Abstract
In Australia, wellbeing has been used as an assessment of how young people are doing by health researchers, youth researchers and psychologists. The concept ‚wellbeing’ is increasingly applied to young people in their late teens and early twenties with little discussion of young people’s perspectives. Using quantitative measures of subjective wellbeing as well as qualitative interviews to allow young people to discuss the concept of wellbeing, this study explored the levels and meanings of wellbeing among 91 young people (aged 16–24) from a rural center in south-east Australia. Key components of wellbeing for young people were found to include relationships, psychological dimensions and personal issues while family and ‚pressure’ impacted wellbeing. For most young people, wellbeing was multidimensional, holistic and centred around their own lives. Findings suggest that the Deiner et al. satisfaction with life scale was an appropriate measure of young people’s wellbeing but that health, sociology of youth and psychological approaches all contribute to young people’s perspectives of wellbeing and need to be incorporated into a more holistic measure of SWB for young people.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Caroline French, Jennifer Lorains and Tanya Garling for their assistance with interviewing, Christine Favotti, Kerrie Hjaro and Strahan Research for transcribing, Dan Woodman for his assistance with NVivo, the schools and youth services for their cooperation in accessing young people, the Australian Research Council for funding and the comments of anonymous reviewers. In addition, we are indebted to the young participants who shared their stories openly and honestly. Without all of these people, this research and manuscript would not have been possible.
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Bourke, L., Geldens, P.M. Subjective Wellbeing and its Meaning for Young People in a Rural Australian Center. Soc Indic Res 82, 165–187 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-006-9031-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-006-9031-0