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This paper aims to assess the progress in the provision of basic services in urban slums in Bangladesh during the transition period of millennium development goals (MDGs) to sustainable development goals (SDGs).

The study used a mixed method of research. The empirical part of the research was conducted in three Blocks of Rupsha slum in Khulna city. Randomly selected 120 households were interviewed through a structured questionnaire; three focus group discussion sessions (FGDs) were also conducted. Progress in the slum residents’ access to basic services during the transition from MDGs to SDGs is tacked based on primary data. The User Satisfaction Index (USI) and Network Analysis tools in ArcGIS are used to identify the gaps in service provision.

Findings show that a very significant proportion of families (56.67%) encounter an acute level of difficulties to gain smooth access to water services. About 89% of respondents have only access to a common or shared toilet facility where one common toilet is used by 20–25 persons. About 31% of families are unable to send their children to primary school even after four years of the adoption of SDGs. Achievements in most indicators of basic services in the slum are in general lower than the national level. Moreover, there exists spatial variability within the same slum. After four years of the transition from MDGs to SDGs, most of the services are poorly satisfying the residents of the Rupsha slum, and water service provision is in worse condition. The findings of this study have unveiled that while achievement in target areas is appreciable at the macro level, at the micro-level; however, good achievement in the provision of few basic services in the low-income settlement is more rhetoric than reality. Therefore, a lot more work needs to be done during the SDG phase to give the slum residents a decent quality of life as they have missed the MDGs’ train.

Study single-out works need to be done during the SDGs phase to give the slum residents a decent quality of life as they have missed the MDGs’ train.

This paper studies social inequality in the vital field of employment in Spain during the crisis period 2009-2014.

Factor analysis is used to build a synthetic index of employment exclusion. The starting information matrix collects data from a wide set of employment variables for all 17 Spanish autonomous communities and the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla. Based on this information, four factors are extracted which explain employment exclusion in different situations of vulnerability, such as unemployment, temporality, poverty or low pay.

In the territorial ranking, Madrid, Basque Country, Aragon and Catalonia show the lowest risk of employment exclusion, whereas Ceuta, Andalusia, Extremadura and Canary Islands show the highest ones.

The main value of this research is that it confirms the need for coordination of public policies in order to foster social and territorial cohesion in Spain.

Homestay is an alternative product to mass tourism where tourists are accommodated with local family allowing the tourist to learn local culture and lifestyle. The changing tourists' preferences influence the phenomenon of this accommodation trend for unique experiences, increasing competition in the market, and the rapid development in communication technology. This paper aims to observe the current state of the homestay situation in Brunei. This research utilized qualitative in-depth semi-structured interviews with a total sample of 23 respondents consisting of homestay operators, local community and tourism officers. The findings are that homestay in Brunei experienced issues with licensing and standards due to unending bureaucracy and unclear instructions, an elusive search of successors for long-term sustainability, and issues on participatory management within the community. This paper contributes valuable insights to developing strategies for the sustainability of homestay tourism, particularly for the stakeholders involved, such as homestay operators, policymakers and tourism practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the economic models and assumptions that have given rise to current day tourism. It suggests alternate models based on new values to help tourism emerge from the current COVID crisis and “come-of-age.”

The paper delineates the assumptions of neoliberal economics upon which much of tourism has been based. It then summarizes the work of progressive economists in developing new models that value capital other than financial. Six of these models are briefly described and applied to tourism.

Some assumptions underlying the neoliberal economic model that need re-examining are the ideas that: self-interest drives ideal economic behavior; success comes from competition, not cooperation; encouraging consumption for its own sake; giving owners priority over other stakeholders; and more income translates into more happiness. Redesign of economic systems requires consideration of social capital, natural capital, intellectual capital, compassion capital, trust capital and spiritual capital to name a few. Examples of alternate systems using these capitals are the collaborative economy, the circular economy, the creative economy, the gift economy, the sacred economy and the regenerative economy.

