Subjective Well-Being Among Young Married Women: Assessing Their Satisfaction with Life in North Dinajpur District of West Bengal, India

Abstract

Subjective wellbeing describes how people experience the quality of their life and has gained importance in recent psychological research. This paper assesses the subjective wellbeing among young women by measuring their overall satisfaction with life. Data come from a primary survey of 500 young married women (18-30 years) in 10 selected villages of North Dinajpur District of West Bengal. Sixty per cent of the women were satisfied with their life conditions as they “have gotten the important things in life, they are satisfied with life, in most ways their life is close to ideal, the conditions of life are excellent and if they could live their life over, they would change almost nothing”. In contrast, around one fourth of them were dissatisfied. Multivariate analysis revealed that respondents belonging to Muslim community, having higher education, any mass media exposure and arranged marriages were more likely to be satisfied than their other counterparts. Women who experienced any form of spousal violence and exhibited mental health problems were less likely to be satisfied with life. Conversely, higher marital satisfaction, high religiosity and higher social support among them had significant positive relationship with their overall life satisfaction.