Social Well-Being, Cohesion and Human Health

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Social Well-Being, Cohesion and Human Health

• Ron McQuaid Ariel Bergmann
• Employment Research Institute
• Napier University
• Edinburgh

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Sustainable Development

• Three Pillars of Sustainability
• Environmental
• Economic
• Social

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Economic Sustainability

• Reasonably well developed, but still very general
  and not exact
• e.g.
• Cost Benefit Analysis
• Project Appraisal
• Private v Social costs, discount rates, etc.
• Concerned partly with economic growth

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Social Sustainability

• No agreed definition a society that has social
  justice, is persistent and thrives ..
• Development (and/or growth) that is compatible
  with harmonious evolution of civil society,
  fostering an environment conductive to the
  compatible cohabitation of culturally and
  socially diverse groups while at the same time
  encouraging social integration, with improvements
  in the quality of life for all segments of the
  population.
• Polese and Stren (2000, 15-16)

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Social Sustainability

• It includes (economic, social and environment
  dimensions)
• Quality of life issues
• Equality and social justice
• Fair distribution of benefits and costs
• Access to social resources to allow them to
  participate fully in society
• Individuals have opportunity to reach full
  potential and overcome disadvantage
• Promotes diversity while being inclusive

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Social Sustainability ( cont.)

• Multi-generational timescale
• Primarily implemented and measured at the local
  community level
• Importantly it is multi-dimensional (difficult/
  impossible to get a single measure such as
  monetarisation measure)
• SIA is not just the inclusion of the social
  impacts of environmental policies

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• The sources of unsustainable development are not
  always the result of greed, ignorance or
  irrational choices.
• Rather, they may be the result of unintentional
  accumulation of rational, well-intended decisions
  made by people who are operating within societies
  whose political and economic systems make it
  difficult to act in ways that are responsible to
  all those affected in the present and in the
  future.

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European Union Policy Background

• The Lisbon Strategy (introduces social dimension,
  especially as related to work)
• Gothenburg Strategy
• European Union Sustainable Development Strategy
  2006
• Social Agenda 2005-2010
• European Employment Strategy and the Luxembourg
  Process

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Council of the EU

• Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer
  Affairs (EPSCO)
• The Environment Council

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Impact Categories/Issues

• Governance
• Employment
• Community Development
• Health and Well-being
• Culture and heritage

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Impact Categories/Issues (cont.)

• Cross-cutting all issues are concerns for
• participation of affected people in decisions
• distribution of social benefits and costs
• equality
• social justice

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Governance(public participation, social
inclusion, and public attitudes)

• Does the policy
• impact on the involvement of groups and
  stakeholders to participate in governance?
• impact on social institutions or public
  institutions and administrations in their ability
  and responsibilities to governance?
• impact on a group or the individuals access to
  the legal justice system?
• impact on the public being informed about issues
  within their community?
• impact on the privacy of individuals and
  households?

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Employment(employment at the local community
level)

• Does the policy
• facilitate creation of jobs or the loss of jobs?
• impact a specific class of workers or households?
• affect the demand for labour?
• impact on the functioning of the labour market?
• impact on the type and quality of jobs?
• impact on the health, safety and dignity of
  workers?

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Community Development(local social benefits
derived from community participation in
commercial activities and policy)

• Does the policy
• impact on the level of social capital and
  activism by non-governmental groups or
  individuals?
• impact on social inclusion, social cohesion, and
  distribution of equity and benefits within
  society?
• impact on the liveability and sense of community
  wellbeing?

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Health and Well-being(1)(physical health and
emotional sense of enjoying and achieving in life)

• Does the policy
• impact on the quality of soil, surface water, and
  ground water? The quality and sufficiency of
  drinking water is of special importance. What are
  the health gains or risks that may occur?
• impact on the occupational health risks that may
  occur with the development?

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Health and Well-being(2)

• impact development or change of land use on
  recreational uses in the area and the effects on
  the local community as well as non-local
  visitation to the area?
• impact development on local infrastructure such
  as hospitals, schools, waste disposal,
  sanitation, and emergency response capability?
  Will there be sufficient capacity?
• impact equitable distribution of the health
  risks, disadvantages and benefits from
  development? What is the desirable distribution
  of the gains and losses among social
  groups?

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Culture and heritage (1)(culture is the total
range of activities and ideas of a group of
people with shared traditions which are
transmitted and reinforced by members of a group)
(heritage can be explained as all the things,
places and ideas passed on from the past which
are of special cultural significance to the life
of a community, including both cultural and
human-built elements)
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Culture and heritage (2)

• Does the policy
• impact on cultural or heritage issues in a
  community
• impact on sites and features
• impact on activities, practices, skills and
  events
• impact on meanings, identities, and
  representations of importance to the community

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Sustainability Impact Assessment Tools (SAIT)

• Currently in development
• SENSOR
• EFORWOOD
• PLUREL
• SEAMLESS

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Modelling Social Impacts

• Identify the social impacts of a policy, who is
  affected and the timescale
• Causal Model
• Qualitative Assessment
• Impact Matrix
• Measuring factors such as wellbeing?

