SOCA 3605 QUALITY OF LIFE IN AUSTRALIA
School of Sociology

Overview

How does standard of living (whatever that means?) and dollar income make us happy? What is the relationship between money income and life satisfaction? (Surprisingly it's difficult to know what makes us happy!) How do external factors and conditions like income, employment, family situation and housing impact on emotional life, 'subjective happiness' and quality of life. What do basic 'goods' such as personal autonomy and social peace do for quality of life? What significance should we give to 'internal' factors such as confidence, anxiety, initiative, agency and action, in our attempts to construct the 'Good Life'? Is happiness 'culture bound'?

With this subject we aim to join concepts with concrete social research so as to get 'stability of reference' and thus clear, useful, insights that 'make a difference' to the way we construct and interpret our quest for happiness and contentment. We will cover a number of topics such as money; income and consumption; work and employment;
stress, health and leisure; family relations; sexuality, intimacy, and friendship; freedom and autonomy; community, belonging and abstraction.