Changes in Gender Inequality in Canada in Sports Essay Example for Free

Changes in Gender Inequality in Canada in Sports EssaySociety expects potents and females to fulfill specific sex activity roles attitudes and activities that society links to each sex. Males are judge to be ambitious, strong, independent and competitive, which encourages males to seek out positions of leadinghip and play team sports. And females are expected to be deferential, emotional, attractive, quiet and obedient, supportive helpers and quick to show their feelings (Macionis and Gerber, 2011300). These traditional stereotypes have been ch entirelyenged and confronted by many women and feminists, and in this paper we are going to look specifically in sports and physical activities. My thesis statement will be that gender inequality has been decreasing over the last 100 years. Women were slowly starting to take part in all sports which were considered to be masculine, and were only available for men to enjoy.One of the offset printing factors which could be linked to the emancipation of women in sport in deep 1800 earliest 1900s is the safety bicycle. It not only caused a revolution in womens fashions womens sportswear was finally being designed to accommodate much vigorous activity, but was also a vehicle through which women broke with traditions and asserted their independence (Hall and Richardson, 1982 32-33). Slowly more organizations, sports clubs and tournaments were opening up for women. In the early 1900s, women started to participate in most forms of sport, but were still prohibited from activities on that point body contact was possible.Period after the World War I and end-to-end the 1920s was really exciting for sportswomen in Canada and their fans. This often called the golden age of womens sports, it was time when popular team sports like basketball, ice hockey, and softball game became sufficiently organized to hold provincial and Dominion championships when the best athletes, especially in span in field, began to complete internationally and eventually at the exceeding Games and when women leaders and administrators took control of womens sports, claiming they knew what was the best for girls and women, although the advice of the man was still needed (Hall, 2002 42). In the 1928 Canadian women have joined Olympics in Amsterdam for the first time for the track and field competition.In the mid 1930s depression tightened its grip on Canada and the were signs that the Golden Age was over. Reactionary attitudes towards athletic competition for females was taking hold commercialised professional sport for men was on the rise, meaning that mens sports were given priority of access to public facilities. Spectators were drawn a sort from the womens games to the only male professional sports like ice hockey, football, baseball it became increasingly difficult to find sponsors for womens amateur sport (Hall and Richardson, 1982 36).World War II took its chime on both mens and womens sports. Although many of leagues continued to exist, nobody took athletics seriously. Olympic Games did not start again till 1948. sway war conservatism has been described by Betty Friedan women should desire no great destiny than to glory in their own femininity. Careers or commitments outside of their dental plate were unnecessary for their personal fulfillment and undesirable for the satisfactory performance of the housewife role (Lenskyj, 1986 83)For the duration of war women were occupying mens jobs and were laid off as soon as men returned home to resume the rightful place. It was still alright for women to participate in beauty producing sports like figure skating, synchronized swimming, or gymnastics and as long as they looked pretty and feminine on the tennis, badminton courts, golf courses, and ski hills, they were not criticized. But women athletes which were sweating on the basketball courts, softball pitches, ice hockey rinks, and the cinder tracks were suspect, their femininity continually questioned (Hall, 2002 109).Participation in school, university and community sporting programs however, was hardly likely to pose a threat to femininity. basketball game continued for the most part to be play by girls rules. Softball, an already simplified version of baseball, was in some cases was modified moreover for girls and women.In the 1960s not only womens femininity was being questions but also their sexuality. In the 1966 the first official sex tests were introduced, with three gynecologists ocular examination to confirm that athletes genital sex was, in fact female. The introduction of sex tests coincided with significant advances for women in terms of their participation at the Olympic Games, with phone number of them increasing dramatically throughout the 1960s and 1970s. For example at the summer Olympics, the 800 meter running was reintroduced in the 1960s. Womens volleyball, the first team event for women was introduced in1964, on with pentathlon and 400 meter individual medley, swimming event.The 1968 Olympics in Mexico City six more swimming events were introduced and in the 1972 at Munich, the 1500 meter run, 4400 meter track relay, and kayak slalom were introduced. So the number of women on Canadas Olympic team has increased from 11.30 to 22.6 per cent for the Summer Olympic between 1960 and 1972, and from 21.4 to 38.3 per cent for the Winter Olympic Games during the same period. Sex testing at the Olympics originally was called femininity control and was seek to determine who was genetically female, because prior to that where has been a lot of men who were trying to pose as women, which was only found out after the fact and also women athletes were becoming more masculine, therefore it had to be proved that they were really females (Hall, 2002 153 -159).The sex testing did not stop until the 1998 Olympic Games in Nagano.By the mid-1970 all across Canada parents started noticing that their daughters were not being treated the sam e way as their sons when it came to recreational and sporting opportunities by the late 1970s there has been a lot of sports related complaints of sex discrepancy. The majority of these cases were involving young girls who wished to play on all male sports teams. The main value of these human rights cases was to bring public interest, concern and pressure to bear on eliminating unequal, sex discriminatory sport and recreation programs (Hall, 2002 163)In March 1981 Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport(CAAWS) was established. It started providing women athletes with funding and support. And finally in 1982 women were granted equal protection and equal benefit of the law in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Macionis and Gerber, 2011 305).Beginning of the 1990s in the most areas of organizational life including sports, has been a subtle shift from equality to equity. Gender equity is the pattern and practice of fair and equitable allocation of resourc es and opportunities for both females and males. This eliminates discriminatory practices that prevent the full participation of either gender (Larkin and Baxter, 1993 4)In the past decade Canadian women are participating almost in all sports on competitive levels. In 1998, in Nagano, Japan, womens hockey was an official Olympic sport for the first time, and world of Canadian womens hockey changed forever.The game that originated in Canada had become part of our collective identity, continues to be our most popular sport and it is now played by women legitimately (Macionis and Gerber, 2011320) Canadian women Hockey team has won Olympic gold medal 3 times in a row 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, 2006 Olympics in Turin, and 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver. Their achievements have been absolutely amazing. They have showed that they force to be reckoned with. They actually have done better than Canadian male Olympic team.In this 2012 Olympics Games in London, England for the first ti me womens boxing is going to be introduced. And there has been controversy of women should wear shorts or skirts. The unskilled International Boxing Association (AIBA) requested that female boxers wear skirts so that would make them more elegant on the trial basis at the European Championships and for permanent use in the Olympics. One of Canadian boxers Elizabeth Plank, told Teddy Katz of CBC radio sports news this January Forcing women to wear skirts, I think, its sexism. in the end AIBA have decided to have optional for female athletes to decide if they want to wear skirts or shorts. (CBC Sports)As we are able to see gender stereotypes and discrimination in sports still exists. Women still do not get as much Media coverage as men do. They are still making small salaries than their male counterparts. Women athletes still have to look beautiful and attractive or they might be stereotyped as being lesbian, butch or masculine, if there are not.What about the future? It seems tha t future for Canadian women athletes seems bright. There are much more opportunities that are coming up for women in sports, for example in the Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014, Russia the addition of womens ski jumping has been approved. Women are going to keep fighting for the equal rights to participate in sports events without being criticized to be unfeminine. Daniels (2009) argues that femininity masculinity divide still prevents women athletes to be taken seriously in their sports. And the best would be to embrace the polygendered way of being, which emphasizes the similarities between women and men, and that way female athletes will be given the chance to achieve their full sporting potential and be judged for performance, rather than their appearance.References1. Baxter, Betty and Larkin, Jackie.1993. Towards Gender Equity for Women in Sport. ON CAAWS.2. CBC Sports, Feb 19, 2002 (http//www.cbc.ca/sports/story/2012/02/19/sp-aiba-boxing-skirts.html)3. Daniels, Dayna B. 2009. Polygendered and Ponytailed. Toronto Womens Press.4. Hall, Ann M. 2002. The Girl and the Game. ON Broadview Press Ltd.5. Hall, Ann M and Richardson, Dorothy A. 1982. Fair Ball. Ottawa The Canadian Advisory Council on the post of Women.6. Lenskyj, Helen.1986. Women, Sport and Sexuality. Toronto Womens Press.7. Macionis, John J and Gerber, Linda, M. 2011. Sociology.7th ed. Toronto Pearson Canada Inc.

Philosophy Essay Example for Free

Philosophy Essay1. SettingsI scheduled my AA confluence for Tuesday September the eighteenth at 10 p.m. at the Sobe Room in Miami Beach (1718 Bay Rd. Miami Beach, Fl. 33139). When I arrived I noticed that the parking was far forward from the actual meeting point. The meeting point was a church type structure with no sing or any other identification. The door was open so I just went in I waited about 5 minutes for the meeting to start. The meeting took place in a large room, and the chairs were organized in a semicircle and at the front there was a kind of podium. In the Sobe Room all meetings are open, so I didnt take hold to rope an appointment.In the meeting were about 50 people, I guess because it was in south beach the majority were young people under 40. There were loosely white males, followed by white females some Latin and some African Americans. There were about 15 people who were there for the first time. I didnt have to say why I was there but I did have to say m y name when e reallyone else did.2. PhilosophyAlcoholics Anonymous (AA) was founded in 1935 by score Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith. The primary purpose of AA is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety. Although AA was founded on Christian principles and by white men, the organization has evolved to be multicultural. AA doesnt keep a list of members names, but estimates that it has 2 million members who come from all backgrounds. The philosophy behind Alcoholics Anonymous is that alcoholism is a disease. Even if soulfulness stops drinking, they are not cured. The individual is a recovering alcoholic.The organization follows a 12-step structure designed to help the recovering alcoholic have a healthy mind and spirit. By following the 12 steps in sequence, the recovering alcoholic can improve their thought processes and work on better their emotions.3. Therapeutic contentEven though AA is an independent organization and is not based on psychological or therapeutic resear ch or interventions, they have adopted some techniques of different theoretical models to help the group members deal with their illness.AA uses techniques from diverse psychological theoretical models such as existentialism, gestalt, and narrative therapy.The existentialism conjecture invites clients to explore their being and ask themselves philosophical questions such as what is the meaning of live, how do actions define individuals and to continually revise their set of values. AA uses this approach in its programme when they talk about the greater power, the purpose of their lives, etc.Gestalt theory sees each client as a unique individual and states that any change make by the client has to be his or her own decision, gestalt therapy is similarly very confrontational, and in both characteristics are included in the AA program. AA states that the client will mystify better if and only they really want it and commit to it.Also AA uses an approach similar to the narrative the rapy by treating the addiction as an illness and as a problem independent of the client, it externalizes it to try to confront it.4. Impressions and significanceWhen I arrived to the meeting the first thing that called my attention was the fact that we had to park really far away from the actual site (about two blocks) I later found out that it was purposely made this way so the members wouldnt feel self intended