Abstract
This chapter links the macro-level attribute social cohesion to two essential individual characteristics: values and subjective well-being. The first section explores the predictive, concomitant, and consequential character of cohesion in relation to individual value preferences. We operationalize the latter following Schwartz’ model of ten value types with data from Rounds 1–4 of the European Social Survey. Data on social cohesion refer to a period before, concurrent with, or after an ESS round. Multilevel regression analyses show that conservation and self-enhancement values are negatively related to social cohesion, whereas self-transcendence and openness values exhibit a positive relationship. Evidence remains inconclusive with respect to the causal direction. The second section studies the effect of social cohesion on the well-being of individuals and various groups of resource-rich and resource-poor groups. Our analyses draw on data from Rounds 1–3 of the European Quality of Life Survey on happiness and life satisfaction. We find consistent evidence that social cohesion enhances subjective well-being above and beyond national affluence and relevant individual characteristics. Everyone and every group equally strongly benefits from high cohesion.
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- 1.
A description of the procedure is available under: http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/docs/methodology/ESS1_human_values_scale.pdf.
- 2.
- 3.
We took this variable as a proxy for income because the EQLS income variable has too many missing values.
- 4.
ρ = σu0/(σu0 + σe), with σu0 being the slope variance of the intercept term and σe its residual variance.
- 5.
The questionnaire item reads: “Could you please tell me on a scale of 1 to 10 how satisfied you are with each of the following items, where 1 means you are very dissatisfied and 10 means you are very satisfied? […] Your health.”
- 6.
The questionnaire item reads: “A household may have different sources of income and more than one household member may contribute to it. Thinking of your household’s total monthly income: is your household able to make ends meet…?”.
- 7.
For the analyses on the two age groups, we additionally excluded the employment dummies due to the overlap between the group of older respondents and the group of the retired and unemployed.
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Dragolov, G., Ignácz, Z.S., Lorenz, J., Delhey, J., Boehnke, K., Unzicker, K. (2016). Social Cohesion, Values of Individuals, and Their Well-being. In: Social Cohesion in the Western World. SpringerBriefs in Well-Being and Quality of Life Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32464-7_6
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