Social Capital and Subjective Well-Being in a Least Developed Country Context;A Pseudo- Panel Approach

• In Event: 20820 - Section on Medical Sociology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 16. Global Health

Abstract

Abstract
Social capital is recognized as a key predictor of psychosocial well-being, yet its effects in least-developed countries, like Ethiopia, remain unclear. Current cross-sectional studies overlook the well-being effect of various aspects of social capital and face endogeneity issues. Using World Gallup Poll data collected from Ethiopian households between 2013 and 2020, we rigorously examined the influence of different aspects of social capital on subjective well-being using an innovative pseudo-panel approach. To this end, we fitted several models of Arellano and Bond's system generalized method of moments (sys-GMM) using a stepwise model selection procedure.

This study reveals that regardless of socioeconomic and demographic attributes and time, at least one aspect of social capital significantly affects life satisfaction and emotional well-being. Interestingly, the various aspects of social capital are differently associated with the two aspects of subjective well-being. While almost all indicators of social capital significantly predicted emotional well-being, a single indicator significantly affected life satisfaction. Finally, it uncovered that the current perception of life satisfaction and emotional experiences are significantly associated with past satisfaction and experiences.
Therefore, apart from confirming the typical hypothesis that social capital is a significant predictor of subjective well-being, the pseudo-panel approach provides a new avenue to improve the causal explanation of well-being by accounting for the temporal ordering of past experiences. It also unlocks opportunities to transform the readily available cross-sectional data into a meaningful pseudo-panel dataset that links micro- and aggregate-level issues. This perspective can help policymakers recognize the relationship between past and present well-being for targeted interventions.



Keywords: Social capital, pseudo-panel approach, subjective well-being, experienced emotions, life satisfaction

Authors

• Kelemu Fenta Gebeyehu, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

• Yuying Tong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

• Migbaru Workneh

• Lei Jin, Chinese University of Hong Kong