The paper’s approach is to interlace modern economic thought with the future maturation of tourism and to suggest that tourism policymakers and leaders learn from these thinkers to create a new model for the future of tourism.

This study conducts a comparative analysis of the impact of educational mismatch on Spanish wages. This paper aims to focus on the industrial, construction and service sectors at three levels of disaggregation: sector, occupation and gender.

The over-education, required education and under-education (ORU model), was applied to data from the 2018 Spanish Wages Structure Survey conducted by the Spanish National Statistics Institute.

The industrial sector is the one that best manages over-education by offering the highest returns to each year of over-education. It is also the sector that most values the education of women, particularly those in highly qualified positions.

This study compares the wage effects of educational mismatch in the service, industry and construction sectors. Previous literature has ignored the latter sectors in this field of study, but the results of the present study show that the industrial sectors significantly value and remunerates worker education. Therefore, it may be worthy to focus certain economic and social policies on this sector, to contribute to reducing gender wage gaps and gender employment discrimination in the economy.

In order to assess the state of health of Europe’s children, or to appraise the systems and models of healthcare delivery, data about children are essential, with as much precision and accuracy as possible by small group characteristic. Unfortunately, the experience of the Models of Child Health Appraised (MOCHA) project and its scientists shows that this ideal is seldom met, and thus the accuracy of appraisal or planning work is compromised. In the project, we explored the data collected on children by a number of databases used in Europe and globally, to find that although the four quinquennial age bands are common, it is impossible to represent children aged 0–17 years as a legally defined group in statistical analysis. Adolescents, in particular, are the most invisible age group despite this being a time of life when they are rapidly changing and facing increasing challenges. In terms of measurement and monitoring, there is little progress from work of nearly two decades ago that recommended an information system, and no focus on the creation of a policy and ethical framework to allow collaborative analysis of the rich anonymised databases that hold real-world people-based data. In respect of data systems and surveillance, nearly all systems in European society pay lip service to the importance of children, but do not accommodate them in a practical and statistical sense.

Despite the longstanding male dominance in the socio-politico-economic spheres, recent decades have witnessed remarkable improvements in gender inclusion. Although the issue of gender inclusion has been widely documented, answers to the question of whether institutional arrangements and information technology shape gender inclusion remain contentious. This study, therefore, empirically examines the effects of institutional quality and ICT penetration on gender inclusion on a global scale.

To control for the endogeneity of modeled variables and cross-sectional dependence inherent with large panel datasets, the study employs the Driscoll-Kraay Fixed Effects (DKFE) and the system Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) estimators for a panel of 142 countries from 1996 to 2020.

The empirical findings from the DKFE and system GMM estimators reveal that strong institutions significantly enhance gender inclusion. Moreover, by disaggregating institutional quality into various governance indicators, we show that besides corruption control, which has a positive but insignificant effect on women’s empowerment, other governance indicators significantly enhance gender inclusion. Furthermore, there is evidence that various ICT measures promote gender inclusion.

The study results suggest that policymakers in developing countries should implement stringent measures to curb corruption. Moreover, policymakers in low-income countries should create avenues to facilitate women’s access to ICTs. Hence, policymakers in low-income countries should create and equip ICT training centers and render them accessible to all categories of women. Furthermore, developed countries with high-tech knowledge could help developing countries by organizing free training workshops and sensitization campaigns concerning the use of ICTs vis-à-vis women empowerment in various fields of life.

The present study fills a significant research gap by comprehensively exploring the nexuses between governance, ICT penetration, and the socio-politico-economic dimensions of gender inclusion from a global perspective. Besides the paucity of studies in this regard, the few existing studies have either been focused on region and country-specific case studies in developed or developing economies. Moreover, this study is timely, given the importance placed on gender inclusion (SDG5), quality of institutions (SDG16), and ICT penetration (SDG9) in the 2015–2030 global development agenda.

