Assessing sustainable wellbeing in Africa through “Years of Good Life”

20364 8 108719 2 329447 document 108719 KCA_Revised_Manuscript_clean.pdf application/pdf b5a3926df0815ac32bfacd2072631a4f MD5 1172688 2025-01-27 13:00:29 https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/20364/1/KCA_Revised_Manuscript_clean.pdf 20364 1 1 application/pdf text en staffonly cc_by_nc_nd_4

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http://eprints.org/relation/isVersionOf https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/document/108719 http://eprints.org/relation/isVolatileVersionOf https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/document/108719 http://eprints.org/relation/isIndexCodesVersionOf https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/document/108719 archive 353 disk0/00/02/03/64 2025-01-27 12:59:34 2025-10-01 13:14:26 2025-01-27 12:59:34 article show KC A. 2323 Abbasi-Shavazi M. 2442 Eigelaar-Meets I. Lijadi A.A. 2174 Reiter C. 2218 0000-0002-1485-3851 Striessnig E. 1862 0000-0001-5419-9498 Lutz W. 1124 0000-0001-7975-8145 Assessing sustainable wellbeing in Africa through “Years of Good Life” pub EF POPJUS MDM SHAW prog_dir H2A The ultimate end of sustainable development can be defined as achieving sustainable human wellbeing. With the intention of measuring this, an indicator that aims to capture the universal constituents of sustainable human wellbeing titled “Years of Good Life” (YoGL) was designed (Lutz et al., 2021). Based on the demographic life table approach, YoGL assumes that being alive is the fundamental prerequisite for enjoying any quality of life. However, as mere survival is not seen as sufficient, being above minimum thresholds in the dimensions of material, physical and cognitive wellbeing, as well as the subjective dimension of life satisfaction, is required. This paper aims to explore the concept of sustainable wellbeing and assess it in Africa through YoGL, using a mixed methods approach. Firstly, the paper presents results from focus group discussions in South Africa aimed at understanding cultural differences in the perception of human well-being. Secondly, a comparative analysis of YoGL across 46 African countries over the period of 1950–2015 is carried out, giving special emphasis to the differentiation by gender. Again, taking South Africa as a case study, trends in the different constituents of gender-specific wellbeing are examined. Turning to the future, the paper looks at YoGL as the output variable in a multi-sector global systems model which also incorporates feedbacks from social, economic and environmental change on human wellbeing over the rest of this century. 2025-06 published doi:10.1016/j.envdev.2025.101140 3252 3666 2963 3072 299 190 restricted Environmental Development 54 e101140 TRUE 2211-4645 The Demography of Sustainable Human Wellbeing (EmpoweredLifeYears, H2020 741105) yes info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/741105/EU//EmpoweredLifeYears info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccess