Subjective Well-Being of Majority and Minority People of Bangladesh as A Function of Their Gender, Education, Income and Employment Status

Abstract

The present study was designed to investigate the subjective well-being of majority and minority people of Bangladesh as a function of their gender, education, income and employment status. It involved a 2x2 x3x3x2 factorial design consisting of two levels of group status (Majority and Minority), two levels of sex (Male and Female), three levels of education (Undergraduate, Graduate and Postgraduate), three levels of income (High, Medium and Low) and two levels of employment status (Employed and Unemployed). The following hypotheses were formulated to test in this study: i) the majority people would express better subjective well-being than the minority people. ii) Men would express better subjective well-being than women. iii) Highly educated people would express better subjective well-being than less educated people. iv) Subjects from high income group would express better subjective well-being than subjects from low income group. v) Employed people would express better subjective well-being than unemployed people. A Bangla adaptation of short version of Subjective Well-being (SWB) Questionnaire of Nagpal and Sell (1985) was administered to measure subjective well-being of 360 majority and 360 minority respondents selected from six administrative areas of Bangladesh. Then the subjects were classified on the basis of their gender, education, income and employment status. The data of the study were analyzed employing analysis of variance and t-test. The results of the study confine the hypotheses. The subjective well-being of majority people was found to be significantly higher than that of minority people regardless of gender, education, income and employment status. The findings also suggest that the subjective well­being of male respondents was significantly higher than that of female respondents. In the results, subjective well-being was found to vary as a function of income, education and employment status of the respondents. The subjective well-being of high income group was found to be significantly better than that of medium and low income group. The subjective well-being of postgraduate respondents was significantly higher than that of graduate and undergraduate respondents. The results also suggest that the subjective well-being of employed respondents was significantly higher than that of unemployed respondents. The interaction effects among group status, gender, education, income and employment status was also found to be statistically significant which suggest that the intensity of subjective well-being varies with the variation of any one of these factors. Thus, the results of the study suggest that group status, gender, education, income and employment status are the significant independent variables of subjective well-being.