Wellbeing Research in Developing Countries: Reviewing the Role of Qualitative Methods

The authors review the contribution of qualitative methods to exploring concepts and experiences of wellbeing among children and adults living in developing countries. They provide examples illustrating the potential of these methods for gaining a holistic and contextual understanding of people’s perceptions and experiences. Some of these come from Young Lives, an innovative long-term international research project investigating the changing nature of child poverty in India, Ethiopia, Peru and Vietnam (), and others from the Wellbeing in Developing Countries ESRC research group (WeD), an international, inter-disciplinary project exploring the social and cultural construction of wellbeing in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Peru and Thailand (). The authors show how qualitative methods can be used both alongside and as part of the development of sensitive and relevant quantitative measures, and provide some practical and methodological recommendations. They propose that qualitative approaches are essential in understanding people’s experiences of wellbeing, both now and in the future. However, the authors caution that while these offer many benefits, for example, a less structured and hierarchical engagement between researcher and participant; they require time, energy, and sensitivity. Qualitative methods also work best when used by trained and experienced researchers working in the local language/s in a community where some rapport has already been established. Finally, the paper recommends combining data from qualitative and quantitative approaches (e.g. psychological measures or household surveys) to enhance its explanatory power.

Impact of Arts-Related Activities on the Perceived Quality of Life

The aim of this investigation was to measure the impact of arts-related activities on the perceived or experienced quality of life. In the fall of 2006 a questionnaire was mailed out to a random selection of 2000 households in each of five British Columbia communities, and 1027 were returned completed. The total and individual community samples should be regarded as merely representative of some British Columbian residents who had some interest in the arts. Sixty-six kinds of arts-related activities were identified in the questionnaire, and five indexes were created to help explain people’s motives for engaging in such activities. Seven different scales were used to measure respondents’ overall assessment of their lives, (1) self-reported general health (5-point scale), (2) satisfaction with life as a whole (7-point scale), (3) satisfaction with the overall quality of life (7-points), (4) happiness with life as a whole (7-points), (5) satisfaction with life as a whole (5-item index), (6) contentment with life (5-item index), (7) subjective wellbeing (4-item index). In the context of all our predictors, based on the relative impact of all the arts-related activities and the satisfaction obtained from those activities on our seven overall life assessment variables, it is fair to say that such activities and their corresponding satisfaction contributed relatively little. While this may seem incredible (especially to arts enthusiasts), it is important to keep in mind the initial condition “in the context of all our predictors” and the qualifier “relatively”. Our inability to discover greater marginal or total impacts of arts-related activities on the perceived quality of life may be the result of our use of the wrong search instruments for the great variety of values involved. It is an open question whether we used the best tools and found as much as there was to find or whether better tools would have found more.     

Measuring and understanding the well-being of South Africans: Everyday quality of life in South Africa

South Africa has a Gini co-efficient of 62, one of the world’s highest (Finmark: Project FinScope 2004 and 2005, FinMark Trust, Johannesburg). Hence, measures of wealth are ubiquitous social indicators in South Africa. However, a growing emphasis in government towards measurable service delivery targets and remedial action to redress the inequalities of our past makes the reliable measurement of people’s quality of life in greater depth in quantitative terms an imperative.We have developed a simple framework to measure people’s quality of life in key domains that extend beyond that simply of wealth, using composite indices to allow progress to be tracked and to make valid comparisons across our diverse population. Termed the Everyday Quality of Life Index (EQLi), it comprises a suite of measures encompassing socio-economic status (with special reference to poverty), urbanisation, health (nutrition, exercise and fitness), stress/pressure, quality of the environment, satisfaction of human needs, connectivity, optimism, subjective well-being (happiness, after Diener and Lucas: 2000, in M. Lewis, J.M. Haviland (eds.), Handbook of Emotions. (2nd ed) (Guilford, New York)), and the overall measure of well-being, the EQLi itself.The initial framework was developed from a structured questionnaire administered to a probability sample of 2000 South African adults in 2002. From this, a 52-item shortlist was derived to create the series of measures. This has been tested and refined in three subsequent annual studies, each of 3500 people across urban and rural South Africa. In 2004, items involving work as well as determining the balance of skills and challenges at work using the concept of “flow” (Csikszentmihalyi: 1990, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Harper and Row, New York)) were added.This paper outlines the rationale behind the selection and development of these measures, describes the EQL of South Africans using these and other key measures and concludes with implications for policy-makers and service providers in South Africa. Some marketing implications are also given: there is a growing emphasis worldwide on corporate social investment initiatives and, particularly in South Africa, on community upliftment and development – poverty alleviation and improving the lives of the disadvantaged (“people” rather than “consumers”). Further, people’s well-being affects how they react to marketing activities.     

