek to identify the determinants of happiness. The strategy is to use the answers that people give when asked questions about how happy they feel with life. Similar questions are posed with respect to job satisfaction, health satisfaction, housing satisfaction, satisfaction with marital relation, etc. †¦, and leisure satisfaction or satisfaction with leisure time. This study of the different aspects of life is called domain satisfaction. Although this approach could have limitations, as was said by Oswald (1997, p. 1816) if the aim is to learn about what makes people tick, listening to what they say seems likely to be a natural first step. The domains-of-life literature states that life can be approached as a general construct of many specific domains, and that life satisfaction can be understood as a result from satisfaction in these domains of life (Cummins, 1996; van Praag et.al, 2003; Easterlin and Sawangfa, 2007; Rojas, 2006a, 2006b). It is evident that different domains may be distinguished. In many studies, the domains to be analyzed are determined by data availability. For instance, in the British Household Panel Survey leisure satisfaction is split up into two sub-dimensions; namely, the amount of leisure and use of the leisure time (Van Praag and Ferrer-i-Carbonell, 2007); the European Community Household Panel considers only satisfaction with leisure time , and the Latinobarà ³metro only includes satisfaction with the amount of leisure (Rojas, XXXX). Rojas (2007) affirms that the enumeration and demarcation of the domains of life are arbitrary. In addition to this, there are many possible partitions of a human life, and the selected partition depends on the researchs objectives and the available information. For example, Cummins (1996) has argued for a seven-domain partition: material well-being, health, productivity intimacy, safety, community and emotional well-being; van Praag et al. (2003) study the relationship of satisfaction in different domains of life (health, financial situation, job, housing, leisure and environment) and satisfaction with life as a whole. Rojas (2006b and 2007), on the basis of factor analysis, identified seven domains of life: health, economic, job, family, friendship, personal and community. Using information from Mexico , he showed that satisfaction in the family domain is crucial for life satisfaction. Family satisfaction includes aspects of satisfaction with ones spouse, children and with the rest of the family. Rojas also showed that the satisfaction in the health, job and personal domains is also very important for a persons happiness. Satisfaction in areas such as housing and living conditions, financial solvency and income are relatively less important for life satisfaction. Rojas (2007) found that income is an explanatory variable of relevancy for economic and labor satisfaction, but not for family satisfaction or leisure satisfaction. For that reason, it is possible to find situations where a person is satisfied with his/her life while he/she is unsatisfied economically, or where a person is unsatisfied wit h his/her life and, at the same time, his/her economic satisfaction is high (Rojas, 2008b). Empirical research has focused on different factors associated with subjective well-being and satisfaction. In agreement with psychological and sociological studies (Argyle, 1999), economic research has identified a set of personal and social characteristics associated with life satisfaction. Most studies using data from North America and European countries have found the level of reported life satisfaction to be high among those who are married (Blanchflower and Oswald, 2004b; Easterlin, 2003; Carroll, 2007; Clark et al., 2005; Ferrer-i-Carbonell and Frijters, 2004), women (Oswald, 1997; Clark, 1997), whites (Oswald, 1997; Alesina et al., 2004), the well-educated (Blanchflower and Oswald, 2004a; Frey and Stutzer, 2003; Borooah, 2005), the self-employed (Blanchflower, 2000; Blanchflower, 2004; Frey and Benz, 2003; Alesina et al., 2004), the retired (Di Tella et al., 2003), and those occupied with home duties (Di Tella et al., 2003; Borooah, 2005). The relation between an individuals age and happiness seems to be a bit more complex. Many people believe that the quality of life deteriorates with age and that old people should be unhappier than young people since the old tend to have a worse health, less income, and few are married. Nevertheless, many studies have surprisingly thought that old people report levels of happiness comparatively higher than young people, though this effect tends to be small. Frey and Stutzer (2001) have indicated four reasons that can explain this positive relationship between age and happiness: (i) the old have lower expectations and aspirations. For example, an elderly person waits to remain without work and possibly widower, so the effects of the loss will be lower on the old than on the young. (ii) They have little disparity between goals and achievements, since the eldelrlys goals are fixed closer to what reasonably they can reach. (iii) Older individuals have had more time to adjust to their life conditions, and (iv) old people have learned how to reduce the negative events of the life and how to regulate the negative affects. Besides, economists have identified a U-shape in the relationship between age and happiness (e.g. Oswald, 1997; Blanchflower and Oswald, 2004a). This implies a convex shape in the relationship of life satisfaction with age. Life satisfaction decreases with age until it reaches a minimum, increasing afterwards. For North America and European countries this minimum typically occurs in the forties (43 in Frey and Stutzer (2001) and Ferrer-i-Carbonell (2005); 46 in Peiro (2007)). Aspirations and comparisons effects also are important in relation with income and other factors affecting subjective well-being. The individuals reported subjective well-being in the present is based on a norm of what is `bad, `sufficient or `good. Such norms not only depend on the present situation, but also on what the individual has experienced in the past, on what he/she expects to experience in the future and on what other people think and do (van Praag and Ferrer-i-Carbonell, 2004). In relation with income, individual well-being does not only depend on income in absolute