- Title
- Happy in the informal economy? A case study of well-being among day labourers in South Africa
- Creator
- Blaauw, Phillip, Botha, Ilse, Schenck, Rinie, Schoeman, Christie
- Subject
- Day labouring, Well-being, Happiness, Informal economy
- Date
- 2013
- Type
- Article
- Identifier
- uj:5532
- Identifier
- ISSN 1535-0754
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10210/13943
- Description
- Past research provided evidence of the negative effect that individual unemployment can have on subjective well-being. The persistent high levels of unemployment and poverty in South Africa have been well documented. Many people are forced into the informal economy, where they engage in a variety of survivalist activities such as day labouring. As o previous study has been conducted on the well-being of day labourers, the aim of this paper is to investigate the determinants of the well-being of South African day labourers. Objective and subjective functions are compared to determine the role of income and other variables in the well-being of day labourers. The determinants are categorised according to economic, comparison and attitudinal variables. The objective function uses income and the subjective function uses the binary measure of experiencing a good week in terms of wages as dependent variables. The results showed that attitudinal variables are important determinants for the subjective measure of well-being. The economic variables were important in both functions. The findings of this paper confirm other research findings showing that personal income is important for well-being in a poor community. The difference between these functions indicates that the subjective and objective measures of well-being both capture valuable characteristics of subjective well-being (SWB) in a poor community.
- Publisher
- Clute Institute
- Rights
- © 2013, Authors
- Full Text
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