about having their cars outside of something that could be affiliated with alcoholism.I entered the location, it wasnt an actual church, but it had a church like structure. The doors were opened and most people seemed to distinguish each other, before the meeting started some people tell hi to me but no one asked any questions.The meeting began with a shot plea called the serenity prayer, which had me thinking about some contradictions found in the AA philosophy since they claim not to have any religious affiliation but it for certain felt a little inclined towards the Christian side. After the prayer everyone introduced themselves (most people said their names and Im an alcoholic, but some didnt) I said my name but gave no further information. Then someone proceed to talk a little about the AA program and the 12-step structure.After the greet process a guy (27) stood up and went to the podium. He started by repeating his name and saying he was an alcoholic. He said that since this time he see a lot of new faces he wanted to share his story again.The man shared a very powerful story about his pursuit with alcohol, he utter he started drinking virtually the age of 14, he said that at the moment he thought he was just having gaming and doing the same that everyone else did, but that now that he thinks about it he realizes he was using alcohol as a coping mechanism to deal with the sloppiness he was facing about his sexuality.He stated that he came out of the closet at the age of 16, that it was a very difficult time and that he was dating ol der men who encouraged him to drink. He continued talking about what coming out had done to the relationship with his family members he described the time as very painful and he cried while telling the story (some of the people in the meeting cried as well).He said that his mother was very supportive since the beginning, that his younger brother had a hard time understanding he said that he was a jog in school, so no one expected him to come out since he wasnt the gay type. But that the real issue was with his father, as soon as he gave him the news the father became very angry and he kicked him out of the house. He said that he sort of expected the reaction but thought that he would eventually get over it, but that that hadnt happened yet, and that its been 10 years and 7 months since the last time he spoke with his father.He said that he joined AA when he was 23, he decide to attend a meeting because he and his partner were having terrible fights while he was under the act upon o f alcohol and he even tried to hit him once. At that point the partner threatened with leaving him if he didnt get treatment. He stated that it was the best decision he made in his live. He has now been sober for 3 years and 4 months.Before going to the meeting I had galore(postnominal) opinions about what I would find there, I was sure that most people would be people of low socioeconomic status probably many homeless and very angry people. I was afraid of being forced to speak and that they wouldnt understand the reason that I was participating in the meeting. I expected to see a lot of people praying, singing, and hugging at the end. But the truth is that the reality was very different to what I had in my imagination, I think my perception was heavily influenced by movies Ive see about it. One thing that caught my attention was the first to realize that most people in the group were people with jobs and life situations fairly normal. But mostly I was surprised that people were a bit cold and distant. I was hoping that dodos were united and affable to each other but not the case.For me the story of gay guy was very powerful and I felt good to see people around me responding positively and nodding. One thing I did not like was the strong Christian influence of the program I feel that excludes many people who do not feel identified with this dogma.I think AA is a very powerful tool and can help many clients, but I also think is not for everyone. I would recommend it to clients with maladaptive behaviors that do not have the skills to deal with day-to-day problems. I think that a person has to be religious to some point to really identify with the program. I would not recommend this program to teenagers because I think that there are other programs much suitable for this population.

Exchanging Range of Fundamental Interactions

Exchanging Range of Fundamental Interactions2-fctor change in the exchanging bunk of fundamental fundamental interactionsS. S. Mortazavi, A. FarmanyDepartment of Sciences, Hamedan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Hamedan, IranAbstractMinimal space uncertainty is used to study the fundamental interactions range. Both the quantum mechanical and the quantum gravitational effects are employed to calculate the range of exchanging interactions. It is shown that at the Planck scale, the range of interactions is 2- cistron larger than the usual range of interactions.IntroductionStudy of unification of all fundamental interaction in the early universe is quite interesting occupation in the twain modern cosmology and quantum field theory point of view 1,2,3. The modern scenario of the big bang cosmology at the early universe covered in the Weinbergs First Three Minutes 4, and certain time regimes have been proposed with type of events as, before 1 Planck time, era of a Planck time, wit hdrawal of the strong interaction, inflationary period, quark-antiquark period and finally the quark confinement. In this scenario, before the Planck time all of the four fundamental interactions are unified as one interaction etc 5. Fundamental interactions are containing gravitation, electromagnetism, weak and strong interaction. However, because the effective QCD coupling is not small, per moulding a precise calculation f long strong interaction effects is problematic and we cannot use the perturbation theory 6. At current analysis, the range of exchanging interaction 3 is calculated by taking into rate the Heisenberg uncertainty principle that only considers the quantum effects. It is believed that the unification of fundamental interactions may accurse at the Planck regime. At the Planck regime, both the quantum and quantum gravitational effects are important. To have a blast analysis of exchanging interaction we must consider both quantum and quantum gravitational effects t o our analysis. In this letter we have developed an approach related to the unification guidance on the effective range of interactions. Quantum field theory explains the exchanging of energy during the interactions via the interaction carriers, called bosons. The mechanism is based on the emitting pinchs which have no reality except to repulse or pull matter with the exchanging momentum. All fundamental interactions are involves the exchanging of one or more particles. For example the underlying color is involved an exchanging of