| Abstract: |
Many argue that the rise in populist support in Europe and elsewhere stems
from people feeling marginalised, distrustful and generally dissatisfied.
Against a backdrop of populism, this paper aims to examine the relationship
between social capital and life satisfaction using data on 21,000 individuals
from 14 European countries obtained from the Life in Transition Survey (2016).
Specifically, we test the empirical significance of a novel social
capital-wellbeing conceptual framework that incorporates three key dimensions
of personal social capital; (i) structural (personal ties), (ii) cognitive
(trust) and (iii) tolerance. This latter aspect is the most novel addition of
this research to the theoretical and empirical literature as we argue that
tolerance acts as a bridging mechanism between trust and ties in affecting
overall wellbeing. Using ordered probit models the paper estimates the effect
of social capital on life satisfaction by using an index for aggregate
personal social capital, as well as separate indices for structural social
capital, cognitive social capital and tolerance. The analysis also examines
the interaction effects of social capital with individual and place
characteristics of respondents. Among the results we find that strong
structural ties with friends and family and being a tolerant, trusting
individual improves life satisfaction. Of the social capital indicators, we
find that trust in institutions has the largest marginal effect on life
satisfaction. Also, interaction effects indicate that social capital could be
a key ingredient in overcoming income inequalities, health inequalities and
spatial inequalities at the individual level. We conclude that societies that
fail to invest in social capital may be more politically unstable or more
susceptible to widespread intolerance, distrust and ultimately discontent. |