terms but also on the subjective perception of whether ones income is adequate to satisfy ones needs. In addition, individual income perception is subject to the individuals own situation, past and present, as well as to the income of other people. The latter reflects the importance of the relative position of individuals in society for their satisfaction with life. This is often referred to as the comparison income or relative utility effect. It is often argued that individuals adapt to new situations by changing their expectations (Easterlin, 2005; Clark et al., 2008). This implies that higher incomes are accompanied by rising expectations that lead to what is known as the hedonic treadmill (Brickman and Campbell, 1971) or hedonic adaptation (Frederick and Loewenstein, 1999). Thus, individuals strive for high incomes even if these lead only to a temporary or small increase in well-being. This ability to adapt would appear to be a ubiquitous feature of the human condition, some recent examples of adaptation in nonmonetary spheres are Lucas et al. (2003) and Lucas (2005) with respect to marriage and divorce, Wu (2001) and Oswald and Powdthavee (2006) for adaptation to illness or disability, and Lucas et al. (2004) regarding unemployment. The comparisons with different social reference groups are also an important factor that has been widely present in the analysis of two dimensions; namely, the analysis of the effect of relative income on financial satisfaction and/or satisfaction with life as a whole (McBride, 2001; Stutzer, 2004; Luttmer, 2005; Clark, Frijters and Shields, 2008) and the influence of unemployment on subjective well-being. A standard result in happiness literature is that the unemployed report significantly lower levels of subjective well-being than other labor force groups (Winkelman and Winkelman, 1998; Frey and Stutzer, 2002). Indeed, the pecuniary and the non-pecuniary costs of the unemployment are that high that adaptation is non-existent (Lucas et al., 2004) or only very moderate (Clark, 2002). Clark (2003) uses seven waves of the British Household Panel Survey to test for social norms in labor market status. In his analysis, he found that the well-being of the unemployed is the higher, the hig her the unemployment rate in a reference group (at the regional, partner, or household level). It seems that, the more unemployment becomes the norm, the less individuals are affected by it (Winkelman, 2006). Lalive and Stutzer (2004), using a different strategy, obtain the same results for information from Sweden. Social interactions could be either a negative or a positive factor. As previously mentioned, an individuals happiness depends on that individuals own relative (or positional) situation or status, and comparison with others, what would expose that individual to negative externalities in terms of peer-effects (Luttmer, 2005) in utility and/or consumption. Alpizar, Carlsson and Johansson-Stenman (2005) show that positionality matters far more for commodities as houses and cars than for vacation and insurance, but also that both absolute and relative consumption matter for each category, these are positional goods. The positive influence of social interactions may come from social relationships and other relational goods or social capital factors. For instance, Rojas (2007), Winkelman (2006), Argyle (1999), among other social scientists have found that social relationships are a major source of well-being. Although marriage is the relationship that has the most influence on happiness, there are other relationships that affect happiness, as well as health and mental health, by providing social support. Argyle (1999 p. 361) refers some studies where it was found that if all kinds of social support are combined, a social support factor is found to have a strong correlation of 0.50 with happiness. Social scientists in many countries have observed that social support or social networks (and the associated norms of reciprocity and trust (Helliwell and Putnam, 2004)) have powerful effects on the level and efficiency of production and well-being, broadly defined, and they have used the term social capital to refer to these effects (Coleman, 1988; Putnam, 2000; Woolcock and Narayan, 2000). Lately, some cross-sectional studies from both sociology and economics have shown the importance of key aspects of social capital such as trust, social contacts and membership in voluntary associations over individual well-being (Inglehart 1999; Putnam 2000; Helliwell 2003 and 2006b; Powdthavee, 2008). In Bowling Alone, Putnam (2000) suggested that people prosper in neighborhoods and societies where social capital is high, that is, where people trust one another and are mutually helpful. Putnam reviewed evidence showing that communities with high rates of volunteer activity, club membership, church membership, and social entertaining (all thought to be indirect manifestations of social capital) all had higher well-being than communities that were impoverish these characteristics. Many studies that use cross-sectional data have shown that individuals with rich networks of active social relationships, that do not include people living in the same household, tend to be happier with th eir lives (Phillips 1967; Burt 1987). Helliwell (2003) reported that well-being is high and suicide rates are low where trust in others is high, and he also found that well-being is high where memberships in organizations outside of work are at high levels. Thus, there is evidence that individuals are more likely to experience high well-being when they live in nations with high social capital than when they live in nations with low social capital, a finding that dovetails with the results of studies on individuals social interactions. Helliwell and Putnam (2004) and Powdthavee (2008) are comprehensive reviews about the importance of social capital factor over subjective well-being. Health status is a factor that can be expected to be an important determinant of life satisfaction. In the 1950s the use of concepts such as welfare, adjustment and mental health had much in common with the traditional concept about happiness (Argyle, 1991). Research on the health-related quality of life was developed in the mid 1970s by health scientists and psychologists in order to track