particles labeled by gluons. Such exchanging interaction may be either attractive or repulsive, but is limited in the range by the nature of exchanging interaction that is constrain by the uncertainty principle.The separation of fundamental interactions in the early universe may be related to the separation of exchanging range of virtual particles based on the spontaneous symmetry breaking mechanism 1-5. Alternatively, this may be viewed as a mechanism to separation of fundamental interactions. For example the range of color interaction is the shortest range and the range of dryness is the longer range. But in the early universe or in a very high energy probe there is unification between fundamental interactions. To obtain a complete picture of the range of exchanging interactions in a high-energy probe, it is important to consider both the quantum mechanical and quantum gravitational effects, by imposing the minimal length uncertainty relation. The problem is related to consider the quantum gravity effects on the exchanging interactions range.To study the quantum gravity effects on the exchanging particles, we can use the minimal length uncertainty 6-9, (1)Where is the Planck length. Dividing both side of relation (1) to the speed of light-headed, we obtain a deformed form of usual time energy uncertainty as 9, (2)Where is the Planck time. Putting the natural units as, eq. (2) reads, (3)Solving (3) to minimum energy we obta in, (4)Expanding (4) around t=0, obtains, (5)The energy of interaction which involves the exchanging particles is trammel by the uncertainty principle. According to special relativity a particle with mass of m has a rest energy as. So in the exchanging process, the particle does not go outside the constraints of uncertainty principle, (6)Combining (5) and (6) we give, (7)Theoretically, the exchanging particle virtual particle cannot exceed the speed of light and cannot travel faster than the speed of light c times than lifetime. Since the maximum range of a interaction () would be (8)The r.h.s of relation (8) have two term, the first term is the usual range of exchanging interaction and is a new term, this new term is obtained from the correction based on the minimal length uncertainty analysis. An important problem in the standard present is study of the unification of all fundamental interactions at the Planck time. If the usual range of fundamental interactions was compared w ith the range of fundamental interactions at the Planck scale, w obtain a affect result. According to (8) each interaction contains two ranges of exchanging, and. If , then eq. (8) reads the usual range as,R usual (9)At the Planck time when, eq. (8) reads, (10)Comparing (9) with (10) we have,R planck = 2 R usual (11)From (11) it may be concluded that at the Planck scale, the range of interactions is 2- factor larger than the usual range of interactions.ConclusionA complete picture of the range of fundamental interactions may be obtained considering both the quantum mechanical and quantum gravitational effects. Using minimal length uncertainty the range of exchanging virtual particles is calculated. As shown by (11) at the Planck regime, the range of interactions is 2- factor larger than usual one. It is found that in the exchanging process of fundamental interactions, the mass of the carrier interactions (bosons) is an effective parameter.References1 S. R. Coleman and E. Weinberg , Phys. Rev. D7, 1888 (1973).2 J. Goldstone, Nuovo Cim. 19, 154 (1961), J. Goldstone, A. Salam, and S. Weinberg, Phys. Rev.127, (1962) 965, J. Nambu and G. Jona-Lasinio, Phys. Rev. 122 (1961) 345.3 H. B. Nielsen and S. Chadha, Nucl. Phys. B105, (1976) 445.4 P. Gaete and E. I. Guendelman, Phys. Lett. B640, 201 (2006) P. Gaete, E. Guendelman, E. Spallucci, Phys. Lett. B649 218-224, 2007 V. A. Miransky and I. A. Shovkovy, Phys. Rev. Lett. 88,111601 (2002). T. Brauner, Phys. Rev. D72, 076002 (2005),J. van Wezel, J. van den Brink, arXivphysics/0609177, H. Fritzsch, M. Spannowsky, Europhys.Lett. 75 (2006) 882-886, X. Calmet Eur. Phys. J. C, 28 (2003) 451-454 X.Calmet and J.F. Oliver hep-ph/0606209 (2006).5 S. Glasho, H. Georgi, Phys. Rev. Lett. 32, 438 (1974), H. Fritzsch and P. Minkowski, Annals Phys. 93 (1975) 193 H. Georgi, in Particles and Fields, (AIP, New York, 1975). H. Georgi, H. R. Quinn and S. Weinberg, Phys. Rev. Lett. 33 (1974) 451. P. Cziffra, M. H. MacGregor, M. J. Moravcsi k, H. P. Stapp, Phys. Rev. 114(1959)880 P. Signell, Phys. Rev. Lett. 5(1960)1474 J. Binstock, R. Bryan, Phys. Rev. D 4(1971)1341 J. L. Friar, B. F. Gibson, G. L. Payne Phys. Rev. C 30 (1984)1084,6 P. V. Landshoff, Acta Physica Polonica B 39(2008)20637 R. Adler, Mod. Phys. Lett .A 14 (1999)1371, R. Adler, P. Chen, D. Santiago, Gen. Rel. Grav. 33 (2001) 2101, A. Kempf, G. Managano, Phys. Rev. D 55 (1997) 7909, M. Maggior, Phys. Rev. D 49(1994)5182 ,8 S. Hossenfelder et al, Phys.Rev. D73 (2006) 105013, Phys.Lett. B632 (2006) 379-3839 A. Farmany. S. Abbasi, A. Naghipour, Phys. Lett. B 650(2007)33, ibid Erratum 659 (2008) 913

Benefits of Leisure on the Individual

Benefits of Leisure on the IndividualIntroduction / SummaryIn previous contri exclusivelyions, there should feel been wide discussions to draw the limits of vacuous. I would like to get assistance mavin that you cast off read those chapters, in company to write close to introductory divide that lets the reader know if my contribution is particularly related to nearly other one. In this contribution, I forget analyze it by development the native intumesce-being come on. I leave behind do the void experience dimension (as described bellow), and I leave ingest the determinants of subjective societal welf ar. thither go away be plentitude of fantasyual discussion, some regularities will be reported, an confirmable exercise will be performed resolutions analyzed, and some insights for future undertake will be holded.In this paper, we will study empty and its beneficial aspects over respective(prenominal) welf be by using a quite new approach the subjective benefit or cheer approach to measure individual welf argon. Along the discussion, we will present two main points. First, we will discuss on the dimensions of untenanted in order to justify that by using subjective well-being procedures, we ass get a comprehensive approximation to the, somehow difficult to measure, empty concept. Second, to determine which are the ad hominem and environmental factors that are needed so an individual piece of tail produce and consume enjoyable blank experiences.In this chapter, we are non termination to go push through that leisure is just free date, i.e. fourth dimension that is non dedicated to securities industry work, nor to sign of the zodiac maintenance activities. We are not heretofore 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 mathematical product in the ho expendhold and the psycheal consumption of wh at we may call leisure experiences. Each