Employment is an ultimate goal of people and even more of individuals living in rural agricultural areas where employment opportunities are less. So being involved as agro-industry employee in this context is worthwile for a rural household. The satisfaction of their own needs and the family help are most of the reasons given by households’ members in our sample concerning their participation as agro industry employee. Most of them have stated they were never involved in any previous employment activities.
A lack of evidence regarding the income effect on happiness is another observation noted in our results. Although positive, there is no significant income impact. This result goes against some studies in the SWB literature even if they nevertheless recognize the weak impact of income. The aspiration (Easterlin, 2001) and social comparison (Diener and al., 1993) arguments advance that there is only a weak link between income and happiness if income increases along with desires or the reference group’s income. While the ―desires‖ argument is plausible in our case, the reference group’s income argument does not hold, since neither absolute income nor relative income seems to be relevant for rural households in our sample.
Income gained by rural households might be viewed as not so substantial in this area as their needs increase. Contrary to a permanent salary, rural households’ income might be volatile so that they live from day to day. Even if income is consistent, it might be that community relationships (solidarity) are important between households and that the income gained is shared through this channel. In addition we find that stable goods such as asset variables and access to utilities play a more important role in the determination of happiness than income.