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Measuring Well-Being: A Buen Vivir (Living Well) Indicator for Ecuador

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Abstract

Buen Vivir (Living Well in English) is a concept that breaks traditional paradigms. The central idea which underpins this philosophy is the balanced relationship between people and their community and natural surroundings. In other terms, it is based on enjoying human rights responsibly while respecting common goods within the context of a harmonious coexistence. The present study explores this idea to measure well-being in Ecuador, one of the countries where this concept was first introduced. The multidimensional nature of Buen Vivir involves a great deal of complexity when conducting analyses from a holistic perspective, which is the reason empirical studies on this issue are quite scarce. In the present work, an indicator is constructed by weighing different sub-indicators of well-being, such happiness and life satisfaction, trust and satisfaction with government and community, security, physical housing characteristics and environmental concern. For this purpose, individual data on the Ecuadorian population were analyzed in the period 2014–2016. The results reveal an average national indicator of 68 over 100, which could be considered relatively good. The highest levels are found in security, housing characteristics and happiness. This study also explores the heterogeneity among provinces, regions and urban/rural areas, and how Buen Vivir is related to individual characteristics. It shows that, rather than considering the well-being of people to be merely income-dependent, economic policies should take into account other aspects related to Buen Vivir, such as the protection of the environment and people’s traditional livelihoods.

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Fig. 1

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Notes

  1. See the 2008 National Constitution of Ecuador at http://www.asambleanacional.gob.ec/sites/default/files/documents/old/constitucion_de_bolsillo.pdf and 2009 National Constitution of Bolivia at http://ftierra.org/index.php/generales/14-constitucion-politica-del-estado.

  2. See http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/ECU, https://www.indexmundi.com/es/datos/ecuador/%C3%ADndice-de-gini.

  3. The databases are available in http://www.ecuadorencifras.gob.ec/institucional/home/.

  4. The first eigenvalue that concentrates both properties is used, as it generally presents the largest variance concentration. A data driven approach is followed, as it is more objective than considering equal or arbitrary weights (Alkire and Foster 2011; Alkire and Santos 2014; Decancq and Lugo 2013; Machado et al. 2014).

  5. Fixed effects of province and time are significantly different from zero at 99% of confidence. The standard errors are robust to the presence of heteroscedasticity. It was also validated to the bootstrapping standard errors based on 200 replicates.

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Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by Spanish MCINN [Project ECO2017-82347-P] and European Commission [NEFERTITI Project No. 772705; LIFE ALCHEMIA project LIFE16 ENV/ES/000437]. The authors are also grateful for the support received from CEMyRI and EMME Project (AMIF/2017/AG/INTE/821726).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Guayaquil, Guayaquil, Ecuador

    Marina Mero-Figueroa

  2. Mediterranean Research Center of Economics and Sustainable Development, CIMEDES, Agrifood Campus of International Excellence, ceiA3, Department of Economics and Business, University of Almería, Ctra. Sacramento s/n, 04120, Almería, Spain

    Emilio Galdeano-Gómez & Laura Piedra-Muñoz

  3. Regional Economy Research Group (GIER), Faculty of Economic and Administrative Sciences, University of Cuenca, Cuenca, Ecuador

    Moisés Obaco

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  1. Marina Mero-Figueroa
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  2. Emilio Galdeano-Gómez
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Correspondence to Laura Piedra-Muñoz.

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Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 6 and 7.

Table 6 BV sub-indicators by province (average 2014–2016)
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Table 7 Pairwise correlation coefficients of variables
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Mero-Figueroa, M., Galdeano-Gómez, E., Piedra-Muñoz, L. et al. Measuring Well-Being: A Buen Vivir (Living Well) Indicator for Ecuador. Soc Indic Res 152, 265–287 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-020-02434-4

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