Measuring Well-Being: A Buen Vivir (Living Well) Indicator for Ecuador
- PDF / 1,674,760 Bytes
- 23 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 62 Downloads / 149 Views
Measuring Well‑Being: A Buen Vivir (Living Well) Indicator for Ecuador Marina Mero‑Figueroa1 · Emilio Galdeano‑Gómez2 · Laura Piedra‑Muñoz2 · Moisés Obaco3 Accepted: 6 July 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Buen Vivir (Living Well in English) is a concept that breaks traditional paradigms. The central idea which underpins this philosophy is the balanced relationship between people and their community and natural surroundings. In other terms, it is based on enjoying human rights responsibly while respecting common goods within the context of a harmonious coexistence. The present study explores this idea to measure well-being in Ecuador, one of the countries where this concept was first introduced. The multidimensional nature of Buen Vivir involves a great deal of complexity when conducting analyses from a holistic perspective, which is the reason empirical studies on this issue are quite scarce. In the present work, an indicator is constructed by weighing different sub-indicators of well-being, such happiness and life satisfaction, trust and satisfaction with government and community, security, physical housing characteristics and environmental concern. For this purpose, individual data on the Ecuadorian population were analyzed in the period 2014–2016. The results reveal an average national indicator of 68 over 100, which could be considered relatively good. The highest levels are found in security, housing characteristics and happiness. This study also explores the heterogeneity among provinces, regions and urban/rural areas, and how Buen Vivir is related to individual characteristics. It shows that, rather than considering the well-being of people to be merely income-dependent, economic policies should take into account other aspects related to Buen Vivir, such as the protection of the environment and people’s traditional livelihoods. Keywords Buen Vivir · Well-being measure · Social indicators · Ecuador JEL Classification I15 · I31 · I32
* Laura Piedra‑Muñoz [email protected] 1
Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Guayaquil, Guayaquil, Ecuador
2
Mediterranean Research Center of Economics and Sustainable Development, CIMEDES, Agrifood Campus of International Excellence, ceiA3, Department of Economics and Business, University of Almería, Ctra. Sacramento s/n, 04120 Almería, Spain
3
Regional Economy Research Group (GIER), Faculty of Economic and Administrative Sciences, University of Cuenca, Cuenca, Ecuador
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
M. Mero‑Figueroa et al.
1 Introduction Market economies that dominate most worldwide production structures are based on models of infinite growth, which lead to overexploitation of natural resources and the generation of economic and social inequalities within and between countries (Aristizábal-Ramírez et al. 2015; Castell-Quintana and Royuela 2014; Van Gelder 2013). In contrast, development can be seen as a process of expanding human capabilities and the real freedoms that people enjoy. (Sen 1999). Accordingly, development indicators have evolved over ti
Data Loading...
