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The Well-Being Impacts of Officer–Recipient Relations: A Quantitative Perspective
Abstract
Previous chapters focused on the qualitative phase of this mixed-methods study exploring the well-being outcomes of officer–recipient relationships. This chapter, instead, focuses on the quantitative phase that consisted in the application of surveys to 312 recipients of Oportunidades-Prospera. Three scales were used to assess well-being and officer–recipient relationships. First, the global questions of happiness and life satisfaction; second, the multidimensional and psychosocial model of inner well-being (IWB); and third, the quality of officer–recipient relationships (QoR) scale constructed based on the interviews and focus groups with recipients on what constituted a positive and a negative relationship. This chapter explains the construction of the IWB and QoR scales through factor analytic procedures, and then uses the resulting indicators to evaluate the statistical association between well-being and this relationship through variance, correlation, and regression analyzes. The statistical analyzes largely corroborate the qualitative findings and further indicate the need to assess the effects of positive and negative interactions separately. The results show that on average recipients in Cualcan experienced significantly better relationships compared to those in Nexpan. Additionally, recipients with a role in the program (vocal or committee member) experienced worse relationships than the average recipient. Finally, interactions with officers had a significant effect over the subjective and psychosocial well-being of recipients. For recipients overall, positive interactions improved happiness and the domains of values and meanings, social connections, and economic confidence. Yet, especially for vocales and committee members, having positive and negative interactions were more important for their sense of political participation, social recognition, and life satisfaction, but less so for their economic confidence primarily.
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‘The weight falls on my shoulders’ is the way a young married woman, Mangali,2 chose to sum up her relationship with her husband on the first occasion Shreya met her, in rural Chhattisgarh (India) in 2011. The statement was striking, because in a few words it challenged a host of norms and assumptions about gender, marriage, etiquette and wellbeing. In a cultural context that values male dominance and women’s deference, it was a direct claim of female centrality. Against expectations in the empowerment literature that women’s agency is something to celebrate, Mangali posed her responsibility as burdensome and counter to her own desires. Where social norms counsel discretion and acceptance of one’s lot, Mangali voiced a barely veiled criticism of her husband and an open statement of her own discontent with relationships at home, and that to a virtual stranger.
Background:
Results of a recently published paper from members of the Wellbeing and Poverty Pathways Project team indicated that a seven-domain, intercorrelated-factor model of economic confidence, agency/participation, social connections, close relationships, physical/mental health, competence/self-worth, and values/meaning as dimensions of inner wellbeing yielded optimal goodness-of-fit (compared to a single-factor model) among a large sample of individuals in rural India. The goal of the present study was to determine whether this model also provided optimal goodness-of-fit among a similarly large sample of individuals in rural Zambia.
Findings:
A 35-item survey measuring each of the seven domains of inner wellbeing (5 items per domain) was administered to 344 individuals (140 men, 204 women). Results of confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the seven-factor intercorrelated model not only was acceptable in itself but also yielded significantly better goodness-of-fit than did a one-factor model. Furthermore, 34 of the 35 items loaded significantly and positively on their hypothesised factors.
Conclusions:
Overall, results from the present paper - combined with results from the recently published paper by members of the Wellbeing and Poverty Pathways Project team - indicate that the seven-factor intercorrelated model can be generalised across India and Zambia. Implications for studies of wellbeing within (as well as outside) developing nations are discussed.
Well-being advocates state that it provides a more holistic, humanistic focus for public policy. Paradoxically, however, well-being debates tend to be dominated by highly quantitative, de-contextualised statistical methods accessible to only a minority of technical experts. This paper argues the need to reverse this trend. Drawing on original primary mixed method research in Zambia and India it shows the critical contribution of qualitative methods to the development of a quantitative model of subjective perspectives on well-being. Such contributions have a political, ethical and practical urgency if subjective measures of well-being are to be used in policy.
This paper describes the conceptual development of a multi-domain, psychosocial model of ‘Inner Wellbeing’ (IWB) and assesses the construct validity of the scale designed to measure it. IWB expresses what people think and feel they are able to be and do. Drawing together scholarship in wellbeing and international development it is grounded in field research in marginalised, rural communities in the global South. Results from research in India at two points in time (2011 and 2013) are reported. At Time 1 (n = 287), we were unable to confirm an eight-factor, correlated model as distinct yet interrelated domains. However, at Time 2 (n = 335), we were able to confirm a revised, seven-factor correlated model with economic confidence, agency and participation, social connections, close relationships, physical and mental health, competence and self-worth, and values and meaning (five items per domain) as distinct yet interrelated domains. In particular, at Time 2, a seven-factor, correlated model provided a significantly better fit to the data than did a one-factor model.
