Subjective Socioeconomic Status in Small-Scale Aquaculture: Evidence from Central-Southern Chile

Abstract

Socioeconomic status (SES) is a multidimensional concept that involves objective markers, such as income, education, and occupation, along with subjective data, which indicate how people perceive their socioeconomic position. Gaps and the lack of linear relationships in objective SES data have supported the need to include subjective markers. This study evaluates the effect of certain critical predictors on the subjective SES of small-scale aquaculture producers in Central-Southern Chile, addressing a gap in research. We explore the impact of income, education, occupational settings, social capital, and subjective health status on self-reports of current and future subjective socioeconomic status. We use primary data collected through a government-funded project. The fieldwork included a face-to-face survey implemented between February and March 2017 with 225 participants, all located in the Bio-Bio or Lagos regions of Chile. Bi-probit regression models were applied to test how the current and future subjective SES is affected by the following variables: engaging small-scale aquaculture production, having a secondary occupation, harvesting two or more different resources, maintaining extended social networks to cope with economic problems, subjective health status, average monthly income from aquaculture or fishery, perceptions about how difficult it is to find alternative work, and education as means for personal and occupational development. The results show that engaging in small-scale aquaculture positively affects current and future subjective socioeconomic status. Income is a robust predictor of present and future socioeconomic status. Education loses relevance on subjective SES later in life, whereas social capital gains importance.