LIFE SATISFACTION AMONG LOW-INCOME RURAL YOUTH FROM APPALACHIA

The purpose of this study was to examine the relative strength of obje ctive, subjective, and congruency variables as predictors of life sati sfaction among low-income youth from rural areas. A 10-year longitudin al survey of low:income, rural youth from Appalachia (n=322) was condu cted to explore these issues. Although support was provided for variab les representing all three types of life satisfaction predictors, the strongest of these were subjective variables such as self-perceptions about goal attainment in jobs, overall goal attainment in life, and se lf-esteem Another set of consistent predictors of life satisfaction, c ongruence variables, were concerned with the extent to which low-incom e youth believed that they had fulfilled their own aspirations in term s of formal education, proximity to their childhood homes, and number of children, Finally, some of the objective variables consisting of fa mily of origin's SES, community size, and marital status also were pre dictive of life satisfaction. In general, the life satisfaction of low -income, rural youth seemed to be influenced more extensively by perso nal meanings shaped within a particular cultural context rather than b y traditional objective measures of life circumstances. (C) 1997 The A ssociation for Professionals in Services for Adolescents.