Several studies have been conducted on the topic of well-being. Most of them, however, have been done in industrialized countries where income is distributed relatively more equitatively and the population tends to be more homogeneous. This paper studies the relationship between subjective and economic well-being in Mexico, a country where the economic differences among the population are more clearly marked.
According to the economic definition of well-being, higher levels of income are associated with higher levels of well-being through greater levels of material consumption. Taking into consideration this definition, it is worth asking just how important income is for an individual's happiness?Existing studies in psychology have found a positive correlation between economic well-being (socioeconomic status) and subjective well-being (happiness). However, this positive relationship is weak and a large percentage of human happiness remains unexplained.
Although the mentioned studies make a good approximation of the existing relationship between income and happiness, the characteristics or specification of the function that generates the relationship between these two variables is often assumed to be linear and positive. The main objective of this paper is to investigate further the relationship between subjective and economic well-being. In this study different specifications and approaches are used to approximate the relationship between these variables.
An empirical analysis is made from the results of a survey conducted in two Mexican cities. The investigation studies the impact of demographic, social, and economic variables on subjective well-being in Mexico. Several hypotheses are tested to identify the relationship between household income and individual well-being. It is found that income does not have a strong influence on neither well-being nor on the probability of happiness. However, people tend to overstress the impact that additional income would have on their subjective well-being. This fact could explain the importance that people place on increasing their income level, and it could possibly explain the relative sense of dissatisfaction once a higher income level is achieved.
The relationship between income and the sense of basic need satisfaction is also explored. A main assumption in economic theory suggests the existence of a direct relationship between these variables; however, empirical results show this relationship to be extremely weak. Results indicate that subjective well-being is positively related to the sense of basic need satisfaction but not to income.
This paper questions the assumption used in designing social policies that raising people’s income automatically translates
into greater well-being. Based on a subjective well-being approach and a representative survey from Costa Rica the paper shows
that there is substantial dissonance in the classification of persons as poor and as being in well-being deprivation. The
existence of dissonances leads to the conceptualization of different trajectories out-of-poverty and into well-being. Public
policies oriented towards the abatement of income poverty can have a greater impact on people’s well-being if they recognize
the complexity of human beings and acknowledge that their programs affect satisfaction in all domains of life. The paper states
that public policy should not only be concerned with getting people out of income poverty, but also with placing them in a
life-satisfying situation. The paper also discusses strategies that could improve poverty-abatement programs.
Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is a complex, multi-step process. The goal of this paper is to collect, in one article, information that will allow researchers and practitioners to understand the various choices available through popular software packages, and to make decisions about "best practices" in exploratory factor analysis. In particular, this paper provides practical information on making decisions regarding (a) extraction, (b) rotation
In spite of high levels of poverty in low and middle income countries (LMIC), and the high burden posed by common mental disorders (CMD), it is only in the last two decades that research has emerged that empirically addresses the relationship between poverty and CMD in these countries. We conducted a systematic review of the epidemiological literature in LMIC, with the aim of examining this relationship. Of 115 studies that were reviewed, most reported positive associations between a range of poverty indicators and CMD. In community-based studies, 73% and 79% of studies reported positive associations between a variety of poverty measures and CMD, 19% and 15% reported null associations and 8% and 6% reported negative associations, using bivariate and multivariate analyses respectively. However, closer examination of specific poverty dimensions revealed a complex picture, in which there was substantial variation between these dimensions. While variables such as education, food insecurity, housing, social class, socio-economic status and financial stress exhibit a relatively consistent and strong association with CMD, others such as income, employment and particularly consumption are more equivocal. There are several measurement and population factors that may explain variation in the strength of the relationship between poverty and CMD. By presenting a systematic review of the literature, this paper attempts to shift the debate from questions about whether poverty is associated with CMD in LMIC, to questions about which particular dimensions of poverty carry the strongest (or weakest) association. The relatively consistent association between CMD and a variety of poverty dimensions in LMIC serves to strengthen the case for the inclusion of mental health on the agenda of development agencies and in international targets such as the millenium development goals.
This investigation studies human well-being from a subjective well-being approach. On the basis of a Mexican database the investigation shows that there is a weak relationship between subjective well-being and indicators of well-being such as income and consumption. Therefore, subjective well-being provides additional useful information to study human well-being and, in consequence, poverty. Three reasons for the existence of a weak relationship are studied: First, the fact that a person is much more than a consumer; second, the role of heterogeneity in human perceptions; and third, the existence of heterogeneity in purposes of life. The understanding and abatement of poverty would be better served by a concept of human well-being which incorporates subjective well-being indicators and which is based on the wholeness and complexity of human beings.
