Individual- and Neighbourhood-Level Indicators of Subjective Well-Being in a Small and Poor Eastern Cape Township: The Effect of Health, Social Capital, Marital Status, and Income

Social Indicators Research

Volumn 105, Issue 3, 2012, Pages 581-593

  Cramm, J M ^a   Moller V ^b   Nieboer, A P ^a  

^a Erasmus University Rotterdam   (Netherlands)

^b RHODES UNIVERSITY   (South Africa)

Author keywords

Deprived communities; Multilevel regression analysis; Neighbourhood socioeconomic status; South Africa; Subjective well being

Indexed keywords

HEALTH IMPACT; HOUSEHOLD INCOME; NEIGHBORHOOD; REGRESSION ANALYSIS; SOCIAL CAPITAL; SOCIOECONOMIC INDICATOR; SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS;

EASTERN CAPE; SOUTH AFRICA;

EID: 84855317602     PISSN: 03038300     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s11205-011-9790-0     Document Type: Article

References (69)

1. Ahuvia, A. C., & Friedman, D. (1998). Income, consumption, and subjective well-being: Toward a composite macromarketing model. Journal of Macromarketing, 18, 153-168.
2. Andrews, F. M., & Withey, S. B. (1976). Social indicators of well-being: America's perception of life quality. New York: Plenum.
3. Aspinwall, L. G. (1998). Rethinking the role of positive affect in self-regulation. Motivation and Emotion, 22, 1-32.
4. Aspinwall, L. G. (2001). Dealing with adversity: Self-regulation, coping, adaptation, and health. In A. Tesser & N. Schwarz (Eds.), The Blackwell handbook of social psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 591-614). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
5. Bjørnskov, C. (2003). The happy few: Cross-country evidence on social capital and life satisfaction. Kyklos, 56(1), 3-16.
6. Bjørnskov, C. (2005). The multiple facets of social capital. European Journal of Political Economy, 22, 22-40.
7. Blanchflower, D. G., & Oswald, A. J. (2004). Well-being over time in Britain and the USA. Journal of Public Economics, 88(7-8), 1359-1386.
8. Borooah, V. (2006). What makes people happy? Some evidence from Northern Ireland. Journal of Happiness Studies, 7(4), 427-465.
9. Camfield, L., & Skevington, S. M. (2008). On subjective well-being and quality of life. Journal of Health Psychology, 13, 764-775.
10. Campbell, A., Converse, P. E., & Rodgers, W. L. (1976). The quality of American life. New York: Russell Sage.
11. Chan, Y., & Lee, R. (2006). Network size, social support and happiness in later life: a comparative study of Beijing and Hong Kong. Journal of Happiness Studies, 7(1), 87-112.
12. Clark, A. E., & Oswald, A. J. (1994). Unhappiness and unemployment. Economic Journal, 104, 648-659.
13. Cramm, J. M., Møller, V., Nieboer, A. P. (2010). Improving subjective well-being of the poor in the Eastern Cape. Journal of Health Psychology. doi: 10. 1177/1359105310367833.
14. Deneulin, S., & Townsend, N. (2007). Public goods, global public goods and the common good. International Journal of Social Economic, 34(1/2), 19-36.
15. Diener, E. (2006). Guidelines for national indicators of subjective well-being and ill-being. Journal of Happiness Studies, 7(4), 397-404.
16. Diener, E., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2002). Will money increase subjective well-being? Social Indicators Research, 57(2), 119-169.
17. Diener, E., Horwitz, J., & Emmons, R. A. (1985). Happiness of the very wealthy. Social Indicators Research, 16, 263-274.
18. Diener, E., & Lucas, R. E. (2000). Explaining differences in societal levels of happiness: Relative standards, need fulfillment, culture, and evaluation theory. Journal of Happiness Studies, 1(1), 41-78.
19. Diener, E., Sandvik, E., Seidlitz, L., & Diener, M. (1993). The relationship between income and subjective well-being: Relative or absolute? Social Indicators Research, 28, 195-223.
20. Diener, E., & Scollon, C. N. (2003). Subjective well-being is desirable, but not the summum bonum. Workshop on Well-Being: University of Minnesota.
21. Dolan, P., Peasgood, T., & White, M. (2008). Do we really know what makes us happy? A review of the economic literature on the factors associated with subjective well-being. Journal of Economic Psychology, 29, 94-122.
