Havana conference om comparative welfare and people`s experience of the welfare system cancelled

The conference “Comparative Welfare: Cuban and Nordic Welfare: People`s experience of the welfare system”, which was to be held in Havana, Cuba, November 27th to December 1st, has been cancelled by the University of Havana. I was invited to speak as a keynote speaker.

#6

Today I have had this Autumn´s 6th writing day, with some 400 words added altogether to three manuscripts. This included drafting an abstract and title for an invited book chapter, "A biosemiotic perspective on the human condition and the environmental crisis", starting on an article on Cuban and Norwegian human development, and revising my article "Wasted GDP in the USA". In August I have written (only) about 1.500 words.

Last day in Havana

Friday: This was the fifth and last work day in Havana, in relation to our NORPART project "Cuban and Nordic Welfare". All days we have worked with our partners from University of Havana´s Department of sociology. It has been a really nice stay both with regard to work and otherwise.

Second work day in Havana

Today, during our visit to Havana, we have discussed the format of e-compendiums, met with the first secretary at Norway´s embassy in Cuba, and visited a communitarian project in Old Havana. We also met the Dean at University of Havana.

In Havana to work on NORPART project

Yesterday I took off from Sola airport, in the Stavanger area, and some 13-14 hours later I landed, after a second flight, in Havana, Cuba. We are 6 people from University of Stavanger in Havana this week in relation to our NORPART project "Cuban and Nordic welfare" where Universidad de la Habana is our partner institution.

NORPART meeting

Today I took part in a meeting with some colleagues, including two administrative staff, concerning our NORPART application which is due by the end of this month.

Another NORPART meeting

Today I attended a meeting with two department colleagues and our visitor from Havana Angela Pena, in relation to our NORPART application. I am imvolved as a member of the project team and in developing, tentatively, a prospective course in "Inyercultural practice".

Reimbursement paperwork

Today I have spent quite some time doing paperwork in order to get reimbursed and compensated for my trips to Mexico City and Havana this January.

In transit

Just got back from Cuba (and Mexico). Well, not quite - Schiphol airport for the time being.

Scheduled for panel participation, summary and SI presentation in Havana

Next week I will go from Mexico to Cuba, where I will take part in the "Welfare research seminar" organized by Universidad de la Habana and University of Stavanger, and hosted by UH (January 24-25th). The seminar will take place in UNESCO Cathedra at Faculty of Philosophy and History.

On January 24th, I have been scheduled to take part in the introductory panel "Welfare and Social work in Cuba - starting points for a comparison", along with Osnaide Izquierdo, Teresa Muñoz, Angela Peña, Dayané Proenza and Roberto Dávalos. In the panel will present my paper "Prosperity and welfare - a comparison of Brazil, Cuba and Norway".

On January 25th, I will take part in Work session III "Welfare research in collaborative perspective", in two rounds - first, summing up common themes from presentations and discussions, and then presenting prospective plans for a special issue of Journal of comparative social work. Both these issues will be addresses by Angela Peña, Siv Oltedal, Sarah Hean and myself.

Havana seminar to be slightly rescheduled

Our welfare research seminar on Cuba later this month, co-organised with University of Havana, will be rescheduled from January 25-26th to January 24-25th.

Cuba planning meeting

Today I have attended a planning meeting ahead of our research seminar at Universidad de la Habana on January 26-27th. We hope our Cuban partners can arrange a few field visits in the couple of days immediately before the seminar.

Abstract: "Prosperity and welfare – a comparison of Brazil, Cuba and Norway"

Below is my abstract for our upcoming research seminar in Havana in collaboration with Universidad de la Habana.

