ISQOLS Webinar
"Happiness Research in Colombia: Lessons from a Paradoxically Happy Country"
Thursday, 19 September
10:00am COT/ 11:00am EDT/5:00pm CEST
Presenters: Lina Martínez, Adam Okulicz-Kozaryn
Why are Latin Americans so satisfied with their lives despite facing significant challenges? This webinar dives into the phenomenon of high life satisfaction in Colombia—a country often perceived as troubled due to poverty, corruption, and crime. Yet, Colombians consistently report high levels of happiness.
Our research unpacks this apparent contradiction by examining extensive data on subjective well-being across the country. We aim to explore the unique cultural and societal factors that allow Colombians to thrive emotionally despite their hardships. This isn't just a Colombian story—it’s part of a larger Latin American trend that defies Western expectations.
In this webinar we delve into key insights from our ongoing study, including:
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Urban Well-being: The connection between happiness and living near bus stations in Colombian cities.
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Urban-Rural Divide: Compare the contrasting levels of happiness in Colombia’s bustling capital, Bogotá, and its rural areas.
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Life Satisfaction Domains: Delves into the aspects of life that matter most to Colombians.
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Happiness and Parenthood: Examine the relationship of having children on happiness and mental health.
This webinar will shed light on what makes Colombia—and Latin America—a hub of resilience and contentment. If you’re curious about how happiness thrives in unlikely places, this session is for you.
Lina Martínez is an associate professor of public policy and director of the observatory of public policies -POLIS at Universidad Icesi, Colombia. With a bachelor's in philosophy, a master's in education and human development, and a master's and Ph.D. in public policy, Dr. Martínez conducts extensive research on subjective statistics, quality of life, urban policies, and subjective wellbeing. Her research seeks to have a policy impact on improving the quality of life in cities. Dr. Martínez has worked at the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, served as a consultant for the national government in Colombia to design the national health policy and wellbeing, and directed an extensive measurement system to monitor and track life satisfaction and its relationship with government performance.
Adam Okulicz-Kozaryn, born in Poland in 1979, is assistant professor of public policy at Rutgers University-Camden. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Dallas in 2008 and served as a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University's Institute for Quantitative Social Science. His work has covered a variety of topics: income inequality, preferences for redistribution, urban and rural issues, cultural economics, values, religion, and happiness. He is also interested in information technology and computational social science: automation, data mining, data management and text processing. He uses Linux, Python and Stata.
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