Quality of Life and Human Well-Being in Sub-Saharan Africa

Benjamin Roberts is Research Director at the Human Sciences Research Council’s Developmental, Capable and Ethical State (DCES) research division and coordinator of the South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS), Durban, South Africa. He helped develop the SASAS series in 2002 and has coordinated each annual round of surveying since its inception in 2003. His research interests and areas of expertise include attitudinal measurement and social change, subjective well-being and quality of life, poverty and inequality, and social cohesion. He co-edited the HSRC Press volumes South African Social Attitudes: Changing Times, Diverse Voices (2006), South African Social Attitudes: Reflections on the Age of Hope (2010), and the forthcoming Family Matters: Family cohesion, values and strengthening in South Africa.  He was the lead author on a chapter on wellbeing in sub-Saharan Africa for the 2015 Springer volume The Global Handbook of Wellbeing and Quality of Life, and in 2017 co-authored a similarly themed chapter in The Pursuit of Human Well-Being: The untold history, edited by R.J. Estes and M.J. Sirgy. Most recently, he was one of the authors of the Africa-focused chapter appearing in the World Happiness Report 2017 Update. Recent publications include Roberts, B., Gordon, S., Møller, V. & Struwig, J. (2015) Shadow of the Sun: The distribution of wellbeing in sub-Saharan Africa. In Glatzer, W. et al (Eds.) The Global Handbook of Quality of Life. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer; and Roberts, B. (2014) Beliefs About Inequality and Redress Preferences in South Africa, Social Indicators Research, 118, 1167-90.  Valerie Møller is currently Professor Emeritus of Quality of Life Studies in the Institute of Social and Economic Research at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. A sociologist by training, she earned her PhD from the University of Zürich and has lived and worked in South and Southern Africa since 1972. While employed as a social researcher at the former University of Rhodesia (1972-5), University of KwaZulu-Natal (1976-1997) and Rhodes University (since 1998), she has studied and written on many aspects of quality of life in Africa over the past 40 years. She is a long-standing member of the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies; has served as its President (2007-8) and received its lifetime achievement award in 2016. She has published some 200 research articles and chapters in books on a range of quality-of-life topics based mainly on her own empirical quantitative and qualitative research in South Africa. Edited or co-edited volumes published in Springer’s Social Indicators Research and International Handbook on Quality-of-Life series include Quality of Life in South Africa (1997), Barometers of Quality of Life Around the Globe (2008), Quality of Life and the Millennium Challenge (2009), and The Global Handbook of Quality of Life (2015). In 2017, she co-authored a chapter on sub-Saharan African quality of life for the Springer volume on The Pursuit of Human Well-Being: The untold history, edited by R.J. Estes and M.J. Sirgy. She was the lead author of the regional chapter on Africa (Waiting for Happiness in Africa) that appeared in the World Happiness Report 2017 Update.

• Part I:  An introduction to Africa’s quest for happiness and well-being.- Chapter 1. Pinpointing Sub-Saharan Africa on the Globe.- Chapter 2. Documenting Well-Being in Sub-Saharan Africa.- Chapter 3. Looking Back in Time:  Africa’s Changing Landscape over the Centuries.- Chapter 4. Traditional African Ideas of Achieving the ‘Good Life’.- Chapter 5. Africa at War and Peace.- Part II: Indicators and Drivers of Well-Being.- Chapter 6. Basic Needs and Well-Being.- Chapter 7. Good Governance and Well-Being.- Chapter 8. Future African Generations and Well-Being.- Chapter 9. Happiness, Life Satisfaction and Hope for the Future.- Part III: Towards the Rising Sun: Promoting Well-Being through Policy Reform and Practice.- Chapter 10. Well-Being and Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa: Exploring the Interface.- Chapter 11. Conclusion.