Well-Being and Social Capital: Welfare, Work and Community

1
Well-Being and Social Capital Welfare, Work and
Community

• Presented by
• John Helliwell
• UBC and Bank of Canada
• St Johns
• November 16,2003

2
Subjective Well-Being Life Satisfaction From the
WVS
3
Outline

• Employment and welfare local, national and
  global
• Lessons thus far SSP worked, engagement trumps
  dollars
• Social capital and well-being
• Next steps implement, experiment, broaden,
  monitor

4
Effects of Age on Well-Being

• OECD above
• Developing below

5
Whats Social Capital?

• ..networks, together with shared norms, values,
  and understandings that facilitate co-operation
  within and among groups (OECD 2001)
• Created among and in
• Families
• Community Groups and Churches
• Neighbourhoods
• Workplaces and Schools

6
Types of Social Capital

• Bonding, among those with much in common
• Bridging, connecting those with, at least
  initially, less in common
• The two types tend to be found together, i.e.
  families, friends and community links go
  together.
• But sometimes one type is used more if another is
  lacking

7
Engagement

• Improves health
• Improves subjective well-being
• Generate benefits for others

8
good workplaces help

• Along with other types of social capital
• To improve measures of subjective well-being
• To improve subjective measures of health
• To reduce illness and death rates, including
  suicides

9
Implications for Welfare to Work

• Cost/Benefit analysis should include well-being
• Well-being effects of unemployment very large
• Hence need to evaluate net employment effects
• Monitor social capital and well-being, on jobs
  too
• Include engagement and training in experiments
• Examine differential impacts on groups at risk

10
Effects of Family Status on Subjective Well-Being
11
Income, Health, and Unemployment Effects on
Well-being
12
Effects of Relative Income on Well-Being

• OECD below
• Developing above

13
Social Capital Individual Level Effects
14
Social Capital National Level Effects
15
Suicide, Life Satisfaction and Social Capital

• Suicide suicide SWB suicide SWB suim suif
• Membership -6.08 0.51 -2.82 0.34 -4.02 -1.91
  2.45 2.80 1.26 2.15 1.15 1.46
• Trust -16.47 1.83 -18.25 1.93 -33.84 -4.45
  2.42 4.01 2.87 4.95 3.36 1.16
• God -22.82 1.6 -16.87 1.28 -20.02 -14.27
  5.35 5.01 4.78 3.74 3.39 6.88
• Divorce 4.29 -0.19 3.44 -0.14 6.29 0.97
  5.37 4.01 5.20 3.39 5.48 2.91
  
• Unemp rate 0.11 -0.03 0.07 -0.03 0.15 0
  0.58 3.23 0.39 2.86 0.55
  0.02 Govt Quality -1.66 0.82 -2.9 0.88 -6.13 -
  0.22 1.71 10.31 2.79 12.81 3.71
  0.34 Latitude 0.3 -0.02 0.64 0 3.88
  2.24 4.85 0.10
• R-squared 0.6 0.81 0.65 0.83 0.69 0.53

16
(No Transcript)
17
(No Transcript)