Content area
Full text
Well-being is an important indicator of how participants in an industry are doing. Since the 1970s, anthropologists have been developing and utilizing "well-being" as an indicator, along with identifying the advantages and disadvantages of such a metric. Building on this experience, a "well-being" index is useful if it (1) is easily developed from available data; (2) enables temporal and spatial comparisons; (3) can be applied at multiple scales; and (4) possesses subjective and objective elements. The subjective element reflects how individuals and members of occupational communities perceive their situation. Using five case studies of North American marine commercial fisheries, an approach to representing subjective and objective measures of well-being is illustrated and evaluated. These studies show that commercial fishing has historically been a highly valued occupation from both subjective and objective perspectives. However, the status of commercial fishing has been in a state of decline over the past several decades with corresponding impacts on well-being. Suggestions for expanding the measurement of well-being and making it applicable to a broader set of activities and to time-series analysis are included.
Key words: well-being, subjective-objective measures, commercial fishing, North American
Perspectives on Well-being
Well-being is a concept common to anthropology, economics, psychology, sociology, and other social sciences. It is frequently tied to financial status, yet well-being is broader than economic or material well-being alone. It includes subjective elements that indicate how a condition is perceived by participants, as distinct from an objective and independently observable assessment of conditions. To construct a well-being indicator, we need to know first what is important to individuals and communities. Many studies identify candidate variables such as income or education level (Clay and Abbott-Jamieson 2006; NOAA 1987). These can be objectively measured over time, but people also have impressions or perceptions that life is good or bad, improving or worsening. How people, households, occupational groups, and communities perceive their well-being is important in determining how satisfied or happy they are (Campbell, Converse, and Rodgers 1976; Eid and Larson 2008; Gullone and Cummins 2002).
Objective or external measures often do not track with self-reported or subjective measures. People may be highly satisfied with a life way that seems poor by objective measures. Sometimes people with below-average incomes rank their well-being as high. This...