Relationship between subjective well-being and material quality of life in face of climate vulnerability in NE Brazil

Abstract

In the past decades, Brazil’s federal government has invested in a national anti-poverty program, which is responsible for impressive results in increasing the Human Development Index and decreasing poverty. Yet, despite these significant achievements in their material quality of life, the Northeast of Brazil continues to suffer the hard impacts from severe drought. In this article, we investigate how material quality of life and subjective well-being relate to one another in poor households affected by drought. In particular, we evaluate how and what factors influence subjective well-being, which is connected to both vulnerability and material quality of life, and how households perceive their level of well-being through time and 15 years of anti-poverty intervention. Our findings reinforce the idea that while an anti-poverty program may be necessary to increase subjective well-being, they are not sufficient to significantly reduce overall vulnerability of poor households, and also, despite all the improvement from the anti-poverty program in their material quality of life, subjective well-being may be affected by other factors such health status and safety.