peoples perception of their health status (Gough et al., 2007). This was mainly in response to the need for more sensitive measures to compare treatments for chronic illness and to identify the most cost-effective treatments . Good health is considered an important factor included in the capabilities and the necessary functionalities in order for an individual to face life (Deaton, 2007; Sen, 1999). Since the 1980s the state of health has been identified as an important determinant of life satisfaction, as happy people are healthier, both physically and mentally (Veenhoven, 1991; Argyle, 1999). Co nsequently, poor health, which limits an individuals ability to carry out their daily activities, reduces overall satisfaction. The literature about subjective well-being in Latin American countries is few and very recent. Graham and Pettinato (2001) were some of the first to analyze Latin American countries. Using the Latinobarà ³metro 2000, they found that Latin America is not all that different from the advanced industrial economies in relation to some of the determinants of happiness. Similar to the OECD countries, happiness has a quadratic relationship with age, initially decreasing and then increasing monotonically after 49 years of age. As in the industrial countries, being married had positive and significant effects. In contrast to the advanced economies, a significant gender effect was no found in Latin America. Also, as in the industrial countries, the coefficients for level of wealth were strong, positive, and significant in happiness. When wealth was included in the regressions, the coefficient for education level became insignificant or weakly significant, depending on the regression used. Bein g self-employed or unemployed both had significant and negative effects on happiness. When they included country-fixed effects, the coefficient on self-employment became insignificant. While being unemployed also has negative effects on happiness in the advanced industrial economies, being self-employed has positive effects. The most credible explanation is intuitive and it was given by the authors: most self-employed people in the latter are self-employed by choice, while in developing economies, many are self-employed due to the absence of more secure employment opportunities and live a precarious existence in the informal sector. Other analyses by countries have been conducted in Latin America. Among the most important, Rojas (2006b and 2007), using the domains-of-life approach in Mexico, found that people are on average, more satisfied in the family domain, while they are less satisfied in the consumption, personal and job domains. Rojas (2007) found that income is an explanatory variable of relevancy for the economic and labor satisfaction, but not for either family or leisure satisfaction. Due to that, he found a weak relationship between income and life satisfaction Gerstenbluth et al. (2007) studied the relationship between happiness and health in Argentina and Uruguay using the Latinobarà ³metro 2004. Cruz and Torres (2006), using the Encuesta de Calidad de Vida 2003, tested various happiness hypotheses among Colombians and Cid et al. (2008), using the survey called Salud, Bienestar y Envejecimiento en Amà ©rica Latina y el Caribe (SABE), explored the correlation between happiness and income in the el derly in Uruguay. To our knowledge, the previous studies conducted about Latin America have not included the effect of social capital on subjective well-being, and they have analyzed the self-employment as a homogeneous labor market status. However, when considering the specificity of the leisure domain, we should take into account that while satisfaction with other realms of life may lie upon the valuation of objective situations (such as one’s financial situation, health or housing conditions), satisfaction with leisure brings in an additional challenge as individual’s boundaries of leisure are defined by her perception of what is pleasant (Ateca-Amestoy et al., 2008). Conceptual discussion on the nature of leisure time in contemporary societies Time allocation decisions within the family: economic approaches and models. We will attach to the economic approach to human behavior by Becker (moreover, bring arguments such as those contained in a theory of social interactions). Temporal autonomy is a matter of having discretionary control over your time. Discretionary Time. A New Measure of Freedom (Goodin et al., 2005) Other approaches: we have found these relevant arguments: Veblens theory The omnivore Bourdieus distinction Putnams social capital 3.1. What is Social Capital? There is a traditional consensus that there exists three distincs traditions that conceptualize and analyze social capital. All three would be relevant for our reasoning. Pierre Bourdieu bourdieu2: who conceptualised social capital as the `actual or potential resources that an individual has at his/her disposal as a result of `a durable network of more or less institutionalised relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition, i.e. membership in a group. Some authors point out that this definition must be viewed as part of his broader concern with developing the different types of capital in order to explain the means by which the social stratification system is preserved and the dominant class-reproduction strategy is legitimised. J.S. Coleman coleman defines it as the set of resources that inhere in family relations and in community social organisations and that are useful for the cognitive or social development of a child or young person. Social relations were viewed by Coleman to make up important `capital resources for individuals by means of processes such as setting `obligations, expectations and trustworthiness, creating channels for information, and setting norms backed by efficient sanctions. These resources may be influenced by factors such as generalised trustworthiness which ensures that obligations are met, the extent to which a person is in Benefits of Leisure on the Individual Benefits of Leisure on the Individual Introduction / Summary In previous contributions, there should have been wide discussions to draw the limits of leisure. I would like to get assistance one that you have read those chapters, in order to write some introductory paragraph