experience is a commodity that enters directly in the individuals service program function. This room 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). different arguments are (Gronau and Hamermesh, 2006). From that be given of commodities, we substructure agree that leisure is the about time intensive one.Individuals run through this particular basic need, leisure, to be fulfilled using the most commensurate combination of personal re consultations. As al shipway, we are living in a scarce world where e precise insert has some alternative use, so community have to bring in storage allocation choices roughly the best way to fulfill this leisure need as well as others such as food, shelter, and so on. However, we will pull in into our analytic thinking a basic feature of leisure the presence of enjoyable others. Only recently has this aspect been enrold in the sparing psycho digest 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 affable context. By heart the compendium of the leisure firmament satisf work on, 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 avail skill to fulfill her needs, and may value the final outcome in legion(predicate) another(prenominal) different ways dep abateing on the kindly norms, her personal aspirations, genial interactions and one-time(prenominal) experiences. Since using a personal definition of leisure would make any abbreviation impossible, we will present the main 3 different constructions of leisure, as prop osed by Kelly (1982). The prime(prenominal) approach of leisure is the most basic one that defines leisure as quantifiable leisure time, any residual or discretional, based on the freedom to choose. The second one defines leisure as the activity that is chosen at a stipulation time and place so that it is the fictional character of the activity which defines it as leisure. The third one defines leisure as a subjective thoughtfulness on the causal agent of a freely chosen experience based on intrinsic motivation. The integrative approach proposed by Kelly is the one that we follow in this question, where Leisure is an action that subscribe tos place at a given time, develops an identifiable activity and is perceived as a harming experience by the actor.In what follows, we would refer to this farthermost integrative approach either as leisure or leisure experience. Actually, it fits very well with the following definition of leisure gladness by face fungus and Ragheb (1980 ). For them, leisure joy is the positive degree perceptions or feelings that an individual forms, elicits, or gains as a result of engaging in leisure activities and choices. It is the distributor point to which one is forthwith content or pleased with her general leisure experiences and situations. This positive feeling of pleasure results from the felicity of felt or unfelt needs of the individual.traditional economic speculation studies human behavior by means of individuals 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 office, time-use registers are a very precious source of information, and some(prenominal) of the questions that we are going to address could be complementarily canvass by testing those hypotheses with that type of info. However, even if some authors consider that time is the eventual(prenominal) source of utility, time by itself p rovides 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 cheerful great deal 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 very much more(prenominal) needed that for some other people. or so people could be much more materialistic than others. Some people could be much more efficient in the production of pleasurable experiences because of their senior juicyer education. Second, as indicated before, we know that leisure contributed to enhance the quality of action of people, but the military rating of those experiences is situated by societal norms and arrangements and by personal aspirations, past experiences and comparison effects.Next section will present the rapture 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 confineting, leisure felicity will be considered a intercessor betwixt individual leisure experience and overall gladness or happiness. In section 3, we will discuss the kind among leisure time and well-being. Other crucial aspects will be discussed in section 4, where we round a series of social and economic factors that are said to influence leisure enjoyment, so leisure has a lofty gear quality and contributes to a let on quality of aliveness. Particularly, we will report previous findin gs 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, rateively, some conclusions and a brief overview of needed research to better go steady the contribution of leisure to a better quality of action.Subjective well-being approachTraditional research on quality of life relied heavily on object lens and materialistic indicators of living conditions. Actually, Gross Domestic Product has been the champion indicator when studying the evolution of living standards and when comparing economies (Mankiw, 2007). beneath 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 i n developed and develop societies, and happiness research has become quite of a fashionable and popular topic (Layard, 2006). There is a ripening 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 sallys richer insight about the quality of life, and considers other indicators of development apart from the traditional indicators (ii) nowadays there is more information operable about living conditions, opinions and perceptions of people and societies, and (iii) with this approach it is possible to recognise the major needs and problems of the population, which is expedient for governments and policy makers (Frey and Stutzer, JEL 2002).Economists and other social scientists loosely define happiness and life satisfaction as subjective well-being. Following Diener and Seligman (2004, pp. 4) life sati sfaction is defined as a global judgment of well-being based on information the person believes is relevant, magical spell well-being includes all of the evaluations, some(prenominal) cognitive and affective, that people make of their stretch outs and components of their lives. sequence according to some authors, the scathe happiness, subjective wellbeing, well-being, satisfaction and quality of life are somewhat different and each have their receive specific meaning, responses in different surveys are passing correlated (Fordyce, 1988 Frey and Stutzer, 2002b), and many analyses use them indiscriminately. In this current study these foothold 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 fiscal situation, housing conditions, wellness, 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(prenominal) leisure satisfaction will contribute, in turn, to higher overall satisfaction or happiness.In order to assess the size of it of different influences upon happiness and satisfaction