Essence of culture and nature: Governance as the emerging correlates of quality‐of‐life experiences in the communities of Himachal, India

Abstract

AbstractThe aim of this work is to uncover factors influencing the quality of life in the study area. The idea is operationalized by collecting data at the household level on subjective and objective aspects of quality of life. For this study, data were collected from 18 sample villages using a stratified random sampling method. The villages were chosen to represent two distinct communities, namely the scheduled castes (SC) and the general population, spread across three altitudinal zones. In all, 436 households (about 20% of the total) were surveyed with respect to 10 domains of quality of life, namely environment and cleanliness, housing, education, health, personal well‐being, democratic and social participation, information and communication, employment, income and wealth and governance. To identify the key domains of quality of life, the principal components analysis (PCA) technique was applied. The findings support the idea that Asian predictors of satisfaction with life are similar to those of the Western world, but social and cultural backgrounds determine some culture‐oriented predictors. The PCA results show that governance is the key determinant of life satisfaction. This study reveals that due to higher levels of educational attainment, good income conditions, and greater participation in community affairs, the general community has reported higher quality of life satisfaction compared to the SC community population.