Young People’s Perception Of Being Safe – Globally &; Locally

Giddens explores, in Modernity and Self-Identity, our preoccupation with risks in modern social life and the disparity between perceived risks and actual prevalence of life-threatening dangers [Giddens, A.: 1991, Modern and Self-Identity. Self and Society in Late Modern Age (Polity Press, Cambridge), p. 115]. Modern technologies have made global information accessible around the world; real time news communiqués about unfolding situations are displayed directly into the home environment through television and the internet. Global issues and local events intermix, blurring worldwide issues and threats with local realities. This research explored the everyday life of young people in two Australian rural communities, their community affiliation, sense of belonging and feeling safe in the local rural community. The research was exploratory in nature and based on a survey of 751 young people aged between 14 and 21 years, all being students at local secondary high schools. Feeling safe was of concern for both female and male young people: females indicated a higher tolerance towards strangers and cultural diversity, but at the same time, they felt less safe in the local community. These findings are discussed in relation to a 1989–1990 study of 13- to 21-year-old urban Australian and Swedish young people. The study explored young people’s experiences of scary events in mass media, in their home environment and among themselves. The findings signify the need for a holistic approach to identify social indicators to describe the grounds for young people feeling unsafe and the need to take into consideration local community circumstances, the global milieu and conflicts as portrayed in news, documentary and entertainment mass media.     

Self-Reported Fears as Indicators of Young Children’s Well-Being in Societal Change: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

Our main interest in this paper is in studying children’s well-being by using children themselves as informants and fear as an indicator of insecurity from cross-cultural and longitudinal perspectives. More specifically our paper documents the changes in the content and prevalence of children’s fears in two neighboring countries, Finland and Estonia, during the last decade. The study was carried out in 1993 and replicated in 2002/2003 in both countries with the random samples of total number of 420 five to six-year-old children (in Estonia 115 in 1993 and 91 in 2002; in Finland 105 and 109, respectively). For both countries the decade in question was a period of social, political and economic transition including post-socialist transformation in Estonia. Especially informationalization and globalization had a profound impact on the everyday life of parents and children. The increase of insecurity among children in both countries was expected. Children’s fears were investigated by means of an individual semi-structured and picture-aided interview. The most important findings are: the prevalence of children’s self-reported fears has generally increased during the ten years, especially among the Estonian children. The most significant increase was observed in both countries in fears of imagination-related things including television-related fears, fears of imagined creatures and of nightmares parallel to children’s increased media-exposure in daily life. Despite the increase of␣general welfare in both countries our results suggest the opposite tendency among young children; decrease of safety and increase of insecurity. The level of children’s insecurity was higher in Estonian than in Finland at both times. It is noteworthy that some fears of young children are ‚universal’ (fear of getting lost, fear of darkness, fear of being alone), while some fears are more context dependent (television-induced fears, fear of strange people). Young children proved to be competent informants of their condition and well able to provide essential and invaluable information about their problems and well-being. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Changes in the quality of life of Durban’s people

Durban, the busiest port and second largest industrial hub in South Africa, has a developmental vision that sees its residents living in ‚acceptably serviced housing’ and enjoying a ‚generally high quality of life that can be sustained’. This vision is in response to South Africa’s transitional aspirations to move from an inequitable apartheid state to a democratic society with greater socio-economic parity. Since 1998 the eThekwini Municipality, which is the local authority responsible for the city of Durban, has conducted annual surveys to monitor the changes in the quality of life of Durban’s people. Structured questionnaire interviews were administered in 14 300 dwellings between 1998 and 2005. The samples drawn each year were representative of the city’s demographics and covered a wide range of housing types. Results indicate that parity of life satisfaction between race groups is as far apart in 2005 as it was in 1998. The paper undertakes trend analysis, from a local government perspective, of key objective and subjective variables in the surveys. It identifies the domains that have the greatest impact on satisfaction with life, and reports the salient issues for black householders, who have the lowest level of life satisfaction.The Research Locale:  Durban, which is a port city on the east coast of South Africa, has a population of over 3 million people. The population is comprised of the following groups: Asian (20%), black (68%), coloured (3%) and white (9%). It is Africa’s busiest port and is South Africa’s second largest industrial hub. It provides key trade linkages to Johannesburg, which is South Africa’s largest industrial hub. The major economic sectors are manufacturing, tourism, finance and transport. The complex topography is intersected by 19 rivers that flow to 98 kms of coastline.     