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Example of 1 issue- Demography
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Balance Sheet Approach

• There is no common matrix by which all social
  impact issues can be measured!
• History of ignoring issues that could not be
  quantified numerically or monetarised
• Cost/Benefit Analysis will not work
• List all benefits/gains v. all costs/losses
• Consider distributional effects, equality and
  social justice
• Weighting of measures

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Indicators e.g. Andrea Colantonio (2007)

• Social
• 1. Access to resources
• 2. Community needs ( e.g. are communities able to
  articulate their needs?)
• 3. Conflicts mitigation
• 4. Cultural promotion
• 5. Education
• 6. Elderly and aging
• 7. Enabling knowledge management (including
  access to E-knowledge)
• 8. Freedom
• 9. Gender equity
• 10. Happiness
• 11. Health
• 12. Identity of the community/civic pride
• 13. Image transformation and neighbourhood
  perceptions

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Indicators

• Social cont.
• 14. Integration of newcomers (especially foreign
  in-migrants) and residents
• 15. Leadership
• 16. Justice and equality
• 17. Leisure and sport facilities
• 18. Less able people
• 19. Population change
• 20. Poverty eradication
• 21. Quality of Life
• 22. Security and Crime
• 23. Skills development
• 24. Social diversity and multiculturalism
• 25. Well being

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Indicators

• Socio-Institutional
• 26. Capacity Building
• 27. Participation and empowerment
• 28. Trust, voluntary organisations and local
  networks (also know as Social
• Capital)
• Socio-economic
• 29. Economic security
• 30. Employment
• 31. Informal activities/economy
• 32. Partnership and collaboration
• Socio-environmental
• 33. Inclusive design
• 34. Infrastructures
• 35. Environmental Health
• 36. Housing (quality and tenure mix)
• 37. Transport
• 38. Spatial/environmental inequalities

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Indicators - criticisms

• For example
• Difficult to measure indicators
• Time horizon
• Counterfactual did it make a difference?
• Combined effects of lots of indicators Sgtparts
• Context is important - different cultural
  interpretations of social and different contexts
• - But it is easy to criticise and hard to present
  something better!

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How to Structure Chapters?Social Well-Being,
Cohesion and Human Health

• 2 proposed methods of presenting material
• 5 chapters
• 1 chapter with subsections

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Method 1 (5 chapters)

• Chapter 11. Social well-being, cohesion and
  human health impacts
• - background and policy context for the social
  pillar
• - assessment tools
• - modelling social impacts
• Chapter 12. Governance
• Chapter 13. Employment and social inclusion
• Chapter 14. Equality and basic rights
• Chapter 15. Health impact
• Chapter ? EU Policy

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Method 2 (1 chapter with subsections)

• Chapter 11.
• Social well-being, cohesion and human health
  impacts
• 11.1 Introduction and policy background
• 11.2 Governance
• 11.3 Employment
• 11.4 Community Development
• 11.5 Health and Well-being
• 11.6 Culture and heritage
• 11.7 Assessment tools
• 11.8 Modelling social impacts

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A Final Comment

• The Economics Pillar is still developing as
• the principle of sustainable development is
  difficult to analyse as it is contrary to certain
  key assumptions/goals of traditional economics
• - weak substitutability
• - discount rates
• - economic agents
• - (sustainable) growth as the main objective

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A Final Comment cont.

• The Social Pillar is the least developed area of
  impact assessment
• - newest (lt10-20 years) No systematic model
• - least developed theoretically due to
  difficulty in comparing quality issues/impacts
  with other quality issues with quantifiable
  issues/impacts holistic v reductionalist views
  etc.
• - scale of community being analysed dramatically
  changes the possible matrices and impact issues
• Is sustainability the core or is social an add
  on to environment and economic?

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Thank you

• Employment Research Institute
• Napier University, Edinburgh
• Institute website http//www2.napier.ac.uk/depts/
  eri/home.htm

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Diagram Causal model of impacts increased
timber harvesting
Policy increase timber harvest
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Chart Combined Qualitative Assessment and
Impact Matrix Analysis
Policy/Project
Employment/Wages
Population
Rent
Employment increases (large)
Local population employed - 50 jobs
Non-local
population employed - 15 jobs (skilled or
experienced to manage expansion)
Likelihood - 60
All unemployed
workers with appropriate skills set are likely to
gain full time employment
Population increase (large)
Likelihood - 50
Rent increase (large)
Likelihood - 60
Rent increase (small)
Likelihood - 30
Population increase (small)
Likelihood - 40
Employment increases (small)
Local population employed - 25 jobs
Non-local
population employed - 5 jobs (skilled or
experienced to manage expansion)
Likelihood - 40
Some unemployed
workers with appropriate skills set are likely to
gain full time employment
Rent stable -no change
Likelihood - 10
Population decrease (small)
Likelihood - 10
Wages increase (large)
15 average wage increase
Likelihood - 50
Upward wage pressure through
out timber sector
Substantial improvement for
unemployed as wages are greater than minimum level
Wages increase (small)
15 average wage increase
Likelihood - 50
Upward wage pressure through out
timber sector
Substantial improvement for unemployed
as wages are greater than minimum level
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Definition of Rural Regions and Typology

• Assessing the pertinence of the OECD
  classification
• Simple, transparent, takes account of internal
  patterns within regions, widely recognised
• But major weaknesses include heterogeneity of
  NUTS 3 regions, ignores differences in economic
  potential of regions, density thresholds are
  arbitrary
• 3 alternative options (all incorporating a
  peripherality index) are presented and assessed,
  two of these give better discrimination between
  different types of rural region (assessed by
  anova test)

• Typology according to labour market performance
• Simple transparent disaggregative approach
• Separate demography and economic
  activity/unemployment typologies
• Combined typology reveals relatively favourable
  labour market situation in PU regions, SR and PR
  more mixed fewer strong performance regions,
  more moderately performing regions, and roughly
  the same proportion of weak regions.

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Bottom-line Objective

• Identify the impacts of a potential policy or
  proposed project
• To answer the question
• What can be done to maximise and distribute the
  social benefits while mitigating the negative
  impacts/costs to individuals or groups within
  society?