RT Journal Article
T1 Individual well-being, geographical heterogeneity and social capital
A1 Neira Gómez, Isabel
A1 Bruna, Fernando
A1 Portela, Marta
A1 García-Aracil, Adela
K1 Happiness
K1 Life satisfaction
K1 Multilevel models
K1 Between-context
K1 Between-individual
K1 European regions
AB This paper argues the relevance of analysing the origins of contextual effects to explain subjective wellbeing (SWB). Using the 2012 European Social Survey, the study applies social capital indicators to distinguishbetween-context and between-individual heterogeneity in three multilevel models of happiness and life satisfaction. Five indicators of social capital at individual and regional level are used to measure the trust, networks andnorms dimensions of social capital. Random intercept and random slope hierarchical models are used to controlfor unexplained regional variability. The possibility of aggregated subjective perceptions conditioning, or interacting with, the effects of individual perceptions is also examined. The results show that the regional means ofthe social capital indicators are useful in explaining not only average levels of SWB (between-context heterogeneity) but also differences in the importance individuals attribute to their social capital (between-individual heterogeneity). The paper also proposes a research agenda to expand the frontier on contextual effects in the newscience of well-being
PB Springer
SN 1389-4978
YR 2018
FD 2018
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10347/32133
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10347/32133
LA eng
NO Neira, I., Bruna, F., Portela, M., & García-Aracil, A. (2018). Individual well-being, geographical heterogeneity and social capital. Journal of Happiness Studies, 19, 1067-1090.
NO We are grateful to the participants of the Workshop of Socioeconomics and Economic Sociology (A Coruña 2016) and to anonymous referees for their helpful comments. The research for this paper was conducted as part of the research project ref. EDU-2013-45177-R ‘Education, Employability and Empowerment of the Youth’ (3E4Youth), funded by the National R&D Programme of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. The views expressed in this paper are not necessarily the views of that organization.
DS Minerva
RD 27 abr 2026