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The Influence of Water Access in Subjective Well-Being: Some Evidence in Yucatan, Mexico

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Abstract

The literature on happiness or subjective well-being has explored the determinants of happiness without taking into consideration the role that water plays. In this paper we attempt to draw attention to water in subjective well-being studies. Approximately one hundred million people do not have access to water. A lack of clean water causes diseases such as diarrhea and cholera, responsible for around 5% of the total deaths in the world. Access to water should therefore be a necessary asset in life. In order to consider access to water, we estimate its influence on subjective well-being using data from rural Yucatan, Mexico. Residents in Yucatan suffer from low quality access to water and there are also imperfections in the management of the service, such as water cuts. We estimate the influence of water on subjective well-being, finding a positive and significant relationship. In a second stage of the research, we relate water access variables to subjective well-being, the health and the water domain of life, finding significant results. These results make it possible to formulate political measures concerning access to water and happiness maximization. We demonstrate that access to water is important for well-being in Yucatan and might be important in many other places; we therefore encourage future research to contemplate water satisfaction and water variables in their analysis.

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Notes

  1. In this research we use interchangeably the terms happiness, subjective well-being and life satisfaction.

  2. ‘Cenote’ is a term used in the Yucatan Peninsula, which comes from the Mayan word ‘dzonot’, which means "abyss". For the ancient Mayans, before the arrival of conquerers, ‘cenotes’ were the main sources of water, as well as important spaces for ceremonial activities.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the comments made by the participants in the 1st Workshop on the Economics of Water that have benefited this research. More specifically, we would like to thank Asit K. Biswas and Cecilia Tortajada for their useful observations. We also acknowledge the financial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (project ECO2009-08824/ECON and SEJ2007-62081/ECON) and Junta de Andalucía (P07-SEJ-02547).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Economics, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universidad de Granada and Red de Malnutrición en Iberoamérica, Campus de Cartuja, 18011, Granada, Spain

    Jorge Guardiola

  2. Department of Applied Economics, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universidad de Granada, Campus de Cartuja, 18011, Granada, Spain

    Francisco González-Gómez

  3. Centro de Investigaciones Regionales “Dr. Hideyo Noguchi”, Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán and Red de Malnutrición en Iberoamérica, Av. Itzáes No 490 por, 59, 97000, Yucatán, Mexico

    Ángel Lendechy Grajales

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  1. Jorge Guardiola
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  2. Francisco González-Gómez
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  3. Ángel Lendechy Grajales
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Correspondence to Jorge Guardiola.

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Guardiola, J., González-Gómez, F. & Lendechy Grajales, Á. The Influence of Water Access in Subjective Well-Being: Some Evidence in Yucatan, Mexico. Soc Indic Res 110, 207–218 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-011-9925-3

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