The moderation effect of social capital in the relationship between own income, social comparisons and subjective well-being: Evidence from four international datasets.

ABSTRACT: In this paper we check whether social capital changes the association of subjective well-being with own income and social comparisons. We use panel data from Germany and publicly available data from three international surveys, for a total of nearly 500,000 respondents from industrial countries. Results show that the association of own income and social comparisons to subjective well-being weakens for individuals with high social capital. This finding holds in a variety of settings, and is robust to various measures of subjective well-being, of social capital, and of social comparisons. We also find evidence indicating that the role of social capital is, at least in part, causal. Finally, our findings support the macro-level implication that income differences are less related to subjectiv

SUBMITTER: Bartolini S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10703203 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature