Community still matters: horizontal and vertical interrelation of social advantages in explaining personal well-being in Indonesia

Abstract

Despite the abundance of social well-being research, there is still a research gap on the topic of the relation between social advantages and personal well-being in Indonesia. This research analyses the relationship between social advantages and personal well-being, with income and education as control variables. This article provides new breakthroughs (1) in the use of a more comprehensive method to analyze personal well-being and its determinants and (2) by proving more specifically about the relationship between the vertical aspect and the horizontal aspect such as family and community support. This study uses a quantitative survey of 1250 respondents as the main method, with bivariate, multivariate, and regression analyses. In addition, the qualitative method used interviews to obtain a comprehensive explanation of the relationship between two variables. The findings show that vertical-based social advantage is significantly higher than the horizontal aspect in elevating the respondents’ personal well-being. In the context of Indonesia, horizontal social advantages are sufficient to contribute to personal well-being, but cannot be separated from their interrelation with aspects of vertical social advantages such as fulfilling economic needs as a prerequisite. Furthermore, the role of communities, friends, colleagues, and neighbours in detecting and assisting in providing economic goods in times of need has an importance influence on the elevation of personal well-being.