Modernization and its Discontents: Socioeconomic and Biological Influences on Quality of Life

Northwestern University, Evanston IL

Investigators

Abstract

0200767 Leonard, Godoy, McDade This pilot research by three anthropologists will study subjective and objective quality-of-life in an indigenous population of lowland Bolivia (the Tsimane') undergoing rapid lifestyle change. The researchers will develop and field-test new measures of quality-of-life in order to ultimately test hypotheses about the effects of economic development. They intend to collect primary information from a sample of people; to collect repeated observations from the same people and communities to control for fixed attributes; and to evaluate a broad range of explanatory variables relating to economic success, nutritional status, and stress. This research will be significant in its theoretical advance in estimating how inequalities affect quality of life. It will advance the methodology of eliciting information from people about their subjective state of happiness, and in its broader aspects, will contribute to a more informed discussion and a new way of thinking about he degree to which economic development, integration to a market economy, trade opening or globalization hurts or helps traditional people.