Consumption and Subjective Wellbeing: Exploring Basic Needs,Social Comparison,Social Integration and Hedonism in Peru

Within material poverty contexts, consumption and subjective wellbeing are positively and strongly related. This is usually explained in terms of the increased possibilities to satisfy basic needs that additional spending provides. Other important aspects of consumption, such as its relative, symbolic and hedonic dimensions are not generally considered. The current study explores these aspects in seven poor Peruvian communities through expenditure and motives using regression analysis. Motives for consumption are included in the model drawing on psychologists’ research into the importance of accounting for motives when assessing the impact of material goals on subjective wellbeing. Results reveal that in the Peruvian corridor, consumption has a meaning beyond mere basic needs satisfaction. Status concerns, the reference group, the pleasure of consuming, providing for the household basics and the expectation of escaping social marginalisation are aspects of consumption significantly predicting people’s happiness.

When Twenty-Four Hours is not Enough: Time Poverty of Working Parents

Individuals can be money poor, time poor or both. While income is the most used indicator of poverty, broader indexes including non-monetary aspects of deprivation have been proposed and measured. As one such measure, our study focuses on the element of deprivation arising from the time deficit of many working people. The usual poverty threshold is calculated as the amount of income to buy the minimum required goods and services from the market. This minimum required purchase is greater for these people since they have less time than the average person to produce some goods and services for themselves at home. So, they need money to buy these in the market in order to maintain the same consumption. The income standard must be supplemented to adequately measure actual poverty. Time use data make it possible to establish time requirements and time availability and provide a measure of time poverty. Using Canadian GSS 1998 data, and building on the work of Vickery (1977, ‚The time poor: A new look at poverty’, The Journal of Human Resources 12(1), pp. 27-48) and of Douthitt (1993, ‚The inclusion of time availability in Canadian poverty measures’, Time-Use Methodology: Toward Consensus (ISTAT, Roma), pp. 83–91), and our own previous study, we estimate time-adjusted poverty thresholds and rates for single and dual parent Canadian families. As expected, we have found high incidence of time deficit among the employed single parents with children. We make a case for the acceptance of a redefined poverty standard for such time-deprived groups.     

Concepts of Chinese folk happiness

Discourses on Chinese folk happiness are often based on anecdotal narratives or qualitative analysis. Two traditional concepts of happiness popular in Chinese culture are introduced. The paper constructs a concept of Chinese folk happiness on basis of the findings of a scientific survey on the Taiwanese people regarding their concepts of well-being at nation and personal levels. The survey has revealed that people’s concepts of well-being are consisted of a diversity of elements including political, economic, social, and cultural factors, as well as health, family, job, and social relationships. The paper compares these concepts with the traditional notions of Chinese folk happiness.     

Measuring Financial Capability and its Determinants Using Survey Data

Financial capability, or people’s ability to manage and take control of their finances, is receiving increasing interest among policy makers as more people find themselves in difficult financial situations during the current economic downturn. We tackle the problem of how to measure financial capability—with a specific focus on making ends meet and money management—using data from a general household survey (the British Household Panel Survey), and then identify its key determinants using panel data models. This is important if appropriate policies and programmes are to be targeted at those most in need. We find the lowest financial capability among young unemployed single adults living in households with other unrelated non-working adults. In contrast, older men and women in full-time work with an employed spouse have the most financial capability.     

