Exploratory Study of Psychological Well-being of Youth in Agrarian Families

Youth is the stage of human life when an individual is energetic, passionate, motivated and enthusiastic. World Health Organization (2001) reported that approximately 25% of the global population is troubled by mental or behavioral issue at some time during their lives. Youth is one of the vulnerable groups resorting to suicides with 33% share of total suicides (Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation, Government of India). Seventy per cent population of India depends directly or indirectly upon agriculture (Food & Agriculture Organization, 2017- 18) and suicides in agrarian families account for 11.2% of total suicides in the country (National Crime Records Bureau of India). Keeping the present scenario in view, an exploratory study was carried out to study the psychological well-being (PWB) of youth in agrarian families. The respondents were undergraduate students studying in educational institutes of district Ludhiana, Punjab. Total sample comprised of 80 youth (Males=40, Females=40). Standardized scales were used for assessment of PWB (Sisodia & Choudhary, 1971). The results indicated that both males and females had moderate PWB and further exploration highlighted that male youth had better PWB in comparison to females on all dimensions of PWB, i.e., satisfaction, efficiency, sociability, mental health and interpersonal relations. Gender differences in means were found to be significant on efficiency, sociability, mental health, interpersonal relations as well as overall PWB except satisfaction.