22. Easterlin, R. A. (1974). Does economic growth improve the human lot? Some empirical evidence. In P. A. David & M. W. Reder (Eds.), Nations and households in economic growth (pp. 89-125). New York: Academic Press.
23. Easterlin, R. A. (2000). Income and happiness: Towards a unified theory. The Economic Journal, 111(473), 465-484.
24. Fahey, T., Whelan, C. T., & Maitre, B. (2005). First European quality of life survey: Income inequalities and deprivation. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.
25. Farid, M., & Lazarus, H. (2008). Subjective well-being in rich and poor countries. Journal of Management Development, 27(10), 1053-1065.
26. Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56, 218-226.
27. Fredrickson, B. L. (2004). The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (Biological Sciences), 359, 1367-1377.
28. Fredrickson, B. L., & Joiner, T. (2002). Positive emotions trigger upward spirals toward emotional well-being. Psychological Science, 13, 172-175.
29. Frey, B., & Stutzer, A. (2002). Happiness and economics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
30. Frey, B. S., & Stutzer, A. (2003). Maximising happiness? German Economic Review, 1(2), 145-167. doi: 10. 1111/1468-0475. 00009.
31. Galobardes, B., Lynch, J., & Davey Smith, G. (2007). Measuring socioeconomic position in health research. British Medical Bulletin, 2007, 1-17.
32. Gerdtham, U. G., & Johannesson, M. (2001). The relationship between happiness, health and socio-economic factors: Results based on Swedish micro data. Journal of Socio-Economics, 30, 553-557.
33. Grootaert, C. (2002). Social capital, household welfare and poverty in Indonesia. Policy Research Working Paper no. 2148. Washington D. C.: The World Bank.
34. Haggerty, M. R., Cummins, R. A., Ferriss, A. L., Land, K., Michalos, A. C., Peterson, M., et al. (2001). Quality of life indexes for national policy: Review and agenda for research. Social Indicators Research, 55(1), 1-96.
35. Hoorn, A. (2007). A short introduction to subjective well-being: Its measurement, correlates and policy use. http://www. oecd. org/dataoecd/16/39/38331839. pdf. Accessed Sept 2009.
36. Idler, E. L., & Benyamanini, Y. (1997). Self-rated health and mortality: A review of twenty-seven community studies. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 38(1), 21-37.
37. Idler, E. L., & Kasl, S. V. (1995). Self-ratings of health: Do they predict change in functional ability? Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, 50(6), 344-353.
38. Isen, A. M. (1990). The influence of positive and negative affect on cognitive organization: Some implications for development. In N. Stein, B. Leventhal, & T. Trabasso (Eds.), Psychological and biological approaches to emotion (pp. 75-94). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
39. Kawachi, I., Berkman, L. F., & Gordon, D. (2003). Area based deprivation measures: A U. K. perspective. In I. Kawachi & L. F. Berkman (Eds.), Neighborhoods and health. New York: Oxford University Press.
40. Kawachi, I., Kennedy, B. P., Lochner, K., & Prothrow-Stich, D. (1997). Social capital, income inequality, and mortality. American Journal of Public Health, 87, 1491-1498.
41. Keck, W., & Krause, P. (2007). How does European Union enlargement affect social cohesion? In R. J. Estes (Ed.), Advancing quality of life in a turbulent world (pp. 3-24). Dordrecht: Springer.
42. Knight, J., & Song, L. (2006). Subjective well-being and its determinants in rural China. mimeo: University of Nottingham.
43. Larson, R. (1978). Thirty years of research on the subjective well-being of older Americans. Journal of Gerontology, 33, 109-125.
44. Lyubomirsky, S., King, L. A., & Diener, E. (2005). The benefits of frequent positive affect: Does happiness lead to success? Psychological Bulletin, 131, 803-855.
45. Marks, N., Abdallah, S., Simms, A., & Thompson, S. (2006). The happy planet index. London: New Economics Foundation.
46. Merlo, J., Yang, M., & Chair, B. (2005). A brief conceptual tutorial on multilevel analysis in social epidemiology: Investigating contextual phenomena in different groups of people. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 29, 443-449.
47. Møller, V. (2007a). Living in Rhini. A 2007 update on the 1999 social indicators report. Institute of Social and Economic Research, Research Report Series No. 14.
