PovertyMariano RojasFLACSO-Mexico & UPAEPInternational Conference on Hedonic Adaptation and Prediction, Harvard University 14/09/2007Poverty and HappinessThe happy poorMore than 50%of Mexican poor are satisfied with their livesIs this adaptationto poverty?Resignation?Can poor people really be happy?Should they be happy?One would expect poor people to be unhappyPoverty is understood as low well-being, lack of well-being, ill-beingBut there are happy poorPoverty and HappinessPoor people who are satisfied with their lives!!!!Resignation???????They get used to itThey lower their evaluation normsThey do not have aspirationsResignation is seen as unacceptableFalse happiness(Prodicus)Happiness is circumstantial. Some circumstances are not the right ones to judge own life satisfactionThey should not be happyThey should not be happyBut maybe theyarePoverty and HappinessFacing the happy poorfactmaybe there is something wrong with happinessReported happiness is incorrectReported happiness is not important after allmaybe there is something wrong with their happinessThey are not in a position to make a correct assessment of their life satisfactionmaybe there is something wrong with our poverty theoriesand measurementsPoverty should be defined in terms of life satisfactionPoverty and HappinessExplainingthe happy poor: My ResearchPoor people: Less than US$2 dollars of household per capita income per dayDomains of lifeGoing beyond our focus on incomeThere is more in life than the standard of living, and for many people there are more important thingsPoverty as an academic/policy-making constructBad income proxiesHappiness founded on different conceptual referents for the good lifePoverty and HappinessMeaning of poverty and wealth, development and underdevelopmentNeed of also explainingThe unhappy richHigh happiness in LDC: E.g. ‘Latin America factor’Unhappiness in DCPoverty and HappinessJudging the well-being of othersDifficulty of third-party judgmentsWhat do they focus on?What conceptual referents for the good life they do use?Judging from someone else’s circumstanceJudge contingent to her adaptation, social conditioning, indoctrination, interestsThird-party judgments have consequencesown assessments based on what others say about meInfluence design of social, aid and development programsPoverty and HappinessResignation and a bigger questionResignation could be everywhereHow do ‘the rich’ know they have not resigned to their poverty?False sense of wealth, false sense of developmentThe focus of their concern: Academically/third-parties constructed areas of concernLife satisfaction is circumstantialJudging circumstances: How circumstances must be judged?HappinesscriterionBut in case of full adaptation: ethicalcriterion power-centered criterionGetting out of PovertyLIFE SATISFACTIONINCOMEINCOME POVERTY LINEWELL-BEING DEPRIVATION LINEOutofincomeandofwell-beingdeprivationOutofincomepovertywhileremainingin well-beingdeprivationDBACOutofwell-beingdeprivationwhileremainingin incomepoverty