that lets the reader know if my contribution is particularly related to some other one. In this contribution, I will analyze it by using the subjective well-being approach. I will use the leisure experience dimension (as described bellow), and I will study the determinants of subjective well-being. There will be plenty of conceptual discussion, some regularities will be reported, an empirical exercise will be performed results analyzed, and some insights for future research will be presented. In this paper, we will study leisure and its beneficial aspects over individual welfare by using a quite new approach: the subjective well-being or happiness approach to measure individual welfare. Along the discussion, we will present two main points. First, we will discuss on the dimensions of leisure in order to justify that by using subjective well-being procedures, we can get a comprehensive approximation to the, somehow difficult to measure, leisure concept. Second, to determine which are the personal and environmental factors that are needed so an individual can produce and consume enjoyable leisure experiences. In this chapter, we are not going to consider that leisure is just free time, i.e. time that is not dedicated to market work, nor to household maintenance activities. We are not even going to consider that leisure is discretionary time (Goodin, et al. 2005). What we state is that leisure is a universal human need that has to be fulfilled by the production in the household and the personal consumption of what we may call leisure experiences. Each experience is a commodity that enters directly in the individuals utility function. This means that leisure is one of the arguments of the utility function of the individual, one of the instances from which she will get welfare. By doing this, we will adopt from the beginning a beckerian approach (Becker, 1965, and 1990). Other arguments are (Gronau and Hamermesh, 2006). From that list of commodities, we can agree that leisure is the most time intensive one. Individuals have this particular basic need, leisure, to be fulfilled using the most suitable combination of personal resources. As always, we are living in a scarce world where every input has some alternative use, so people have to make allocation choices about the best way to fulfill this leisure need as well as others such as food, shelter, and so on. However, we will introduce into our analysis a basic feature of leisure: the presence of enjoyable others. Only recently has this aspect been introduced in the economic analysis of leisure (Osberg, 2009). In this paper, we address the question of how personal inputs are optimally combined to satisfy the leisure need in a social context. By means the analysis of the leisure domain satisfaction, we will be able to asses how personal free time transforms into leisure and how this outcome contributes to individual welfare. Each person would define the boundaries of leisure on the basis of her tastes, on different resource availability to fulfill her needs, and may value the final outcome in many different ways depending on the social norms, her personal aspirations, social interactions and past experiences. Since using a personal definition of leisure would make any analysis impossible, we will present the main three different constructions of leisure, as proposed by Kelly (1982). The first approach of leisure is the most basic one that defines leisure as quantifiable leisure time, either residual or discretional, based on the freedom to choose. The second one defines leisure as the activity that is chosen at a given time and place so that it is the quality of the activity which defines it as leisure. The third one defines leisure as a subjective condition on the grounds of a freely chosen experience based on intrinsic motivation. The integrative approach proposed by Kelly is the one that we follow in this research, where Leisure is an action that takes place at a given time, develops an identifiable activity and is perceived as a pleasant experience by the actor. In what follows, we would refer to this last integrative approach either as leisure or leisure experience. Actually, it fits very well with the following definition of leisure satisfaction by Beard and Ragheb (1980). For them, leisure satisfaction is the positive perceptions or feelings that an individual forms, elicits, or gains as a result of engaging in leisure activities and choices. It is the degree to which one is presently content or pleased with her general leisure experiences and situations. This positive feeling of pleasure results from the satisfaction of felt or unfelt needs of the individual. Traditional economic theory studies human behavior by means of individual’s observed choices. In such a spirit, observed time allocation can be an outcome of interest recorded on time-use surveys. Actually, as we will discuss in the concluding section, time-use registers are a very valuable source of information, and many of the questions that we are going to address could be complementarily studied by testing those hypotheses with that type of data. However, even if some authors consider that time is the ultimate source of utility, time by itself provides no utility to individuals, since the mere passing of time does not fulfill any human need (possibly except from sleeping time). Moreover, since we have no means of observing the final leisure output, we have to rely on the subjective assessment of how satisfied people feel with the leisure that they enjoy. At the end of the day, the main challenge is to determine how an unobservable, such as leisure, can contribute to individual welfare. In this case, we are considering a double black-box. First, not everyone defines leisure in the same way and not everyone produces leisure experiences by using the same technology or the same inputs. For some people, the presence of others will be much more needed that for some other people. Some people could be much more materialistic than others. Some people could be much more efficient in the production of pleasurable experiences because of their higher education. Second, as indicated before, we know that leisure contributed to enhance the quality of life of people, but the valuation of those experiences is determined by societal norms and arrangements and by personal aspirations, past experiences and comparison effects. Next section will present the happiness or subjective well-being approach. We will introduce a brief discussion of the rationale for using this approach for economic research and for leisure research. To do so, we will present the domain approach; in this setting, leisure satisfaction will be considered a mediator between individual leisure experience and overall satisfaction or happiness. In section 3, we will discuss the relationship between leisure time and well-being. Other crucial aspects will be discussed in section 4, where we review a series of social and economic factors that are said to influence leisure enjoyment, so leisure has a high quality and contributes to a better quality of life. Particularly, we will report previous findings on the social dimension of leisure, one of the attributes that determine high quality leisure experiences. In that same section, some determinants of overall satisfaction, or of particular domain satisfaction will be discussed. Last, sections 5 and 6 will present, respectively, some conclusions and a brief overview of needed research to better understand the contribution of leisure to a better quality of life. Subjective well-being approach Traditional research on quality of life relied heavily on objective and materialistic indicators of living conditions. Actually, Gross Domestic Product has been the â€Å"champion† indicator when studying the evolution of living standards and when comparing economies (Mankiw, 2007). Under the realm of objective indicators, nearly all non market activities and many aspects of human development, such as leisure, are neglected. New studies have highlighted the superiority of including the subjective approach to the investigation of quality of life in developed and developing societies, and happiness research has become quite of a fashionable and popular topic (Layard, 2006). There is a growing interest on using the subjective well-being approach to analyze living conditions and there has been an emerging literature on social sciences. Among other reasons for that flourishing, we can highlight the following: (i) this approach offers richer insight about the quality of life, and considers other indicators of development apart from the traditional indicators; (ii) nowadays there is more information available about living conditions, opinions and perceptions of people and societies, and; (iii) with this approach it is possible to identify the major needs and problems of the population, which is useful for governments and policy makers (Frey and Stutzer, JEL 2002). Economists and other social scientists broadly define `happiness and `life satisfaction as subjective well-being. Following Diener and Seligman (2004, pp. 4) life satisfaction is defined as a global judgment of well-being based on information the person believes is relevant, while well-being includes all of the evaluations, both cognitive and affective, that people make of their lives and components of their lives. While according to some authors, the terms happiness, subjective wellbeing, well-being, satisfaction and quality of life are somewhat different and each have their own specific meaning, responses in different surveys are highly correlated (Fordyce, 1988; Frey and Stutzer, 2002b), and many analyses use them indiscriminately. In this current study these terms are used with the understanding that they have a similar connotation. The present study will use a bottom-up approach to the analysis of subjective well-being. This approach considers that overall life satisfaction is determined by what is called domain satisfaction; the evaluation of own personal situation on different dimensions of life such as: financial situation, housing conditions, health, leisure, job or education, among other dimensions. Some authors signal the mediator role of those domain satisfactions to determine overall happiness (Cummins, 1996; van Praag et al., 2003; Easterlin and Sawangfa, 2007). In what follows, we will consider that leisure satisfaction has leisure experiences as the main input; higher leisure satisfaction will contribute, in turn, to higher overall satisfaction or happiness. In order to assess the size of different influences upon happiness and satisfaction with life in general, psychologists have been using surveys since long ago, while only recently economists have recognized that there is useful information in a subjective well-being answer as an empirical approximation for the theoretical concept of utility. With the exception of the seminal work of Easterlin (1974), most research has taken place during the last two decades. The existing state of research suggests that, for many purposes, happiness or reported subjective well-being is a satisfactory empirical proxy of individual utility. From the information about the determinants of individual happiness, different situations of economic and social policies inside a country or a region can be analyzed . Frey and Stutzer (2002b) give some important reasons for economists to consider happiness research. First, happiness research can help to evaluate net effects, in terms of individual utilities, for different economic policies. Understanding the determinants of subjective well-being can thus usefully inform economic policy decisions. Second, this research also has relevance to economists because of the effect of institutional conditions such as the quality of governance and the size of social capital on individual well-being. It may also help to solve empirical puzzles that conventional economic theories find difficult to explain. For instance, using this approach it is possible to understand why for several countries since World War ll although they have raised their real income drastically, the self-reported subjective well-being of the population has not increased or has even slightly fallen. Data about happiness are collected through direct questioning via interviews or self-administered questionnaires in which individuals self-rate their happiness on a single item or on a multi-item scale. These scales offer a list of options, which are ranked according to the levels of happiness . Most studies of subjective well-being are based on some variation on the question How satisfied (or happy) are