Do adolescents adapt their subjective well-being to multidimensional poverty situations? A longitudinal study using data from a middle-income country
Abstract
We explore subjective well-being adaptation to multidimensional poverty relying on a panel database of adolescents in Peru, a middle-income country. Using data from four waves of the Young Lives project database, collected in 2002, 2006, 2009 and 2013, we evaluate to what extent Peruvian adolescents living in multidimensional poverty adapt their life-as-a-whole subjective self-evaluation to situations of multiple joint deprivations. We measure adolescents’ subjective well-being using a Cantril scale, whereas we measure multidimensional poverty using a metric which includes nine indicators of deprivation. Overall, we find that individuals who experience a larger number of deprivations present lower levels of subjective well-being, and that individuals who leave poverty from one period to another present higher levels of subjective well-being than those who remain poor in two consecutive periods. This shows that the adolescents included in the sample we use do not adapt their life-as-a-whole subjective self-evaluations to the situations of multidimensional deprivation they face. This finding is consistent with the results of similar research conducted in other Latin American countries such as Chile and Uruguay. In addition, we use a wealth index that reflects living conditions in three dimensions, and we find that those who fall into poverty from one period to another have lower levels of well-being than those who remain poor in two periods in a row. This could reflect some degree of adaptation in those who experience deprivations that last over time. Our study is the first to explore the adaptation of subjective well-being to multidimensional poverty, understood in a comprehensive way, in a middle-income country using longitudinal data.
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