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Hooghe, M., Vanhoutte, B. (2011). Subjective Well-Being and Social Capital in Belgian Communities. Social Indicators Research 100 (1), 17-36

In this article, we investigate the effect of individual and community level characteristics on subjective well-being in Belgium. Various indicators for subjective well-being are being used in a multilevel analysis of the 2009 SCIF survey (n = 2,080) and the 2006 Belgian ESS sample (n = 1,798). On the individual level, most hypotheses on the determinants of subjective well-being were confirmed. Living with a partner and age were shown to have strong effects, but also social capital indicators had a significant positive effect on subjective well-being. All these effects remained significant controlling for optimism. On the community level, especially unemployment rate had a negative impact on subjective well-being. The analysis further demonstrates that in homogeneous regions, community characteristics have a far weaker impact on subjective well-being indicators than in economically more heterogeneous regions.

Authors

Hooghe, Mark

Marc Hooghe is a Professor of Political Science at the Catholic University of Leuven, Fellow of the Royal Academy of Belgium, professeur invité à l'Institut d'Etudes Politiques/Université Lille-II (France) and invited professor of the Universität Darmstadt (...

Vanhoutte, Bram

The functioning of a democracy depends on the health of its social tissue. Social capital, the concept that is most successful in grasping this social tissue, consists of both structure and content, in the form of social networks and a set of attitudes that facilitate collective action respectively...

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