you with your life? The range of possible responses is defined over a scale that varies between datasets (one to four, one to seven, or one to ten), the lowest grades indicating a poor level of life satisfaction. The main use of happiness measures is not to compare levels in an absolute sense but rather to seek to identify the determinants of happiness. The strategy is to use the answers that people give when asked questions about how happy they feel with life. Similar questions are posed with respect to job satisfaction, health satisfaction, housing satisfaction, satisfaction with marital relation, etc. †¦, and leisure satisfaction or satisfaction with leisure time. This study of the different aspects of life is called domain satisfaction. Although this approach could have limitations, as was said by Oswald (1997, p. 1816) if the aim is to learn about what makes people tick, listening to what they say seems likely to be a natural first step. The domains-of-life literature states that life can be approached as a general construct of many specific domains, and that life satisfaction can be understood as a result from satisfaction in these domains of life (Cummins, 1996; van Praag et.al, 2003; Easterlin and Sawangfa, 2007; Rojas, 2006a, 2006b). It is evident that different domains may be distinguished. In many studies, the domains to be analyzed are determined by data availability. For instance, in the British Household Panel Survey leisure satisfaction is split up into two sub-dimensions; namely, the amount of leisure and use of the leisure time (Van Praag and Ferrer-i-Carbonell, 2007); the European Community Household Panel considers only satisfaction with leisure time , and the Latinobarà ³metro only includes satisfaction with the amount of leisure (Rojas, XXXX). Rojas (2007) affirms that the enumeration and demarcation of the domains of life are arbitrary. In addition to this, there are many possible partitions of a human life, and the selected partition depends on the researchs objectives and the available information. For example, Cummins (1996) has argued for a seven-domain partition: material well-being, health, productivity intimacy, safety, community and emotional well-being; van Praag et al. (2003) study the relationship of satisfaction in different domains of life (health, financial situation, job, housing, leisure and environment) and satisfaction with life as a whole. Rojas (2006b and 2007), on the basis of factor analysis, identified seven domains of life: health, economic, job, family, friendship, personal and community. Using information from Mexico , he showed that satisfaction in the family domain is crucial for life satisfaction. Family satisfaction includes aspects of satisfaction with ones spouse, children and with the rest of the family. Rojas also showed that the satisfaction in the health, job and personal domains is also very important for a persons happiness. Satisfaction in areas such as housing and living conditions, financial solvency and income are relatively less important for life satisfaction. Rojas (2007) found that income is an explanatory variable of relevancy for economic and labor satisfaction, but not for family satisfaction or leisure satisfaction. For that reason, it is possible to find situations where a person is satisfied with his/her life while he/she is unsatisfied economically, or where a person is unsatisfied wit h his/her life and, at the same time, his/her economic satisfaction is high (Rojas, 2008b). Empirical research has focused on different factors associated with subjective well-being and satisfaction. In agreement with psychological and sociological studies (Argyle, 1999), economic research has identified a set of personal and social characteristics associated with life satisfaction. Most studies using data from North America and European countries have found the level of reported life satisfaction to be high among those who are married (Blanchflower and Oswald, 2004b; Easterlin, 2003; Carroll, 2007; Clark et al., 2005; Ferrer-i-Carbonell and Frijters, 2004), women (Oswald, 1997; Clark, 1997), whites (Oswald, 1997; Alesina et al., 2004), the well-educated (Blanchflower and Oswald, 2004a; Frey and Stutzer, 2003; Borooah, 2005), the self-employed (Blanchflower, 2000; Blanchflower, 2004; Frey and Benz, 2003; Alesina et al., 2004), the retired (Di Tella et al., 2003), and those occupied with home duties (Di Tella et al., 2003; Borooah, 2005). The relation between an individuals age and happiness seems to be a bit more complex. Many people believe that the quality of life deteriorates with age and that old people should be unhappier than young people since the old tend to have a worse health, less income, and few are married. Nevertheless, many studies have surprisingly thought that old people report levels of happiness comparatively higher than young people, though this effect tends to be small. Frey and Stutzer (2001) have indicated four reasons that can explain this positive relationship between age and happiness: (i) the old have lower expectations and aspirations. For example, an elderly person waits to remain without work and possibly widower, so the effects of the loss will be lower on the old than on the young. (ii) They have little disparity between goals and achievements, since the eldelrlys goals are fixed closer to what reasonably they can reach. (iii) Older individuals have had more time to adjust to their life conditions, and (iv) old people have learned how to reduce the negative events of the life and how to regulate the negative affects. Besides, economists have identified a U-shape in the relationship between age and happiness (e.g. Oswald, 1997; Blanchflower and Oswald, 2004a). This implies a convex shape in the relationship of life satisfaction with age. Life satisfaction decreases with age until it reaches a minimum, increasing afterwards. For North America and European countries this minimum typically occurs in the forties (43 in Frey and Stutzer (2001) and Ferrer-i-Carbonell (2005); 46 in Peiro (2007)). Aspirations and comparisons effects also are important in relation with income and other factors affecting subjective well-being. The individuals reported subjective well-being in the present is based on a norm of what is `bad, `sufficient or `good. Such norms not only