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The Role of Relational Goods in the Relationship Between Illnesses and Satisfaction in Latin America

  • Chapter
Handbook of Happiness Research in Latin America

Part of the book series: International Handbooks of Quality-of-Life ((IHQL))

Abstract

This chapter postulates that it is not the same to be ill than to suffer from an illness; people with access to relational goods do suffer less from an illness than people with little or no access to relational goods. The empirical study uses information from all Latin American countries to show that access to relational goods mediates in the relationship between health problems and well-being.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Recent contributions include: Pugno (2007), Bruni and Stanca (2005), Mosca et al. (2006), Becchetti et al. (2006, 2008), Kafetsios (2006) y Priel and Shamai (1995).

  2. 2.

    Recent articles propose an operative and conceptually robust methodology to translate the loss in well-being that is caused by the presence of health problems into monetary values, (see for example: Clark and Oswald 2002; Groot and van den Brink 2006; Ferrer-i-Carbonell and van Praag 2002; Rojas and Elizondo-Lara 2009; Rojas 2009).

  3. 3.

    Research that focuses on health satisfaction as a construct of life domains, or that studies specific life domains, include the following: Ferrer-i-Carbonell (2005), Easterlin (2001), Fuentes and Rojas (2001), Rojas (2010), Zumbo and Michalos (2000), Millar and Hull (1997), Helliwell and Putnam (2004), Clark and Oswald (1994), Di Tella et al. (2001), Kamp and Amato (2005), Stutzer and Frey (2006), Michalos and Zumbo (1999), Michalos (2004), Ferrer-i-Carbonell and van Praag (2002), Werner et al. (2005), Rojas (2011).

  4. 4.

    A table with the complete breakdown of each dimension for each country considered in the study is presented in the appendix (Table 11.4)

  5. 5.

    The variable is built reducing the principal components from variables that indicate whether the person experienced, on the day before, one of the following emotions: enjoyment, worry, sadness, boredom, depression, anger and love. A polychoric correlation matrix is used.

  6. 6.

    Sensitivity refers to the percentage of predicted observations of people satisfied with health when in fact the individual is satisfied with health. Specificity refers to the percentage of observations classified as not satisfied with health when in fact the individual is not satisfied with health.

  7. 7.

    The estimated coefficients and marginal effects for both equations are presented in Table 11.1 in the appendix. Table 11.5 shows the most relevant results.

  8. 8.

    A 40 year old male, married, with completed secondary education, 260 USD per capita household monthly income and living in a big city.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. FLACSO-México and UPAEP, Mexico City, Mexico

    Mariano Rojas

  2. Astra Zeneca, FLACSO-México and UPAEP, Mexico City, Mexico

    Maikol Elizondo-Lara

Authors
  1. Mariano Rojas
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  2. Maikol Elizondo-Lara
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mariano Rojas .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. FLACSO-Mexico & UPAEP, Mexico City, Mexico

    Mariano Rojas

Appendix

Appendix

Table 11.4 Prevalence of health problems and satisfaction with health in the Latin American population
Full size table
Table 11.5 Health satisfaction: the impact of health problems, relational goods and the interaction between both factors
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Rojas, M., Elizondo-Lara, M. (2016). The Role of Relational Goods in the Relationship Between Illnesses and Satisfaction in Latin America. In: Rojas, M. (eds) Handbook of Happiness Research in Latin America. International Handbooks of Quality-of-Life. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-7203-7_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-7203-7_11

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-017-7202-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-017-7203-7

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