Influences on Life Satisfaction in Coastal Kenya and Mozambique. Effects of Gender, Urbanisation, Income, Basic Needs and Ecosystem Services

Life satisfaction as a component of human wellbeing, is both a desirable ‘end’ for sustainable development, as well as a means to understand the motivations, priorities, and behaviours of people with regards to their local ecosystems. Ecosystem-services research on life satisfaction has focussed on cultural services in wealthy, Western contexts, although ecosystem services are essential for poor peoples livelihoods in the Global South. We examine patterns in life satisfaction in a survey of over 2000 people in remote, rural and urban settings of coastal Kenya and Mozambique and analyse respondents’ own explanations of what affects their satisfaction. Our respondents explained high and low satisfaction in terms of social relationships, material needs, money and employment. Few mentioned ecosystem services, or ecosystem-related livelihoods. Cross-sectional analysis showed gender and site to predict of life satisfaction, which was lower in urban sites and amongst men. Meeting basic needs, including economic security better predicted life satisfaction than household income, which had no predictive power once site, gender and basic needs were considered. Patterns of life satisfaction reflect material differences in people’s lives but also different criteria people use to evaluate their lives. For example, family reasons more commonly explained women’s satisfaction, while money was more important for urban dwellers. An instrumental association with nature is suggested by the relationship of satisfaction to immediate needs, relationships and opportunities, rather than the natural resources and nature-based livelihoods that underpin those. This highlights the need for conservation and environmental management to recognise people’s immediate needs and social relationships. Life satisfaction research provides insights for environmental management through a holistic picture of people’s lives. For example, prioritising secure and equitable access to ecosystem services may contribute more to life satisfaction than managing them to promote higher incomes that may be insecure or inequitably distributed