Happy but Unequal: Differences in Subjective Well-Being across Individuals and Space in Colombia

Cross-Sectional Analysis of Colombian University Students' Perceptions of Mental Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Repercussions on Academic Achievement

BACKGROUND

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the increase in academic activities at home negatively impacted mental health, due to significant levels of stress, anxiety, and depression. We investigated the association of depression and anxiety with university students' academic performance during the COVID-19 lockdown in Bucaramanga, Colombia.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A cross-sectional study was conducted through an online survey during the lockdown, through the use of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and the grade-point average.

RESULTS

1090 females, out of 1957 students, with mean age 22.2 ± 5.3 years, participated in the study. The prevalence of low academic performance was higher in men (4.7% p = 0.014). As for mental health, 2.5% of the students were classified as "definite cases" of anxiety and 8.2% were diagnosed with depression. Women with a low academic performance had a greater percentage of being "definite cases" (3.8%) of anxiety as compared to men (1.1%). Regarding depression, in men, 12.2% of those with low academic performance were "definite cases" (6.9% p < 0.05); in females with low academic performance, 10.1% were "definite cases" of depression, according to the Poisson regression analysis. The probability of low performance was 100% higher for women identified as "doubtful cases" of depression (PR = 2.0; 95% CI: 1.10-5.18, p = 0.03).

CONCLUSIONS

A positive association between the severity of anxiety/depression and lower grades, especially in women, was found. Mental health should be a special concern when considering university students, in order to improve their academic performance.

Whose Happiness in Which Cities? A Quantile Approach

The proposition that living in the largest urban agglomerations of an advanced economy reduces the average wellbeing of residents is known as the urban wellbeing paradox. Empirical tests using subjective wellbeing have produced mixed results and there are two reasons for being cautious. Firstly, the default reliance on the conditional mean can disguise uneven effects across the wellbeing distribution. Secondly, relying on respondents to define their settlement size does not ensure a consistent measure of the agglomeration. I therefore apply quantile regression to the life satisfaction and happiness measures of wellbeing as collected by the 2018 European Social Survey (ESS9) and employ a consistent local labour market-based definition of agglomeration—The Functional Urban Area (FUA). I compare three countries as proof of concept: one with a known strong negative (respondent defined) agglomeration effect (Austria), one with a slight negative effect (Czech Republic), and one where living in the main agglomeration is positively associated with average wellbeing (Slovenia). The uneven wellbeing effect of living in the largest agglomeration in each country raises questions about who benefits in which cities.

Individual corporate reputation and perception of collective corporate reputation regarding stock market investments

There are two different concepts of corporate reputation grounded in individual and collective perceptions, respectively. The aim of this study was to identify how these two ways of conceiving of corporate reputation affect investors' decisions about whether or not to buy stock in a given company. As this problem tackles individual decision-making processes, we designed and applied an incentivised economic experiment based on vignette studies and focused on individual decisions of single investors. Subjects took part in an online game that imitates stock exchange conditions and that concerns corporate reputation and investing. We found that the individual propensity to invest is not directly based on an investor's perception (rooted in historical share price and other objective metrics) of a firm's reputation but rather on an investor's subjective recognition of collective corporate reputation in the market. This suggests a need to rethink the popular measures of corporate reputation in the context of studies of stock market investor decisions.