Subjective well being and basic needs: evidence from rural Guatemala

Abstract

This paper deals with the basic needs fulfilment interpreted in a subjective way. We first consider the theoretical implications that basic needs have, from the perception of the individuals, within the literature of subjective well being. Secondly, we estimate the influence of some characteristics into the reported basic needs from a sample in rural Guatemala. An ordinal regression indicates that some indicators such as education and certain livelihoods are related to perceived basic needs fulfilment in a positive way. However, others like income and relative income have no influence on it. We compare income poverty with a measure of perceived basic needs poverty, finding that both measures do not mathc perfectly. From this evidence, we conclude that in order to better understand the composition of basic needs in developing economies from a subjective perspective it is necessary to take into consideration the endemic factors of the region were people dwell as well as to complete the income based approaches with other variables.