This paper studies the nature of the relationship between life satisfaction and satisfaction in domains of life. The domains-of-life literature assumes that a person’s overall satisfaction with his or her life depends on his or her satisfaction in many concrete areas of life, which are classified into a few main domains of life. This paper addresses the issue of what characteristics the relationship between life satisfaction and satisfaction in domains of life has by focusing on its specification. The domains-of-life literature has commonly assumed that an additive relationship between domains satisfaction and life satisfaction does exist. This paper argues that the use of an additive relationship has substantially restricted our comprehension of the relationship; since it makes impossible to empirically address questions such as: Is life satisfaction just a weighted average of domain satisfactions? How easy is it to substitute satisfaction in one domain by satisfaction in another? Is it reasonable to expect similar additional benefits when we continuously improve satisfaction in one domain? What happens with our life satisfaction when we manage to continuously improve satisfaction in all domains? What happens with the importance of one domain when satisfaction in another domain declines? The paper argues that there could be substantial gains in the understanding of the relationship by assuming alternative specifications. At an empirical level the investigation works with four different specifications: an additive relationship, a semi-logarithm relationship, a logarithm–logarithm relationship, and a constant elasticity of substitution (CES) relationship. Using a database from Mexico, the investigation finds out that an additive specification provides – at least for Mexico – a goodness of fit similar to those of alternative specifications. However, there are some relevant issues in the relationship between domains satisfaction and overall life satisfaction that cannot be studied with an additive specification; hence, the␣use of an alternative specification – in particular a CES specification – is preferable if the objective is to understand rather than to predict life satisfaction.
A variety of rules have been suggested for determining the sample size required to produce a stable solution when performing a factor or component analysis. The most popular rules suggest that sample size be determined as a function of the number of variables. These rules, however, lack both empirical support and a theoretical rationale. We used a Monte Carlo procedure to systematically vary sample size, number of variables, number of components, and component saturation (i.e., the magnitude of the correlation between the observed variables and the components) in order to examine the conditions under which a sample component pattern becomes stable relative to the population pattern. We compared patterns by means of a single summary statistic, g–2, and by means of direct pattern comparisons using the kappa statistic. Results indicated that, contrary to the popular rules, samples size as a function of the number of variables was not an important factor in determining stability. Component saturation and absolute sample size were the most important factors. To a lesser degree, the number of variables per component was also important, with variables per component producing more stable results. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This chapter makes a methodological contribution to wellbeing approaches by exploring how mixing qualitative and quantitative methods in developing measures of factors contributing to wellbeing can increase researchers’ understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of survey data. I argue that mixing methods highlights the subjective nature of ‘objective’ data, for example, the conscious, unconscious and often contingent influences on the way people respond when asked about their income. It also highlights the fragility of ‘subjective’ data such as judgements of satisfaction where there is no external referent against which a response can be evaluated. In the first part of the chapter, I look at cognitive interviewing or debriefing, which is not widely used in survey development outside the Global North. Using an example with young entrepreneurs in South Africa, I suggest that given the dominance of survey approaches within applied economic and health research, there may be a role for cognitive debriefing, not least in highlighting the temporal and cultural specificity of this form of measurement. But while cognitive debriefing can capture the conscious and articulable aspects of how people respond to questions (Tourangeau 1984), there are also processes that operate beneath people’s awareness. I briefly discuss whether theories from psychology and behavioural economics can be applied in very different settings to help researchers understand these processes.
That poverty and mental health are negatively associated in developing countries is well known among epidemiologists. Whether the relationship is causal or associational, however, remains an open question. This paper aims to estimate the causal effect of poverty on mental health by exploiting a natural experiment induced by weather variability across 440 districts in Indonesia (N=577,548). Precipitation anomaly in two climatological seasons is used as an instrument for poverty status, which is measured using per capita household consumption expenditure. Results of an instrumental variable estimation suggest that poverty causes poor mental health: halving one’s consumption expenditure raises the probability of suffering mental illness by 0.06 point; in terms of elasticity, a 1% decrease in consumption brings about 0.62% more symptoms of common mental disorders. This poverty effect is approximately five times stronger than that obtained prior to instrumenting and is robust to alternative distributional assumption, model specification, sample stratification and estimation technique. An individual’s mental health is also negatively correlated with district income inequality, suggesting that income distribution may have a significant influence upon mental health over and above the effect of poverty. The findings imply that mental health can be improved not only by influencing individuals’ health knowledge and behaviour but also by implementing a more equitable economic policy.
This chapter explores the relationship between happiness and its determinants in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey. We run different models in order to confirm or reject previous findings. Special emphasis was placed on a multiplicative function aiming at exploring whether determinantsof happiness are imperfect substitutes.
Development economists have increasingly advocated using assets to complement income and consumption-based measures of welfare and wealth in developing countries, and thus to extend our understanding of the multi-dimensional character of poverty and the complexity of the processes underlying poverty reduction. The objective of this technical paper is to contribute to the debate about the measurement of assets, and the development of asset indices. It describes the particular methodology developed to construct an asset index based on a longitudinal panel data set from Guayaquil, Ecuador. It then outlines its application in terms of the different components of the asset index, before concluding by identifying several continuing methodological problems.