Ryff’s Six-factor Model of Psychological Well-being, A Spanish Exploration

This article aims to provide researchers interested in using Ryff’s Scales of Psychological Wellbeing with additional information to make an informed decision on the scales and items to use. It builds on the discussion in the literature on the six factor structure of this measure. An alternative shortened version of this wellbeing measure (Van Dierendonck 2004). Personality and Individual Differences, 36, 629–643) was analyzed in a combined Spanish language sample from Spain and Columbia. Using confirmatory factor analysis, one-, two-, three- and six-factor models were compared. The results showed that indeed four out the six dimensions overlapped considerably. Nevertheless, the model that fit the data best was the six factor model with one underlying second order well-being factor, hereby confirming Ryff’s model in a non-Anglo–Saxon culture.     

The Association Between Adolescent Life Satisfaction, Family Structure, Family Affluence and Gender Differences in Parent–Child Communication

The study sought to examine young people’s life satisfaction in the context of the family environment, using data from the 2006 HBSC: WHO-collaborative Study in Scotland (N = 5,126). Multilevel linear regression analyses were carried out for 11-, 13- and 15-year old boys and girls, with outcome measure ridit-transformed life satisfaction. The study found there to be a relationship between family structure and life satisfaction for boys and girls aged 13 and 15 years. Family affluence mediated this relationship, however the extent of this mediation depended both on age and gender. For both boys and girls at all ages, life satisfaction was more strongly associated with parent–child communication than with family structure or family affluence. After adjustment for risk/health behaviours and attitudes towards peers and school, family structure remained significant for boys aged 13 years only. Whereas difficult parent–child communication acted as a risk factor of low life satisfaction for boys and girls, easy communication acted as protective factor among girls only.     

Trends in life expectancy in wellbeing

Objectives: This paper describes anddiscusses trends in life expectancy inwellbeing between 1989 and 1998.Methods: Data on wellbeing by theBradburn Affect Balance Scale is obtained fromthe Netherlands Continuous Health InterviewSurveys for the calendar years from 1989 to1998. Using Sullivan's method, life expectancyin wellbeing is calculated.Results: For males at the age of 16, lifeexpectancy in wellbeing increases significantlyfrom 52.7 years in 1989 (90.1% of the totallife expectancy) to 54.4 years in 1998(90.8%). This increase is almost completelycaused by the increase in total lifeexpectancy. For females at the age of 16, lifeexpectancy in wellbeing raises significant from54.4 years in 1989 (84.1%) to 56.2 years in1998 (86.3%). This increase is almostcompletely caused by a decrease in the numberof years in a state of distress.For both males and females at the age of 65,the significant increase of life expectancy inwellbeing exceeds the increase in total lifeexpectancy and is mainly caused by the decreasein number of years in distress.Conclusion: Contrary to life expectancyin good perceived health and to disability freelife expectancy – which show a decreasing trend– the overall wellbeing of the population isincreasing. It seems that aspects in human lifethat contribute to wellbeing or quality of lifeother than physical health are gaining inimportance. This makes life expectancy inwellbeing a less appropriate instrument tomonitor changes in population health, but auseful instrument to measure population qualityof life.     

Rethinking of Economic Growth and Life Satisfaction in Post-Wwii Japan – A Fresh Approach

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been utilized by academics and policy makers to indicate the economic well-being of the people. However, economic growth measures cannot capture fully the overall well-being of the people. This paper has tested quality of economic growth in Japan after World War II as to whether it has brought about positive outcome in the well-being of its citizens. Comparison between GDP and GPI (Genuine Progress Index) has revealed that GDP does not fit as well with people’s life satisfaction trend as GPI. Prefecture-based rankings on GDP, Human Development Index (HDI) and Life Satisfaction have shown that there are clear gaps between objective measures and subjective measures to indicate the overall well-being of the people. Also, analysis on major determinants for people’s life satisfaction reveals that older people, women, non-employed people, and those who live in subsidized housings felt satisfied with their life.     

How Can Children Tell Us About Their Wellbeing? Exploring the Potential of Participatory Research Approaches within <Emphasis Type="Italic">Young Lives</Emphasis>

‘Wellbeing’ is a key concept in the study of children’s lives over time, given its potential to link the objective, subjective, and inter-subjective dimensions of their experiences in ways that are holistic, contextualized and longitudinal. For this reason wellbeing is one of the core concepts used by Young Lives, a 15-year project (2000–2015) that follows the lives of 12,000 children growing up in the context of poverty in Ethiopia, Peru, Vietnam and Andhra Pradesh (India) (see ). This paper examines a selection of methods being used by Young Lives to capture aspects of child wellbeing in the context of a range of children’s life experiences related to poverty, specific risks and protective processes. It draws on a review of the literature on child-focused methods and on recent experiences piloting three core qualitative methods in the four study countries. The paper reports the development of a methodology that is child-centred, but also acknowledges that every child is embedded within a network of social and economic relationships.

