The CURAC 2022 Virtual Assembly -  L’assemblée virtuelle 2022 de ARUCC
Channel: UBC Emeritus College
Date: 2022-05-24

Details, Program Timeline and Additional Q&A below

The CURAC/ARUCC 2022 Virtual Assembly held on Thursday, May 19, 2022

Co-hosted by the University of British Columbia Emeritus College, University of Victoria Retirees Association and Simon Fraser University Retirees Association. 
This large conference is held each year by member associations of CURAC/ARUCC (College and University Retiree Associations of Canada). 
This year’s sessions focus on wellness and well-being, a major area of research strength at the three universities. 

L’assemblée virtuelle 2022 de CURAC/ARUCC le jeudi, 19 Mai, 2022

Présenté par Le Collège émérite de l'Université de la Colombie-Britannique, l'Association des retraités de l'Université de Victoria et l'Association des retraités de l'Université Simon Fraser. 
Une grande conférence sous le patronage de CURAC/ARUCC (Associations de retraités des universités et collèges du Canada) est présentée chaque année par des associations membre. 
L'accent mis sur le bien-être et le mieux-être a été un point fort de la recherche dans les trois universités organisatrices.

Program
00:00 Welcome Remarks
00:06:57 Dr. John Helliwell, Professor Emeritus of Economics, UBC
00:53:30  CURAC/ARUCC Awards Ceremony
01:01:29 Panel discussion on "Wellness and wellbeing as we grow older" with Dr. Angela Brooks-Wilson (SFU), Dr. Gloria Guttman (SFU) and Dr. Anne Martin Matthews (UBC)

Additional Q&A
Session: Keynote “Three lessons about community from the science of well-being” 
Answered by Dr. John Helliwell through the Q&A box after the presentation

Q: Regarding the wallet returns, doesn’t it matter a lot WHERE the lost wallet is found? (e.g., in Vancouver whether it’s in West Point Grey or the downtown east side)
A: Quite likely it does. The Toronto Star used mainly downtown locations where more traffic and less likely for wallet returns than average, wouldn’t you think? Expected return is lower in urban areas, and actually probably also the same. So if anything the actual expectation vs reality gap even larger than shown. 

Q: What about happiness through your family?
A: In ‘the social context of well-being’ we found a dose response relation between time spent with family and friends and life satisfaction. Some element of satiation on the family side. Latin American evidence suggests happiness higher there in multi-generational family units; less evidence from elsewhere. 

Q: Is this stage of over 65 a new evolutionary stage?
A: I think so, as recent changes in healthy life expectancy, at least outside Sub-Saharan Africa, have been adding healthy years for the over-65s. The opportunities are everywhere ready for taking. As you know, mixing the generations, as in the Saskatoon iGen project, are among my favourite examples. 

Q: What does PHQ-4 stand for?
A: PHQ-4 is the average of four items from the Patient Health Quality stable of 12. 

Q: I like to play the devil's advocate.  On a scale of 0-10, you say that a 1-point difference is huge.  How can you say that?  It seems to me that this is tiny.
A: Good question. Huge in relation to the effects on income, being equivalent to a quadrupling of real income. It is about a quarter of the difference in average life evaluations in the ten happiest and ten least happy countries. I don’t like the word huge, and should have instead used specific comparators and let you choose your own descriptor. Thanks for the reminder!

Q: we used to ask about finances…do you have enough for essentials and some left for a few extras like eating out or holidays. What financial well being measures did you use?
A: For the national modelling we use real GDP per capita. For the individual modelling we use real household income. The log form implies diminishing marginal gains from higher incomes. If we add a variable for ‘enough to eat’, this is very important, and drives the income effect lower, consistent with what you are suggesting.

Q: I work internationally. Happiness is not a universally acceptable positive emotion, in my experience. I thought we were leaning toward ‘contentment’. Your thoughts.
A: I made a distinction between happiness the emotion, and overall life evaluations, which I am most others use as an umbrella measure. These do indeed correlate highly with measures of contentment. In the latest WHR we also considered ‘feeling a peace’ and ‘a life in balance’, sometimes seen as eastern ideas but in fact being of importance everywhere, and especially high in those Nordic countries.