Social Capital, Subjective Well-Being, and Happiness: Evidence from a Survey in Various European and Asian Countries to Address the Stiglitz Report ()
ABSTRACT
The quantification of happiness is gaining attention
as one of the new social indicators for measuring the degree of development, as
put forward in the Stiglitz Report. Various happiness determinants, including (non-)socio-economic factors, have been proposed. Among these, we explored social capital (SC),
which refers to human networks as capital. However, methodology to measure SC inclusively
is still under developed. We used the Resource Generator to ask about
quasi-resources in human networks in order to measure participants’ SC. We
administered a survey in the general public in Japan and seven other countries:
Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, Bhutan, Indonesia, and Singapore. The
results showed, first, that a correlation between happiness and SC could be
identified in Denmark, Finland, Singapore, and Japan but less so in Sweden,
Switzerland, Bhutan, and Indonesia. Second, the countries showed both identical
and different characteristics in SC. Third, SC revealed common aspects that
affected happiness in each country. Mental support, spending leisure time with
others, and one’s career were common determinants of SC that contributed to
happiness in most of the countries, though some exceptions were found.