The subject of “well-being” has attracted attention from tourism scholars, but differences and misuses in approach have meant that academic contributions and knowledge accumulation to the tourism literature remain relatively little. This paper attempts to clarify the theoretical source of subjective well-being, and critically reflect on the problems existing in the study of well-being when applied to tourism. It is suggested that subjective well-being belongs to the category of “quality of life” and has multiple philosophical foundations and theoretical sources including theories of hedonism, expectation, happiness and various itemised lists of emotions. A hybrid research method is suggested when applying the concept to tourism.

This paper analyzes individual subjective well-being using a survey database from the Strasbourg metropolitan development council (France). The authors focus on the effects of externalities generated by public services (transport, culture and sport), environmental quality and feeling of security in the Strasbourg metropolitan area (Eurométropole de Strasbourg, EMS). Results show that EMS specificities (public facilities, environmental quality, safety and security) and individual features like opportunities to laugh or live with children significantly influence individual well-being. These findings are robust when using three subjective measures: feeling of well-being, environmental satisfaction and social life satisfaction. The authors also show that income may affect the perceived well-being of individuals belonging to a low-income group, while individuals belonging to a high-income group tend to be unsatisfied with environmental quality but satisfied with their social life. Besides, social comparison in terms of income does not matter for individual well-being in the Strasbourg metropolitan area.

Theoretical and empirical paper —Utility theory in economics—Econometric modeling using an ordered probit model.

Specificities of the Strasbourg metropolitan area-France (public services related to transport, culture and sport, environmental quality perceived as convenient for individual health, sense of security) significantly impact individual subjective well-being. Income does not substantially impact the individual subjective perception of happiness: income may matter for the feeling of well-being only for individuals belonging to a low-income group. Wealthy individuals tend to be unsatisfied with environmental quality but satisfied with their social life. Social comparison in terms of income does not matter for individual well-being in the Strasbourg metropolitan area.

Cross-sectional data, but it is the only available database from a survey conducted by EMS in 2017 to collect information on potential elements relative to individual well-being in the Strasbourg metropolitan area.

Results shed light on the role of territorial policies in improving individual well-being and might provide some guidelines for policy-makers concerned about the population’s welfare. Policy-makers should give strong attention to public facilities (an essential element of local public action) and improve environmental quality. If they care about the population’s happiness, they have to reorient current policies in this direction. Of course, through the inquiry in 2017 giving this database, the Strasbourg agglomeration development council aimed to provide such evidence to the local administration. Nevertheless, the results were a bit upsetting for many people in the administrative and political circles, who generally prioritize economic and demographic development, while the citizens’ responses to the inquiry have revealed a strong focus on the quality of everyday life in their neighborhood.

The present study contributes to the literature on subjective well-being, with a focus on the role of local characteristics and living environment. The authors’ starting point is related to the standard utility theory, indicating that environmental quality and public services are positive externalities. The authors investigate whether the local living environment and public facilities are crucial elements explaining individual well-being. To do this, we consider three subjective measures: feeling of well-being, environmental satisfaction and social life satisfaction, which are used as proxies of individual utility. The authors consider different explicative variables representing specificities of EMS in terms of public services (transport, culture and sport), environmental quality perceived as convenient for individual health, safety and security, etc. The authors also provide a test for relative standing by including the median monthly household income at the municipality level.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, corruption perception, real gross domestic product per capita and the Gini index on happiness.

In this study, the sample consists of 137 countries observed over the period 2017–2019. A multidimensional approach is used consisting of a principal component analysis and an econometric linear regression model.

The findings indicate that perception, taking care of other people, corruption perception, freedom to make life choices and healthy life expectancy are the most determining factors of social well-being.

Well-being benefits countries by improving living standards. Indeed, taking care of other people, corruption perception, freedom to make life choices and healthy life expectancy directly and positively correlate with social well-being.

This study contributes to the previous literature in three ways. First, this paper provides fresh and recent data on social well-being. Second, the author introduced a multidimensional approach using a principal component analysis of the different social well-being factors to detect correlation between these indicators and to determine homogeneous clusters. Third, through these indicators, a country's leaders can formulate policies to enhance social well-being because it is closely linked to the improvement of the standard of living, good governance and therefore an increase in GDP.