Skip to main content

Social Capital and Well-Being in Times of Crisis

Journal of Happiness Studies volume 15, pages 145–162 (2014)Cite this article

Abstract

This paper attempts to show how the quality of the social fabric of a community or nation affects its capacity to deal with crises and to develop human and natural resources in ways that maintain and sustainably improve subjective well-being. Three types of crisis will be used as examples. These include economic crises; transition and other institutional crises; and conflicts over sustainable resource use. The bulk of the new results in this paper relate to economic crises and institutional transitions, and shows that communities and nations with better social capital and trust respond to crises and transitions more happily and effectively.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Access options

Buy single article

Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Price includes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Notes

  1. The Current Population Survey (CPS) Supplemental Surveys are available from the NBER at http://www.nber.org/data/current-population-survey-data.html.

  2. The standard error is calculated using the following variance calculation: \(\text{var} \left( {\widehat{\alpha } + \widehat{\beta } \times Z} \right) = \text{var} \left( {\widehat{\alpha }} \right) + Z^{2} \times \text{var} \left( {\widehat{\beta }} \right) + 2 \times Z \times \text{cov} (\widehat{\alpha },\widehat{\beta })\) with Z = 1. In this formula, the \( \widehat{\alpha} \) is the estimated coefficient on ∆ Local unemp, measuring the impact of rising unemployment in a city with SC1 = 0, i.e., where the measure of broad engagement is at the national average. The \( \widehat{\beta} \) is the estimated coefficient on the interactive term between broad engagement and the unemployment variable. Z is the level of social capital where we evaluate the marginal effect of rising unemployment. In this particular case, we evaluate the marginal effect at SC1 = 1, i.e., where the measure of broad engagement is one standard deviation above the national average.

  3. There is, however, a significant drop in the Cantril ladder for Korea in 2012. Many other countries with data in 2012 also show drops, perhaps reflecting shared national and global concerns about economic and other conditions. The 2012 data will be analyzed further when data are available from the full round of 2012 GWP surveys.

  4. Transcription from the simultaneous translation of President Lee’s opening remarks to the OECD Forum. A longer version of the remarks may be found in Helliwell (2011b, p. 299).

  5. The transition countries in the ESS are Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, and Ukraine. The ESS non-transition countries are Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and United Kingdom.

  6. Social norms drive behaviour, and are themselves determined by acquired social identities (Akerlof and Kranton 2010). Haslam and Reicher (2011) and Reicher et al. (2012) have recently re-interpreted the earlier experimental evidence of Milgram (1974) and Zimbardo (2006) to argue convincingly that people are willing to follow advice or orders especially, and often only, where both the leader and the cause are seen as legitimate. This in turn is much more likely where people feel a sense of belonging to the group in question. Finally, happiness research shows that subjective well-being and trust are both supported by peoples’ sense of belonging to both narrow and broader groups (Helliwell and Wang 2011, Table 3). Evidence suggests that such gains in well-being are possible even in the prison environments used by Zimbardo. For examples, see Lovibond et al. (1979), Leong (2010), and Helliwell (2011a).

References

  • Akerlof, G. A., & Kranton, R. E. (2010). Identity economics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Batson, C. D., & Shaw, L. L. (1991). Evidence for altruism: Toward a pluralism of prosocial motives. Psychological Inquiry, 2(2), 107–122.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown, S. L., Nesse, R. M., Vinokur, A. D., & Smith, D. M. (2003). Providing social support may be more beneficial than receiving it: Results from a prospective study of mortality. Psychological Science, 14(4), 320–327.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cho, D. (2012). Responses of the Korean economy to the global crisis: Another currency crisis? In M. Obstfeld, D. Cho, & A. Mason (Eds.), Global economic crisis: Impacts, transmission and recovery (pp. 57–78). Cheltenham: Elgar.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cho, D., & Shin, S. (2011). Crisis and employment: The case of Korea. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 31(1), 169–177.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dunbar, R. I. M. (1998). The social brain hypothesis. Evolutionary Anthropology, 6(5), 178–190.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dunn, E. W., Aknin, L. B., & Norton, M. I. (2008). Spending money on others promotes happiness. Science, 319(5870),  1687–1688.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ferrer-i-Carbonell, A., & Frijters, P. (2004). How important is methodology for the estimates of the determinants of happiness? The Economic Journal, 114(July), 641–659.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haslam, S. A., & Reicher, S. D. (2011). When prisoners take over the prison: A social psychology of resistance. Personality and Social Psychology Review , 16(2), 154–179.

    Google Scholar 

  • Helliwell, J. F. (2011a). Institutions as enablers of well-being: The Singapore prison case study. International Journal of Wellbeing, 1(2), 255–265. http://www.internationaljournalofwellbeing.org/index.php/ijow/article/view/28.

