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Which is More Relevant for Perceived Happiness, Individual-Level or Area-Level Social Capital? A Multilevel Mediation Analysis

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Abstract

A growing number of studies have addressed how social capital is closely related to an individual’s perceived happiness. However, most happiness studies have focused on individual-level social capital, which is based on an individual’s subjective assessment of social capital gathered from social surveys. Considering that social capital was originally a collective concept, this study distinguished individual- and area-level aspects of social capital and their relationships in terms of their associations with perceived happiness. To this end, we employed multilevel mediation analysis using cross-sectional microdata from a nationwide Internet survey conducted in Japan (N = 9523). We focused on four types of social capital: trust in neighbors, contacts with neighbors, bonding, and bridging. Based on the estimation results, we first confirmed that social capital at both the individual and area levels had a positive association with perceived happiness when using them separately as an independent variable. Second, we found that a substantial portion of the effect of area-level social capital on perceived happiness was mediated by individual-level social capital. This suggests that an individual’s commitment to area-level social capital is required if a large portion of its potential benefits on perceived happiness are to materialize. Furthermore, we observed that the effects of area-level bonding and bridging on their individual-level measures were affected by several individual-level attributes, including personality traits. Overall, the results underscore the need for further investigation into the association between perceived happiness and social capital at different levels.

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  1. Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University, 2-1 Naka, Kunitachi, Tokyo, 186-8603, Japan

    Takashi Oshio

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  1. Takashi Oshio
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Correspondence to Takashi Oshio.

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Oshio, T. Which is More Relevant for Perceived Happiness, Individual-Level or Area-Level Social Capital? A Multilevel Mediation Analysis. J Happiness Stud 18, 765–783 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-016-9752-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-016-9752-y

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