Tracing the Relationships between Assets and Well-Being in Complex Social Environments

This chapter reports on a fifteen-year study of Mirumba village in Katavi Region in which the author conducted seven full census surveys. On the basis of intricate and detailed data it looks for changes in the wealth distribution of the village and find less extreme poverty. Furthermore, and somewhat surprisingly, this improvement in wealth, as denoted by assets, also correlates with improvement in other measures of well-being and prosperity such as stress, education, and health. These changes are likely driven by greater agricultural activity. It is important to emphasize however that it is difficult to extrapolate from this study to other villages in Tanzania.