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Family Functioning and Life Satisfaction and Happiness in South African Households

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Abstract

Families form an integral part of society and in fostering individual well-being. Despite the acknowledged importance of family, the association between family functioning and individual well-being outcomes have remained unexplored in the current body of knowledge. This paper explores the association between family functioning and reported levels of life satisfaction and happiness in South Africa. The paper employs the Family Attachment and Changeability Index (FACI8) to measure family functioning, using data from the 2011 South African Social Attitudes Survey. Four measures of family functioning are utilised, namely the aggregate FACI8 scale, the attachment and changeability sub-scales, and family functioning type. Improvements in the level of family functioning as well as in the levels of attachment and changeability are positively associated with life satisfaction and happiness. In addition, individuals living in midrange or balanced family functioning types are more satisfied with life and happier compared to persons living in extremely or moderately dysfunctional families. The findings highlight the importance of supportive intra-family dynamics in fostering greater individual well-being. This in turn places emphasis on the investigation of likely correlates of family functioning and impact evaluations of family-focused social work interventions’ impact on family functioning as areas for future research.

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Notes

  1. While happiness is more dependent on current mood, life satisfaction is generally evaluated with a longer term view in mind. A response to the question of happiness is likely to be more varied than to that of life satisfaction. Happiness is thus more volatile; life satisfaction is more stable (Haller and Hadler 2006; Selim 2008; Orviska et al. 2012). It is thus possible that a respondent is very satisfied with his or her life overall, but that due to a negative event or emotion he or she may not be very happy at the time of the particular survey. In such a case, life satisfaction could be rated relatively high, while happiness would be rated lower.

  2. It is worth noting here that the SASAS survey builds on the tradition of including happiness as well as life satisfaction in the examination of subjective well-being and quality of life in South Africa (Møller 2013).

  3. Note that, as stated in the footnote to Table 1, the changeability scale contains questions that are positively phrased questions only, while the attachment scale has only negatively phrased questions. The latter is therefore reversed prior to summation with the changeability scale when calculating the overall FACI8 score, and for analyzing the attachment scale separately. Given the structure of the questions, it is likely that the changeability (attachment) scale might bias answers towards the positive (negative). However, in McCubbin et al.’s (1995) development of the FACI8 instrument, no evident explanation was provided as to the rationale for the reversed-coded items in the attachment scale, for example.

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Acknowledgments

We thank an anonymous referee of this journal for very valuable comments and suggestions. Ben Roberts and participants at the second conference on the Microeconometric Analysis of South African Data (MASA 2012) in Durban, 12–13 November 2012, provided helpful suggestions. Financial assistance from Rhodes University (Grant #RC2013) is acknowledged. The financial support of Economic Research Southern Africa is also gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics and Economic History, Rhodes University, P.O. Box 94, Grahamstown, 6140, South Africa

    Ferdi Botha

  2. Department of Economics, University of the Free State, P.O. Box 339, Bloemfontein, 6301, South Africa

    Frikkie Booysen

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  1. Ferdi Botha
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  2. Frikkie Booysen
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Correspondence to Ferdi Botha.

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Botha, F., Booysen, F. Family Functioning and Life Satisfaction and Happiness in South African Households. Soc Indic Res 119, 163–182 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-013-0485-6

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