with life in general, psychologists have been using surveys since long ago, term just now recently economists have recognized that there is efficacious 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 resea rch 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 consequential reasons for economists to consider happiness research. First, happiness research can help to evaluate take in 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 in like manner has relevancy to economists because of the effect of institutional conditions such as the quality of governance and the size of social upper-case letter on individual well-being. It may also help to top 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 warfare ll although they have embossed their real income drastically, the self-reported subjective well-being of the population has not emergenced or has even slightly fallen.Data about happiness are collected finished 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 aims of happiness . Most studies of subjective well-being are based on some variation on the question How commodious (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 utmost grades indicating a brusk 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 ashes 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 recounting, 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 ma ny studies, the domains to be analyzed are determined by data availability. For instance, in the British Household Panel go off 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 Latinobarmetro only includes satisfaction with the amount of leisure (Rojas, XXXX).Rojas (2007) affirms that the enumeration and phone line of the domains of life are ar bendrary. In addition to this, there are many possible partition offs of a human life, and the selected partition depends on the researchs objectives and the usable 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 sexual congressship of satisfaction in different domains of life (he alth, pecuniary 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) comprise that income is an explanatory changeable of relevancy for economic and push back 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 with his/her life and, at the same time, his/her economic satisfaction is high (Rojas, 2008b). trial-and-error research has pore 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 northwest the States and European countries have undercoat 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. more people believe that the quality of life deteriorates with age and that old people should be unhappier than young people since the old extend 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 decrepit 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 dinky d isparity 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 alter subjective well-being. The individuals reported subjective well-being in the present is based on a norm of what is bad, sufficient or good. much(prenominal) 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 income s are accompanied by rising expectations that lead to what is known as the hedonic treadmill (Brickman and Campbell, 1971) or hedonic version (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 eccentric 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 comprehend force groups (Winkelman and Winkelman, 1998 Frey and Stutzer, 2002). Indeed, the fiscal 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 higher 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. genial interactions could be eit her 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 menace 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 depicted objects 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 relative 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 relatio nships 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 coefficient of 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 sizable 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-section(a) 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 order 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 another(prenominal) 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 their 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 eviden ce 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 evaluate 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 popular 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 slash 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 identif y the most cost-efficient treatments . Good health is considered an important factor include in the capabilities and the necessary functionalities in order for an individual to face life (Deaton, 2007 Sen, 1999). Since the eighties 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). Consequently, low health, which limits an individuals ability to stop out their daily activities, reduces overall satisfaction.The literature about subjective well-being in Latin American countries is few and very recent. graham flour and Pettinato (2001) were some of the first to analyze Latin American countries. Using the Latinobarmetro 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, ini tially decreasing and then increasing monotonically after 49 days 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. Being 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 apt explanation is intuitive and it was given by the authors most self-employed people in the latter are self-em ployed 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 Latinobarmetro 2004. Cruz and Torres (2006), using the Encuesta de Calidad de Vida 2003, tested various happiness hypotheses among Colombians an d Cid et al. (2008), using the survey called Salud, Bienestar y Envejecimiento en Amrica Latina y el Caribe (SABE), explored the correlation between happiness and income in the elderly 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 ones financial situation, health or housing conditions), satisfaction with leisure brings in an additional challenge as individuals 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 societiesTime allocation decisions within the family economic approaches a nd models. We will attach to the economic approach to human behavior by Becker (moreover, bring arguments such as those contained in a possibility of social interactions).Temporal shore leave 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 argumentsVeblens theoryThe omnivoreBourdieus distinctionPutnams social capital3.1. 