This article examines the adequacy of the “rules of thumb” conventional cutoff criteria and several new alternatives for various fit indexes used to evaluate model fit in practice. Using a 2‐index presentation strategy, which includes using the maximum likelihood (ML)‐based standardized root mean squared residual (SRMR) and supplementing it with either Tucker‐Lewis Index (TLI), Bollen's (1989) Fit Index (BL89), Relative Noncentrality Index (RNI), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Gamma Hat, McDonald's Centrality Index (Mc), or root mean squared error of approximation (RMSEA), various combinations of cutoff values from selected ranges of cutoff criteria for the ML‐based SRMR and a given supplemental fit index were used to calculate rejection rates for various types of true‐population and misspecified models; that is, models with misspecified factor covariance(s) and models with misspecified factor loading(s). The results suggest that, for the ML method, a cutoff value close to .95 for TLI, BL89, CFI, RNI, and Gamma Hat; a cutoff value close to .90 for Mc; a cutoff value close to .08 for SRMR; and a cutoff value close to .06 for RMSEA are needed before we can conclude that there is a relatively good fit between the hypothesized model and the observed data. Furthermore, the 2‐index presentation strategy is required to reject reasonable proportions of various types of true‐population and misspecified models. Finally, using the proposed cutoff criteria, the ML‐based TLI, Mc, and RMSEA tend to overreject true‐population models at small sample size and thus are less preferable when sample size is small.
This paper presents a survey on the Economics of Happiness; special attention is placed on recent research about the relationship between income and happiness. The paper discusses the epistemological and methodological foundations of the Economics of Happiness. It starts by mentioning the two traditional approaches in the study of well-being: the imputation approach and the presumption approach. Next, the paper explains the subjetive well-being approach, which constitutes an alternative to the traditional ones. The subjetive well-being approach is concerned with the well-being people experiences, and it states that the best way to know it is by directly asking people. The paper goes on with a presentation of the main findings from the Economics of Happiness on what respects to the role of income. It is shown that income plays both a needs-satisfaction and a positional-marker function; thus, relative income matters for happiness. In addition, it is explained that income-aspiration gaps and habituation processes do matter for happiness; those personal values which people use in their assessment of a happy life are also relevant for the relationship between income and happiness. Furthermore, it is shown that income may have a nil impact on some domains of life where people act as human beings and where life satisfaction comes from. The paper ends with a brief discussion of other relevant findings from the Economics of Happiness.
The estimation of equivalence scales is crucial in cases where a well-being comparison of persons living under different household arrangements is needed: for example, to identify the poor, to calculate poverty rates and to estimate income inequality. In spite of the importance of equivalence scales for economic policy, there is little theoretical guidance on their estimation, and most empirical studies have been carried out in developed countries. Traditional estimation methods have been criticized because of their limitations for making welfare comparisons. This paper uses a subjective well-being approach to estimate equivalence scales. The approach provides an equivalence scale founded on economic satisfaction, which can be used to make welfare comparisons for persons living under different household arrangements—for example, in households of different sizes and with different age composition of household members. The empirical study has been carried out for Mexico using a large database. The implications of the subjective well-being scale for the assessment of poverty and income inequality in Mexico are shown on the basis of a national survey and by comparison with alternative scales.
In recent years, increased focus on the quality of family planning and other reproductive health services has led to a better understanding of women's reproductive health needs and has drawn attention to program-client interactions as a critical and neglected dimension of program effort. In this article, the relevant methods and experience related to studying client-provider interactions within family planning programs in southern countries are reviewed. The policy relevance of this work is highlighted first by stressing the operational usefulness of examining what happens when people engage with service-delivery systems that offer family planning or reproductive health services. Subsequently, the content areas encompassed by program-client interactions are clarified by identifying manifest and latent dimensions and by distinguishing the variables that define these interactions from variables related to their determinants and consequences. Finally, a critical review of existing methods is presented, with examples of research and a discussion of ethical issues.
The purpose of this study was to assess the results, along with the feasibility, applicability and relative merits of paradigm triangulation in the field of nursing care quality by conducting, concurrently, a quantitative and a qualitative study of patient satisfaction. The sample consisted of 200 randomly selected in-patients from two large Greek metropolitan hospitals. Highest ratings were assigned to the technical aspects of care, whilst information delivery items were associated with the lowest ratings. Qualitative analysis revealed a perception of nurses as weak against organisational limitations as the core theme underlying all categories of patients' complaints with nursing care. Seven more common themes were identified. The interpersonal aspect of care was central to patients' experience. The combination of qualitative and quantitative methodology appeared to contribute to the completeness of description and understanding of the phenomenon.
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