Characteristics of Households - Childinfo.org

XIV SUBJECTIVEWELL-BEINGIt is well-known that individuals’ subjective perceptionsof their incomes, health, living environments and the like,play a significant role in their lives and can impact on theirperception of well-being, irrespective of objective conditionssuch as actual income and physical health status.In the 2010 Serbia MICS a set of questions were askedof women and men between 15–24 years of age, tounderstand how satisfied these young people are indifferent areas of their lives, such as their school, job,income, friendships and living environment. Lifesatisfaction is a measure of an individual’s perceivedlevel of well-being. Understanding young women andyoung men’s satisfaction in different areas of their livescan help to gain a comprehensive picture of youngpeople’s life situations.A distinction can be made between life satisfaction andhappiness. In addition to the set of questions on lifesatisfaction, the respondents in the 2010 Serbia MICSwere also asked a few simple questions about happinessand their perceptions of a better life. Happiness is afleeting emotion that can be affected by numerous factors,including day-to-day factors like the weather, or a recentdeath in the family. It is possible for a person to be satisfiedwith his/her job, income, family life, friends, and otheraspects of his/her life, but still be unhappy.To assist respondents in answering the set of questions onhappiness and life satisfaction they were shown a card withsmiling faces (and not so smiling faces) that correspondedto the response categories (see the Questionnaires inAppendix F).The indicators related to subjective well-being are asfollows:• Life satisfaction — the proportion of women and menaged between 15–24 years who are very or somewhatsatisfied with their family life, friendships, school,current job, health, where they live, how they aretreated by others, and how they look• Happiness — the proportion of women and men agedbetween 15–24 years who are very or somewhat happy• Perception of a better life — the proportion of womenand men aged between 15–24 years whose lifeimproved during the last year, and who expect thattheir lives will be better after one yearRespectively, Tables SW.1 and SW.1M show the proportionof young women and men who are very or somewhatsatisfied in selected domains. Of the different domains,young women are most satisfied with their health (98percent), their friendships (96 percent) and their familylife (95 percent). The results for young men are similar;they are most satisfied with their health (99 percent), theirfamily life (97 percent) and their friendships (96 percent).Among the domains, both young women and young menare least satisfied with their current income, with 71percent of young men and 78 percent of young womennot having any income at all.MONITORING THE SITUATION OF CHILDREN AND WOMEN 243