Personal Well-being Index – Signaling the State of Personal Well-being in Contemporary Kerala

Abstract

At this juncture as Kerala confronts a host of socio-economic, demographic and fiscal issues, an evaluation of the state of personal well-being of the people of the state is warranted. A survey of 112 respondents across the state to elicit their perceptions on various aspects of personal well-being enabled the identification of multiple domains of well-being. The six domains of well-being extracted using factor analysis were personal relationships, community connectedness, economic status, religiosity, personal health and external environment. However, personal health and external environment were later omitted owing to weak Cronbach alpha obtained following the reliability analysis. The personal well-being index score is 0.684 indicating moderate levels of well-being for the surveyed respondents. Breaking up the personal well-being index into component sub-indices reveals that except for the personal relationship domain, all the other domains influencing the personal well-being are moderate for the surveyed respondents. This implies that the personal well-being experienced by the surveyed respondents are inextricably linked to the strength of personal ties and bonds they share with the family, friends and neighbours. Moderate scores obtained for the other domains of well-being suggests the need for affirmative actions such as revitalising productive sectors to create better livelihood opportunities, strengthening civil society through cooperatives, collectives and volunteering opportunities and using the spirit of religiosity and spirituality in the society for the purpose of common good.