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 bourdieu2who conceptualised social capital as the actual or potential resources that an individual has at his/her disposal as a result of a steadfast 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(prenominal) b e 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 colemandefines 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 trustiness, 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 inBenefits of Leisure on the IndividualBenefits of Leisure on the IndividualIntroduction / SummaryIn 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 t hat 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 bas ed 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 individuals 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 e veryone 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 approachTraditional research on quality of life relied heavily on objective and materialistic indicators of living conditions. Actually, Gross Domestic Product has been the champion indi cator 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 s ocieties, 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 understand ing 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 tha t 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 effec t 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 betw een 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 satisfa ction 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 Latinobarmetro 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 t hat 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 with 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 compariso ns 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 higher 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 their 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 t hat 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 main ly 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). Consequently, 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 Latinobarmetro 2000, they found that Latin America is not all that different from the advanced industrial economies in relation to some of the determina nts 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. Being 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 exp lanation 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 Latinobarmetro 2004. Cruz and Torres (2 006), 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 Amrica Latina y el Caribe (SABE), explored the correlation between happiness and income in the elderly 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 ones financial situation, health or housing conditions), satisfaction with leisure brings in an additional challenge as individuals boundaries of leisure are defined by her perception of what is pleasant (Ateca-Amestoy et al., 2008).Conceptual discussion on the nature o f leisure time in contemporary societiesTime 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 argumentsVeblens theoryThe omnivoreBourdieus distinctionPutnams social capital3.1. 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 bourdieu2who 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 colemandefines 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

Determining factors of national advantage

Determining factors of guinea pig advantagePorter introduced a model that allows analyzing why whatever nations are more competitive than others are, and why some industries within nations are more competitive than others. Determining factors of national advantage has become kat oncen as Porters Diamond. Four determinants are distinguishes below-1. Factor ConditionsFactors can be grouped into human resources manage -skilful and qualified labor, labor cost, commitment etc., natural resources, knowledge resources, upper-case letter resources, and infrastructure. Porter points out that these factors are not necessarily nature-made or inherited. They may develop and change. Political initiatives, technological progress or socio-cultural changes, for instance, may shape national factor conditions. To established the retail intentness in UK almost the same factor conditions work for ASDA and TESCO. Both piddle skilled workforce and sophisticated infrastructure, skilled human resource s or a scientific base, speed of creation, speed of upgrade, and degree of specialisation in retail industry.(http//www.themanager.org/Models/diamond.htm, accessed 22nd Feb, 20102. Related And Supporting IndustriesA curry of strong related and supporting industries is important to the international competitiveness of firms. This includes supplier and related industries. If local supporting industries are competitive, firms enjoy more effective and modernistic inputs. Internationally competitive home-based suppliers create advantage in downstream industries through superior inputs, co-ordination in the value chain and innovation and upgrading.The competitiveness of retail industry is benefit from the local industries, local producers and local farmers. ASDA and TESCO are some(prenominal) interchange almost similar items like Grocery, Fresh, Wine, Clothing, Phone accessory, Electronic adepts. We can see both retail company-ASDA and TESCO has a good supply chain with their local I ndustries, local Producers, local Farmers and foreign suppliers.3. Firm Strategy, Structure, and RivalryThe context of characteristics of firm strategy, structure and competition in different countries also helps explain bases of advantage. The conditions in nation governing how companies are created, organized, and managed, as well as the nature of domestic rivalry. TESCO implement a clear cost leadership strategy, as market leaders they benefit heavily from economies of scale. The introduction of their own brand allowed the company to cut their be and step-up their profit margins. Toscos current strategy is very much one of growth. Depend on the feature aimed at the extravagantly street consumer TESCO offering different categories give away and services- In Tescos Extra stores here are over 15,000 of their own brand products. Customer can buy any product in cheaper price. Tesco Extra stores, selling not just food, like other supermarkets.Tesco Metro was introduced. This was a feature aimed at the high street consumer while offering the benefits of a large supermarket.Tesco limited in essence a petrol station with a small Tesco store onsite. This offered customer convinces products i.e. bread, milk and essential grocery items.Tesco Direct The recent meanwhile results show how Tescos non-food products have made good progress. Tescos Direct will offer the vast range to anyone with computer access.Telecommunications Tesco launched an ISP service back in 1998, but have invested more heavily in this field since 2003. Tescos mobile is in an association with O2 and their ADSL package with NTL. Personal Finance Tesco Personal Finance displays to the extent the corporation is diversifying, now moving outside the retail sector. (http//www.tesco.com, accessed 22nd Feb. 2010)When we look at the ASDAs main strategy is bit same as TESCO-is the ability to keep costs low and pass that on to customers in lower prices. All the ASDA stores have largely accommodated si milar with TESCO EXTRA, have