48. Møller, V. (2007b). Researching quality of life in a developing country: Lessons from the South Africa case. In I. Gough & J. A. McGregor (Eds.), Wellbeing in developing countries: From theory to research (pp. 242-258). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
49. Møller, V. (2007c). Satisfied and dissatisfied South Africans: Results from the General Household Survey in international comparison. Social Indicator Research, 81(2), 389-415.
50. Møller, V. (2008). Destigmatising TB in the time of HIV/AIDS. Attitudes, beliefs, and recommendations from an Eastern Cape community. Institute of Social and Economic Research, Research Report Series No. 15.
51. Møller, V., & Erstad, I. (2007). Stigma associated with tuberculosis in a time of HIV/AIDS: Narratives from the Eastern Cape, South Africa. South African Review of Sociology, 38, 103-119.
52. Mossey, J. M., & Shapiro, E. (1982). Self-rated health: A predictor of mortality among the elderly. American Journal of Public Health, 72(8), 800-808.
53. Nieboer, A., & Lindenberg, S. (2002). Substitution, buffers and subjective well-being: A hierarchical approach. In E. Gullone & R. A. Cummins (Eds.), The universality of subjective well-being indicators (pp. 175-189). Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
54. Nieboer, A., Lindenberg, S., Boomsma, A., & van Bruggen, A. C. (2005). Dimensions of well-being and their measurement: The SPF-IL scale. Social Indicator Research, 73, 313-353.
55. Noble, M., Barnes, H., Wright, G., & Roberts, B. (2009). Small area indices of multiple deprivation in South Africa. Social Indicator Research., 95(2), 281-297.
56. Oswald, A. (2007). Commentary: Human well-being and causality in social epidemiology. International Journal of Epidemiology, 36(6), 1253-1254.
57. Pavot, W., & Diener, E. (1993). Review of satisfaction with life scale. Psychological Assessment, 5(2), 164-172.
58. Picket, K. E., & Pearl, M. (2001). Multilevel analyses of neighbourhood socioeconomic context and health outcomes: A critical review. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 55, 111-122.
59. Requena, F. (2003). Social capital, satisfaction, and quality of life in the workplace. Social Indicators Research, 61(3), 331-360.
60. Siegrist, J. (2003). Subjective well-being: New conceptual and methodological developments in health-related social sciences. Working paper of the ESF SCSS exploratory workshop on 'income, interactions and subjective well-being'. http://www. delta. ens. fr/swb/SiegristSWB. pdf. Accessed Nov 2009.
61. Townsend, P., Phillimore, P., & Beattie, A. (1988). Health and deprivation: Inequalities and the north. London: Croom Helm Ltd.
62. United Nations (2009). Human development reports 2009. Economy and inequality Gini index. http://hdrstats. undp. org/en/indicators/161. html. Accessed Nov 2009.
63. Veenhoven, R. (1993). Happiness in nations: Subjective appreciation of life in 56 nations 1946-1992. Rotterdam: Erasmus University Press.
64. Veenhoven, R. (2000). Freedom and happiness: A comparative study in forty-four nations in the early 1990 s. In E. Diener & M. Eunnkook (Eds.), Culture and subjective wellbeing (pp. 257-288). Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
65. Wen, M., Browning, C. R., & Cagney, K. A. (2003). Poverty, affluence, and income inequality: Neighborhood economic structure and its implications for health. Social Science and Medicine, 57(5), 843-860.
66. Wilkinson, R. G., & Pickett, K. E. (2006). Income inequality and population health: A review and explanation of the evidence. Social Science and Medicine, 62, 1768-1784.
67. Winkelman, R. (2009). Unemployment, social capital, and subjective well-being. Journal of Happiness Studies, 10, 421-430.
68. Wong, I. O., Cowling, B. J., Lo, S. V., & Leung, G. M. (2009). A multilevel analysis of the effects of neighbourhood income inequality on individual self-rated health in Hong Kong. Social Science and Medicine, 68(1), 124-132.
69. Yip, W., Sybramanian, S. V., Mitchell, A. D., Lee, D. T. S., Wang, J., & Kawachi, I. (2007). Does social capital enhance health and well-being? Evidence from rural China. Social Science and Medicine, 64, 35-49.