Prosperity and welfare – a comparison of Brazil, Cuba and Norway

Abstract

By Morten Tønnessen, Associate professor of philosophy at University of Stavanger´s Department of social studies

There are several reasons why Brazil, Cuba and Norway are of special interest in an investigation of connections between prosperity and welfare: Brazil is one of the BRIC-countries (Wilson & Purushothaman 2003) and has undergone tumultuous economic, social and political changes the last two decades or so. Cuba is internationally known for its excellent results within the health care system given limited resources. And Norway currently has the highest score concerning human development according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

A possible starting point for comparisons is the Human Development Index (HDI), which is calculated based on data on GNI[1] per capita (PPP[2]), life expectancy at birth, mean years of schooling (for adults) and expected years of schooling (for children). The overall HDI score for Cuba was 0,676 in 1990 and 0,775 in 2015 (ranked as no. 68), versus 0,611 in 1990 and 0,754 in 2015 for Brazil (ranked as no. 79), and 0,849 in 1990 and 0,949 in 2015 for Norway (ranked as no. 1). In comparison, the global average score in 2015 was 0.717. Both Cuba and Brazil have a «High human development», whereas Norway has «Very high human development» according to the UNDP.

However, since HDI includes GNI per capita as one of its factors, the index itself can not be used directly to look into connections between prosperity on one hand and welfare on the other. In 2015, GNI per capita was 67,614 USD in Norway, 14,145 in Brazil and 7,455 in Cuba (2011 PPP$), compared with a global average of 14,447. This can be taken to imply that whereas Norway had an average prosperity level per capita of 4–5 times the global average, Brazil´s average prosperity level was roughly on par with the global average, and Cuba´s average prosperity level was around half of the global average.

For most countries, there is a fairly good correlation between their HDI ranking and their GNI per capita ranking. This indicates that the welfare level often corresponds to a country´s prosperity level. In the HDI data for 2015, however, Cuba stands out with a «GNI per capita rank minus HDI rank» of 48, reflecting that Cuba is ranked as having the 69th highest HDI, with only the 117th highest GNI per capita. In fact, no country has a higher «GNI per capita rank minus HDI rank». This fact makes Cuba a particularly interesting country when comparing prosperity and welfare levels.

Life expectancy at birth can be considered as a key indicator of health conditions, and is 81.7 years in Norway, 79.6 in Cuba and 74.7 in Brazil, compared with a global average of 71.6. The life extectancy in Cuba is in the top two for countries grouped as having «High human development», and is actually higher than that of the United States (79.2) and Qatar (78.3), with their GNI per capita of 53,245 PPP$ and 129,916 PPP$ respectively.

Actual welfare levels depend not only on GNI per capita – a gross average – but also on a country´s level of inequality. Here, Norway stands out as a country with high equality, e.g. with one of the lowest Gini coefficients (for income inequality) in the world, whereas Brazil still has a high Gini coefficient and considerable equality challenges by other measures too (World Bank 2016). Unfortunately, there are no data for Cuba in this data set.

In addition to making use of data from the Human Development Index, I will consider alternative indices such as the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) and Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW).

A few preliminary observations: Even though there is usually a clear correlation between the prosperity level and the welfare level of a country, there are important exceptions representing deviations from this correlation. The circumstances and specific approaches of these countries may have important lessons for welfare policies.

During our research seminar in Havana, I will be very interested in getting response on my preliminary analysis and receiving suggestions concerning relevant explanations, data and literature.

References

Human Development Index. URL: http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-index-hdi

Wilson, Dominic & Roopa Purushothaman 2003. Dreaming With BRICs: The Path to 2050. Global Economics Paper No: 99. Goldman Sachs.

World Bank (2016). World Development Indicators database. Washington, DC. http://data.worldbank.org. Accessed 14 October 2016.

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[1] Gross National Income.

[2] Purchasing Power Parity.

Abstract evaluation for Havana research seminar

Today I met with two colleagues at Department of social studies to evaluate four abstracts submitted for consideration in relation to our Havana research seminar in January 2018.

In committee preparing research seminar in Havanna

I am part of a small committee at University of Stavanger´s Department of social studies that is preparing a research seminar at Universidade de Havanna, Cuba, to take place late January 2018, with welfare research as theme and organized in cooperation with international collaborators.