Are You Well Connected? Socializing and Well-being in Europe

Abstract: This paper investigates the relationship between social interactions between individuals and their subjective well-being, in European countries. The dataset at use is the European Social Survey (ESS), which includes a rich set of proxies characterizing social interaction intensity and social capital level of individuals in general, as well as other socio-demographic and household characteristics. Estimating several well-being regressions, which controls for established determinants, very strong relationships between social interactions and well-being are found. The result is robust with respect to several checks, including estimators, measures, weights and controlling for potential personality indicators to capture unobserved influences on well-being. The paper also discusses potential channels explaining the relationship. Social capital levels, interaction-related time-use, dispositions and beliefs, and culture are all found to play important roles in the relationship between social interactions and well-being.