depend on the present situation, but also on what the individual has experienced in the past, on what he/she expects to experience in the future and on what other people think and do (van Praag and Ferrer-i-Carbonell, 2004). In relation with income, individual well-being does not only depend on income in absolute terms but also on the subjective perception of whether ones income is adequate to satisfy ones needs. In addition, individual income perception is subject to the individuals own situation, past and present, as well as to the income of other people. The latter reflects the importance of the relative position of individuals in society for their satisfaction with life. This is often referred to as the comparison income or relative utility effect. It is often argued that individuals adapt to new situations by changing their expectations (Easterlin, 2005; Clark et al., 2008). This implies that higher incomes are accompanied by rising expectations that lead to what is known as the hedonic treadmill (Brickman and Campbell, 1971) or hedonic adaptation (Frederick and Loewenstein, 1999). Thus, individuals strive for high incomes even if these lead only to a temporary or small increase in well-being. This ability to adapt would appear to be a ubiquitous feature of the human condition, some recent examples of adaptation in nonmonetary spheres are Lucas et al. (2003) and Lucas (2005) with respect to marriage and divorce, Wu (2001) and Oswald and Powdthavee (2006) for adaptation to illness or disability, and Lucas et al. (2004) regarding unemployment. The comparisons with different social reference groups are also an important factor that has been widely present in the analysis of two dimensions; namely, the analysis of the effect of relative income on financial satisfaction and/or satisfaction with life as a whole (McBride, 2001; Stutzer, 2004; Luttmer, 2005; Clark, Frijters and Shields, 2008) and the influence of unemployment on subjective well-being. A standard result in happiness literature is that the unemployed report significantly lower levels of subjective well-being than other labor force groups (Winkelman and Winkelman, 1998; Frey and Stutzer, 2002). Indeed, the pecuniary and the non-pecuniary costs of the unemployment are that high that adaptation is non-existent (Lucas et al., 2004) or only very moderate (Clark, 2002). Clark (2003) uses seven waves of the British Household Panel Survey to test for social norms in labor market status. In his analysis, he found that the well-being of the unemployed is the higher, the hig her the unemployment rate in a reference group (at the regional, partner, or household level). It seems that, the more unemployment becomes the norm, the less individuals are affected by it (Winkelman, 2006). Lalive and Stutzer (2004), using a different strategy, obtain the same results for information from Sweden. Social interactions could be either a negative or a positive factor. As previously mentioned, an individuals happiness depends on that individuals own relative (or positional) situation or status, and comparison with others, what would expose that individual to negative externalities in terms of peer-effects (Luttmer, 2005) in utility and/or consumption. Alpizar, Carlsson and Johansson-Stenman (2005) show that positionality matters far more for commodities as houses and cars than for vacation and insurance, but also that both absolute and relative consumption matter for each category, these are positional goods. The positive influence of social interactions may come from social relationships and other relational goods or social capital factors. For instance, Rojas (2007), Winkelman (2006), Argyle (1999), among other social scientists have found that social relationships are a major source of well-being. Although marriage is the relationship that has the most influence on happiness, there are other relationships that affect happiness, as well as health and mental health, by providing social support. Argyle (1999 p. 361) refers some studies where it was found that if all kinds of social support are combined, a social support factor is found to have a strong correlation of 0.50 with happiness. Social scientists in many countries have observed that social support or social networks (and the associated norms of reciprocity and trust (Helliwell and Putnam, 2004)) have powerful effects on the level and efficiency of production and well-being, broadly defined, and they have used the term social capital to refer to these effects (Coleman, 1988; Putnam, 2000; Woolcock and Narayan, 2000). Lately, some cross-sectional studies from both sociology and economics have shown the importance of key aspects of social capital such as trust, social contacts and membership in voluntary associations over individual well-being (Inglehart 1999; Putnam 2000; Helliwell 2003 and 2006b; Powdthavee, 2008). In Bowling Alone, Putnam (2000) suggested that people prosper in neighborhoods and societies where social capital is high, that is, where people trust one another and are mutually helpful. Putnam reviewed evidence showing that communities with high rates of volunteer activity, club membership, church membership, and social entertaining (all thought to be indirect manifestations of social capital) all had higher well-being than communities that were impoverish these characteristics. Many studies that use cross-sectional data have shown that individuals with rich networks of active social relationships, that do not include people living in the same household, tend to be happier with th eir lives (Phillips 1967; Burt 1987). Helliwell (2003) reported that well-being is high and suicide rates are low where trust in others is high, and he also found that well-being is high where memberships in organizations outside of work are at high levels. Thus, there is evidence that individuals are more likely to experience high well-being when they live in nations with high social capital than when they live in nations with low social capital, a finding that dovetails with the results of studies on individuals social interactions. Helliwell and Putnam (2004) and Powdthavee (2008) are comprehensive reviews about the importance of social capital factor over subjective well-being. Health status is a factor that can be expected to be an important determinant of life