Eco&Stat n°3-24 - Mitigating Life Challenges to Subjective Well-being through Civic Engagement: Insights from a Global Perspective
This paper investigates the role of civic engagement, an important form of social capital, in buffering the adverse effects of challenging life circumstances in three key domains—employment, marriage, and health—on individual subjective well-being. Our findings reveal that the negative association between divorce, separation, or widowhood and overall life evaluations can be mitigated through active associational memberships (both Putnam and Olson types), and three forms of civic engagement (i.e., donating money, volunteering, and helping strangers). In situations of poor health, however, only Olson-type memberships, donating money, volunteering, and helping strangers are found to mitigate the negative association with life evaluations. Furthermore, the negative association between unemployment and overall life evaluations is alleviated only by Putnam-type memberships. We also explore heterogeneity in the extent of such mitigation across individual characteristics (e.g., gender and age) and country-level factors (e.g., level of development and region). Additionally, our analysis shows that the most commonly studied measure of social capital, social trust, does not serve as a significant mediator in any of the relationships examined. Our analysis utilizes data from waves 3, 5, 6, and 7 of the World Values Survey and the Gallup World Poll conducted between 2009 and 2021.
Executive Summary
Extensive research has demonstrated that life challenges, such as unemployment, poor health, and marital disruptions, can significantly reduce individual and societal well-being. To aid individuals navigating these stressful events, both formal institutions and informal sources like social capital can provide valuable support.
Most of the existing studies on social capital have focused primarily on trust. However, civic engagement, encompassing actions that contribute positively to collective community or societal life, has received less comprehensive attention despite its potential to foster trust and cooperative behaviors.
To bridge this gap, researchers Fengyu Wu (STATEC Research) and Jeffrey B. Nugent (University of Southern California) investigated how civic engagement, encompassing both within-group activities and participation in broader network structures, relates to subjective well-being. They specifically explored its role in mitigating the adverse effects of stressful life events.
Their findings indicate that memberships focused on the common good (Putnam-type) partially alleviate the impact of unemployment on subjective well-being, while those encouraging the pursuit of more self-serving goals (Olson-type) partially mitigate the effect of poor health. Combining both types fully moderates the negative impact of divorce, separation, or widowhood. Besides, broader civic engagement activities, including donating, volunteering, and helping strangers, fully mitigate the negative effect of divorce, separation, or widowhood on subjective well-being and partially mitigate the effect of poor health.
A significant policy implication of this study is that policymakers should promote civic engagement, as it can broadly benefit society and help protect against the negative impacts of various life challenges. The study drew on large-scale cross-national data from waves 3 (1995-1998), 5 (2005-2009), 6 (2010-2014) and 7 (2015-2022) of the World Values Survey and the Gallup World Poll conducted between 2009 and 2021.
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This publication was produced by Kelsey O’Connor, Cesare Riillo and Giulia Slater. STATEC would like to thank all the collaborators who contributed to the production of this publication.n.
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