  • Helliwell, J. F. (2011b). How can subjective well-being be improved? In F. Gorbet & A. Sharpe (Eds.), New directions for intelligent government in Canada (pp. 283–304). Ottawa: Centre for the Study of Living Standards. http://www.csls.ca/festschrift/Helliwell.pdf.

  • Helliwell, J. F. (2012a). Social norms, happiness and the environment: Closing the circle. Background paper for the April 2, 2012, UN High Level Meeting on Happiness and Wellbeing. http://www.2apr.gov.bt/images/Social%20NormsMarch%205.pdf.

  • Helliwell, J. F. (2012b). Understanding and improving the social context of wellbeing. NBER Working paper no. 18486. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.

  • Helliwell, J. F., & Huang, H. (2011). New measures of the costs of unemployment: Evidence from the subjective well-being of 2.3 million Americans. NBER working papers 16829. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

  • Helliwell, J. F., & Putnam, R. D. (2004). The social context of well-being. Phil Trans R. Soc Lon. B 359: 1435–1446. Reprinted in F. A. Huppert, B. Keverne & N. Baylis (Eds.), The science of well-being (pp. 435–459). London: Oxford University Press, 2005.

  • Helliwell, J. F., & Wang, S. (2011). Trust and wellbeing. International Journal of Wellbeing, 1(1), 42–78. www.internationaljournalofwellbeing.org/index.php/ijow/article/view/3/85.

    Google Scholar 

  • Helliwell, J. F., & Wang, S. (2012). The state of world happiness. In J. Helliwell, R. Layard, & J. Sachs (Eds.), World happiness report (pp. 10–57). New York: Earth Institute at Columbia University.

    Google Scholar 

  • ILO/World Bank (2012). Inventory of policy responses to the financial and economic crisis: Joint synthesis report. Washington: World Bank; ILO: Geneva.

  • Kahneman, D., & Krueger, A. B. (2006). Developments in the measurement of subjective well-being. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20(1), 3–24.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kwon, H., Dong, G., & Moon, H. (2010). Economic crises and the welfare state in Korea: Reforms and future challenges. Korean Journal of Policy Studies, 25(1), 175–192.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leong, Lena. (2010). Story of the Singapore prison service: From custodians of prisoners to captains of life. Singapore: Civil Service College.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lim, W. (2010). Green growth as a panacea? The politics and economics of climate change in South Korea. In M. Green, D. Freeman & A. Seawright (Eds.), Green Dragons: The Politics of Climate Change in Asia (pp. 20–35). Washington: Center for Strategic and International Studies.

  • Lovibond, S. H., Mithiran, X., & Adams, W. G. (1979). The effects of three experimental prison environments on the behavior of non-convict volunteer subjects. Australian Psychologist, 14(3), 273–287.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority. New York: Harper & Row.

    Google Scholar 

  • OECD (2001). The well-being of nations: The role of human and social capital. Paris: OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation.

  • Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ostrom, E. (2010). Beyond markets and states: Polycentric governance of complex economic systems. Stockholm: Nobel Lecture http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2009/ostrom_lectue.pdf.

  • Putnam, R. D. (1993). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reicher, S. D., Haslam, S. A., & Smith, J. R. (2012). Working towards the experimenter: Reconceptualizing obedience within the Milgram paradigm as identification-based followership. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7(4), 315–324.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwartz, C. E., & Sendor, M. (1999). Helping others helps oneself: response shift effects in peer support. Social Science and Medicine, 48(11), 1563–1575.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zaki, J., & Mitchell, J. P. (2011). Equitable decision-making is associated with neural markers of intrinsic value. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(49), 19761–19766.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zimbardo, P. (2006). The Lucifer effect: How good people turn evil. London: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This research is part of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Program in Social Interactions, Identity and Well-Being. Wang is supported by the research fund offered by Korea Development Institute (KDI) School of Public Policy and Management for "Inequality and Subjective Well-Being" project. Authors are very grateful to the anonymous referees for their helpful comments.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CIFAR Programme, Vancouver School of Economics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    John F. Helliwell

  2. Department of Economics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

    Haifang Huang

  3. School of Public Policy and Management, Korea Development Institute (KDI), Seoul, South Korea

    Shun Wang

Authors
  1. John F. Helliwell
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Haifang Huang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Shun Wang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to John F. Helliwell.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Helliwell, J.F., Huang, H. & Wang, S. Social Capital and Well-Being in Times of Crisis. J Happiness Stud 15, 145–162 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-013-9441-z

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-013-9441-z

Keywords

  • Subjective well-being
  • Happiness
  • Social capital
  • Economic crises
  • Transition
  • Sustainable development
  • Social context