Subjective wellbeing and its meaning for young people in a rural Australian center

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 pers..