satisfaction. In the 1950s the use of concepts such as welfare, adjustment and mental health had much in common with the traditional concept about happiness (Argyle, 1991). Research on the health-related quality of life was developed in the mid 1970s by health scientists and psychologists in order to track peoples perception of their health status (Gough et al., 2007). This was mainly in response to the need for more sensitive measures to compare treatments for chronic illness and to identify the most cost-effective treatments . Good health is considered an important factor included in the capabilities and the necessary functionalities in order for an individual to face life (Deaton, 2007; Sen, 1999). Since the 1980s the state of health has been identified as an important determinant of life satisfaction, as happy people are healthier, both physically and mentally (Veenhoven, 1991; Argyle, 1999). Co nsequently, poor health, which limits an individuals ability to carry out their daily activities, reduces overall satisfaction. The literature about subjective well-being in Latin American countries is few and very recent. Graham and Pettinato (2001) were some of the first to analyze Latin American countries. Using the Latinobarà ³metro 2000, they found that Latin America is not all that different from the advanced industrial economies in relation to some of the determinants of happiness. Similar to the OECD countries, happiness has a quadratic relationship with age, initially decreasing and then increasing monotonically after 49 years of age. As in the industrial countries, being married had positive and significant effects. In contrast to the advanced economies, a significant gender effect was no found in Latin America. Also, as in the industrial countries, the coefficients for level of wealth were strong, positive, and significant in happiness. When wealth was included in the regressions, the coefficient for education level became insignificant or weakly significant, depending on the regression used. Bein g self-employed or unemployed both had significant and negative effects on happiness. When they included country-fixed effects, the coefficient on self-employment became insignificant. While being unemployed also has negative effects on happiness in the advanced industrial economies, being self-employed has positive effects. The most credible explanation is intuitive and it was given by the authors: most self-employed people in the latter are self-employed by choice, while in developing economies, many are self-employed due to the absence of more secure employment opportunities and live a precarious existence in the informal sector. Other analyses by countries have been conducted in Latin America. Among the most important, Rojas (2006b and 2007), using the domains-of-life approach in Mexico, found that people are on average, more satisfied in the family domain, while they are less satisfied in the consumption, personal and job domains. Rojas (2007) found that income is an explanatory variable of relevancy for the economic and labor satisfaction, but not for either family or leisure satisfaction. Due to that, he found a weak relationship between income and life satisfaction Gerstenbluth et al. (2007) studied the relationship between happiness and health in Argentina and Uruguay using the Latinobarà ³metro 2004. Cruz and Torres (2006), using the Encuesta de Calidad de Vida 2003, tested various happiness hypotheses among Colombians and Cid et al. (2008), using the survey called Salud, Bienestar y Envejecimiento en Amà ©rica Latina y el Caribe (SABE), explored the correlation between happiness and income in the el derly in Uruguay. To our knowledge, the previous studies conducted about Latin America have not included the effect of social capital on subjective well-being, and they have analyzed the self-employment as a homogeneous labor market status. However, when considering the specificity of the leisure domain, we should take into account that while satisfaction with other realms of life may lie upon the valuation of objective situations (such as one’s financial situation, health or housing conditions), satisfaction with leisure brings in an additional challenge as individual’s boundaries of leisure are defined by her perception of what is pleasant (Ateca-Amestoy et al., 2008). Conceptual discussion on the nature of leisure time in contemporary societies Time allocation decisions within the family: economic approaches and models. We will attach to the economic approach to human behavior by Becker (moreover, bring arguments such as those contained in a theory of social interactions). Temporal autonomy is a matter of having discretionary control over your time. Discretionary Time. A New Measure of Freedom (Goodin et al., 2005) Other approaches: we have found these relevant arguments: Veblens theory The omnivore Bourdieus distinction Putnams social capital 3.1. What is Social Capital? There is a traditional consensus that there exists three distincs traditions that conceptualize and analyze social capital. All three would be relevant for our reasoning. Pierre Bourdieu bourdieu2: who conceptualised social capital as the `actual or potential resources that an individual has at his/her disposal as a result of `a durable network of more or less institutionalised relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition, i.e. membership in a group. Some authors point out that this definition must be viewed as part of his broader concern with developing the different types of capital in order to explain the means by which the social stratification system is preserved and the dominant class-reproduction strategy is legitimised. J.S. Coleman coleman defines it as the set of resources that inhere in family relations and in community social organisations and that are useful for the cognitive or social development of a child or young person. Social relations were viewed by Coleman to make up important `capital resources for individuals by means of processes such as setting `obligations, expectations and trustworthiness, creating channels for information, and setting norms backed by efficient sanctions. These resources may be influenced by factors such as generalised trustworthiness which ensures that obligations are met, the extent to which a person is in