DOI: 10.36347/sjahss.2014.v02i06.013

Pages: 934-943

This paper examines particular psychosocial and ecological conditions as a function of well-being of the working aged population in Jamaica. Our aim is to determine which predisposed factors can predict well-being based on its definition - whether or not well-being is conceptualized as dysfunctions or income per capita. The paper’s focus was on two models (i.e. Models 4 and 5), with Model 4 being self-reported dysfunctions and Model 5 being individual’s income (proxy consumption per capita). The study used one of the World Bank’s Living Standard Measurement Surveys (LSMS) - the Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions (JSLC). The JSLC was conducted between June and October 2002, it is a subset of the Labour Force Survey (i.e. ten percent). The sampled population was 14,299 working aged people (ages 15 to 64 years), with the mean age of 34.06 years ± 13.48 years. The Model 4 explains 21.6% of the variance in well-being. Union status, house tenure, health care seeking behaviour, social support, gender, crime, negative and positive psychological conditions, age and consumption per capita were found to be predictors of well-being (proxy dysfunctions). The primary finding of Model 5 is - using individual income per capita (i.e. proxy individual consumption per capita) – that the model explains 39.1% of the variance in well-being. Model 5 explains 17.5% than Model 4, which means that it is better to operationalize well-being from an objective perspective than to use self-reported dysfunctions. Some additional findings from Model 5 will be presented hereafter. The most influential factor using Model 5 is household crowding (β= -0.422, P ≤ 0.001). Dysfunctions are commonly used to evaluate health, functional status and/or well-being in Western societies.