The social well-being of a Malaysian fishing community: The case of Kampong Bahagia, Mersing, Johor

This paper evaluates descriptively the perception of Sri Bahagia fishermen of their state of social well-being. As social well-being may be viewed from several dimensions, this study adopted the subject’s perception perspective whereby systematically sampled respondents expressed their own perception of thair state of wellbeing as fishermen in their locality. Several indicators of the fishermen’s social well-being were utilised in the assessment which pertained to socio-economic variables, the provision of services, infrastructure and development. The paper concludes that like many marginalised communities elsewhere the Kampong Bahagia’s fishermen, being physically located outside the state’s development zone, were left out of the development mainstream. As such it is imperative and urgent that the authorities concerned implement measures leading to the inclusion and integration of the fishermen into the state’s and country’s development ambit.