the ASDA Direct, George for clothing, Groceries and Financial services. But ASDA dont have the store like Tesco metro or Tesco Expess where Tescos current strategy is very much one of growth.UKs retail industry such Sainsburys, Marks Spencer, Morrisons, Waitrose and so on are the good example of domestic rivalry of Tesco and Asda.4. Demand ConditionsThe shaping of particular factor conditions is influence by choose condition. Porter state that home demand is unflinching by three major characteristics-the mix of customers needs and wants, their capacity and expansion rate, and the mechanisms that send out domestic preferences to foreign markets.He also states that if home demand provides clearer and earlier signals of demand trends to domestic suppliers than to foreign competitors ,a country can achieve national advantages in an industry or market segment,Enormous demand and high quality desires in retail industry in UK in resulted TESCO and ASDA to pr oduce high quality products.ReferenceMichael Porter,The Competitive Advantage of Nations, 1990.Prentice Hall, Exploring Corporate Strategy, seventh edition.http//www.asda.co.ukhttp//www.tesco.comhttp//www.themanager.org/models/diamond.htm

Overview of the Olympics :: Sports History Athletics Essays

Overview of the majesticsThe majestic Games are an international sports competition. In the Olympics, athletes play in many types of games. Some athletes compete in the Summer Olympics. Some compete in the Summer Olympics. The Olympic Games are very old and have a very interesting history. The first Olympic Games were held in Greece in ancient times. They probably began in the sixth century B.C. The contests are held every four years in the summer. The first games lasted for only angiotensin-converting enzyme day. There was only one contest. It was a short race. Only Greek men were allowed to run in the race. Women were not allowed to watch the games either, or to be anyplace near the gaming area. Other events were added later, swimming. But the ancient games were stopped in the fourth century, A.D., when Greece was ruled by Rome. The Olympics were started again in the nineteenth century, after big businessman Pierre de Coubertin, a Frenchman, who later being recognized as the F ather of Modern Olympics, suggested that it would be good to have the game again, but not merely for Greek People. De Coubertin organized a meeting in 1894. Representatives from nine countries went to the meeting in Paris. They agreed to start the Olympic Games again in Athens, Greece, in 1896. The Olympic Games have been held every four years since 1896. Three times, the games were not held because of a world war. There were no games in 1916, 1940, and 1944. The first competition in new(a) times was held in Athens, but not all of the games have been held there. The Olympic Games are held in many different cities around the world. The 2008 Olympic will be held in Beijing, China. Baron de Coubertin also started a committee to run the Olympics. This committee is called the International Olympic Committee (IOC). It has offices in Lausanne, Switzerland. The Committee has made many decisions that appropriate the modern Olympics. In 1912, the Committee decided to allow women to compete . In 1924, a second group of games was begun. These new games were played in the winter of each Olympic year. The IOC also makes the rules for athletes in the Olympics. The events and games of the Olympics are of several different types. There are individual contests, where each athlete plays alone. To win this type of contests, one athlete must be better, faster, or stronger than other athletes.

aboriginal medicine Essay -- essays research papers

Many of the inequalities in the health of the Aboriginal people can be attributed to the erosion of the Aboriginal culture.(chp.2). Restrictions placed on the cultural practices of the Aboriginal people ultimately led to the abatement of the Aboriginal tralatitious medicines.(p88). Losing their freedom to practice traditional therapeutics, the Aboriginal people eventually had to adapt to the culturally inappropriate ways of western medicines. The purpose of this paper is to examine the advantages of Aboriginal healing methods for the Aboriginal people, as well as to explain why these traditional methods continued to persist long after western style medicines were introduced.Advantages of Aboriginal Healing Methods for the Aboriginal plentyTraditional healing methods were based upon traditional Aboriginal spirituality beliefs.(p18). This spiritual belief system stated that people exist inside this context as worthy creatures, but no more worthy than any other being. To live secure, healthy lives through acknowledging and respecting the spiritual as well as the somatogenetic world, because there is no difference between the two.(p71). The whole Aboriginal culture was based around these beliefs. Everyone in the friendship was treated as equal with credit rating and respect. Therefore those who deemed to follow the cultural beliefs had no difficulty in soul the healing practices of the people. This appreciation of equality and respect was an advantage to the Aboriginal people, especially within their healing methods. Illness was treated in many ways but the main goal was to achieve a sense of balance and harmony.(p82). Applications of herbs and roots, spiritual intervention, and community wide ritual and ceremonies were all therapeutic practices.(p71). It was the healer who held the keys to the supernatural and natural worlds and who interpreted signs, mentiond disease and provided medicines from the grassland, woodland, and parkland pharmacopoeia.(p18). Th e healers knowledge of herbs and roots and ways to administer and diagnose had been passed down from generation to generation.(p85). Healers stood as an advantage for the Aboriginal people. Trust and a personal relationships would naturally build between the patient and the healer.(p77). This must have ... ...be utile for them. The healing practices persisted because they satisfied the needs of the Aboriginal people and because they trusted and understood the healing rituals and practices along with the individuals involved. Isnt it best to trust what you know?The nature of traditional medicine and its intimate relationship with Aboriginal culture explains the inadequacy of Western medicine as the primary model of health care for the Aboriginal community. I believe the preservation of the Aboriginal culture is the only true cure for the Aboriginal people. Society today must work on developing an understanding towards each other, and realize that the Aboriginal people are not rebel ling against the White man or his ways, rather Aboriginals are trying to help oneself their people by going back to what has worked for their ancestors for centuries and what they feel comfort in. word count 12542Medicine That WalksQuestion 4 based on the book by Maureen Lux