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Investigating the relationship between income and subjective well-being in South Africa.

Conventional approaches to the analysis of human well-being use money-metric
measures such as income or consumption. However, they are heavily criticised for
relying on a limited understanding of well-being. In recent decades, subjective
measures of well-being have been increasingly presented as providing a more
inclusive and holistic perspective of well-being. Using data from the National Income
Dynamics Study (NIDS), this dissertation examines the relationship between income,
a common money-metric measure of well-being, and life satisfaction, a key indicator
of subjective well-being. The results show that income and life satisfaction exhibit a
weak but significant positive relationship, one which is stronger at lower levels of
income. In addition to income, the analysis identifies a number of other significant
correlates of subjective well-being. Furthermore, several differences in the correlates
of income and life satisfaction are detected. These results highlight how subjective
well-being measures can include information about people’s lived experiences in
ways that are not fully captured in objective money-metric measures. / M.Dev.Studies University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2013.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ukzn/oai:http://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za:10413/11420
Date30 October 2014
CreatorsFrame, Emily Sarah Nomgcobo.
ContributorsPosel, Dorrit.
Source SetsSouth African National ETD Portal
Languageen_ZA
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis

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