Subjective Well-Being and Social Capital

in Belgian Communities

Marc HoogheBram VanhoutteEllen Quintelier

Department of Political Science, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium

ISQOLS ConferenceInstituto delli IgnocentiFirenze, 19-23 2009

Research Questions

- Is subjective well-being determined by individual level characteristics?

- Impact of social capital: networks, associations, generalized trust

- Impact of context: community level

Data: SCIF (Social Cohesion Indicators Flanders) survey, April-July 2009, n=2080

Survey designed to allow multilevel research

SCIF-surveyFlemish autonomous region, Belgium (pop. 6,000,000)

n: 2,080 in 40 municipalities

Introduction

• Subjective well-being is determined by both individual and community characteristics

• Role of personality traits, socio-economic background variables and network integration

• Community characteristics: deprivation, income, crime, unemployment, segregation, housing, public services,…

• Most research focuses on differences between societies. Regional and local differences: studies available in US, Canada & Switzerland

Subjective Well-Being

• Evaluative / cognitive measure: satisfaction with life ( affective measurement, happiness)

• Subjective well-being as composite indicator of quality of life in various domains

• Reflects self-realisation on several domains: depends not only on abilities and social position, but also the context

• Increasingly important as policy goal and indicator

Subjective Well-Being

• Differences between countries well documented

• Differences within countries: mixed evidence: – depends on indicator for subjective well-

being– is ‘happiness’ a cultural trait/link with

individualism– culture as a geographically homogeneous

attribute of countries and political systems?

Determinants of Well-Being

Individual level– Age – Family structure/relations– Health– Material conditions– Social capital: networks and trust– Personality traits

Community level– Crime / Unemployment

Hypotheses

• H1: Living with a partner, high income and employment have a positive effect on well-being

• H2: Social capital (networks and trust) has a positive influence on well-being

• H3: Unemployment and crime in one’s community have a negative impact on well-being

Data and methods

• Social Cohesion Indicators Flanders Survey: 2080 respondents between 18 and 85 years old, interviewed face to face, April-July 2009

• Representative sample of population of Flemish autonomous region

• Designed for multilevel: representative group of 40 municipalities, with maximum variance on social cohesion indicators, within municipalities random sample of inhabitants

• OLS regression and multi-level regression

Operationalization

• Subjective Well-being:– Factor scale with four items probing

satisfaction on different life domains (family, spare time and social life) and life in general (Cronbach’s α .76)

• Income: Natural Log of family income• Generalized Trust:

– Factor scale with three items• Optimism (Scheier, Carver & Bridges, 1994)

– Factor scale with five items

Results 1: Individual level regression

β

Age -.53 Curvilinear relation with ageAge2 .55

Living with partner

.29 Stronger effect than just marriage

Family Income .08

r2 .11

Results 2: Adding Social Capital(Addition to the variables included in model 1)

β

Generalized Trust

.16 Strongest social capital variable

Inviting friends .10

Family visits .09

Membership .08

r2 .16

Results 3: Adding Subjective Indicators(Addition to the variables included in model 2)

β

Satisfaction with income

.16 Renders income insignificant

Optimism .18 Does not render other variables insignificant

Health .35

r2 .35 (inclusion of health tautological?)

Results 4: Adding Community Effects(Adding community effects to Model 3 multilevel model) β

Crime level .01 ns

Unemployment level

.00 ns

Population density

.00 ns

Intra-Class Correlation-

.002

No intra-class correlation of subjective well-being in Belgian communities

Discussion (1)

• Individual level:– “Living with partner” better indicator than

“being married”– “Satisfaction with income” stronger effect

than “income”– “Generalized trust” most important element

of social capital– Effects remain strong and significant,

controlling for personality trait of optimism

Discussion (2)Why are there no community level effects?• Flemish region too homogeneous? (high income,

very low level of income inequality, low levels of crime)

• Municipalities not a good level of aggregation (average 20,000 inhabitants)

• Well-being scores defined by general culture, not by local context?

• Counter-indication: for other indicators, we do find strong community level differences and effects in Flanders

• Example: suicide rates in Flemish municipalities

Comparison: age corrected suicide rates for men, 1996-

2005

Discussion (3)

Toward a threshold model of community influences on subjective well-being?

Deprivation, crime and inequality can have an impact on subjective well-being

But given sufficiently high levels of income (and low levels of crime and deprivation) no longer an effect of additional variance on subjective well-being?

Need to conduct research in more heterogeneous societies