Bioecological Theory, Early Child Development and the Validation of the Population-Level Early Development Instrument

The Early Development Instrument (EDI; Janus and Offord in Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science 39:1–22, 2007) project is a Canadian population-level, longitudinal research project, in which teacher ratings of Kindergarten children’s early development and wellbeing are linked to health and academic achievement variables at the individual level, and to demographic, cultural, and socioeconomic variables at the community level. In this article, we draw from Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory of human development to create a coherent theoretical framework for guiding validation research within a population-level approach to child development research in general and for the EDI project in particular. The discussion draws from a range of social and health sciences as well as validity theory. The paper seeks to align complex conceptual, theoretical, methodological, and psychometric considerations, to provide specific design, methodology, and validation recommendations for a population-level approach to studying children’s development and wellbeing, and to discuss the strengths and challenges of this approach.     

Poverty and Wellbeing at the ‘Grassroots’—How Much is Visible to Researchers?

This paper discusses the grassroots level understanding of poverty and wellbeing. There is rich debate and ever expanding literature on the meaning of wellbeing and poverty and their relationship in developing countries. In recent times wellbeing and poverty have been scrutinised within the discourse on multidimensionality of poverty. Most research outputs though are grounded in quantitative data. Investigations that focus on the perceptions and understandings of poor people about their situations remain sparse in the literature. The current study is an attempt to address this gap. The paper explores the common grounds and the points of departure between the researchers’ views of poverty and wellbeing and the perception at the grassroots. The paper presents findings of primary research conducted by the author in Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh and Madhubani district of Bihar in India. Semi-structured survey instruments were deployed to interview a selection of poor, marginal and non-poor households. In addition to identifying the commonalities in grassroots and researchers’ understandings of poverty, the paper draws attention to factors that may be outside the radar of the researchers. It is envisaged that mapping a more holistic understanding of poverty and wellbeing will have important long-term policy implications for poverty reduction.

An Index of Child Well-being in the European Union

While the living conditions of children and young people in the European Union have gained increasing recognition across the EU, the well-being of children is not monitored on the European level. Based on a rights-based, multi-dimensional understanding of child well-being we analyse data already available for the EU 25, using series data as well as comparative surveys of children and young people. We compare the performance of EU Member States on eight clusters with 23 domains and 51 indicators and give a picture of children’s overall well-being in the European Union. The clusters are children’s material situation, housing, health, subjective well-being, education, children’s relationships, civic participation and risk and safety.     

Does Place of Residence Matter? Rural–Urban Differences and the Wellbeing of Gay Men and Lesbians

Does place of residence matter for gay men and lesbians? Both conventional wisdom and scholarly literature suggests that it does, and that those living in rural areas are disadvantaged relative to their urban peers. This study explores this issue by comparing gay people's wellbeing in rural and urban areas. Results from a large probability sample show that rural gay people fare no worse than their urban peers. If anything, results suggest living in the largest cities may be detrimental to gay people's wellbeing, although more so for lesbians than for gay men. Results are discussed in light of 4 competing perspectives on rural–urban differences.     

Tolerance is Not Enough: The Moderating Role of Optimism on Perceptions of Regional Economic Performance

Current theories on economic growth are stressing the important role of creativity and innovation as a main driver of regional development. Some perspectives, like Richard Florida’s ‘creative class theory’, have elected tolerance and diversity as a core concept in explaining differential development between different places, but his assumptions are challenged by other empirical and theoretical studies. In this article, we raise the possibility that tolerance is a necessary yet not a sufficient ingredient to trigger economic development in regions, and explore the role of subjective well-being (life-satisfaction, happiness, and optimism) as a moderator. Using a nationwide survey of 3,757 respondents from 21 different municipalities, the results show that optimism played the role of moderator, thus evidencing that psychological variables should be taken into account when trying to understand regional economic development.