What is the impact of social well-being factors on happiness?

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, corruption perception, real gross domestic product per capita and the Gini index on happiness. Design/methodology/approach – In this study, the sample consists of 137 countries observed over the period 2017–2019. A multidimensional approach is used consisting of a principal component analysis and an econometric linear regression model. Findings – The findings indicate that perception, taking care of other people, corruption perception, freedom to make life choices and healthy life expectancy are the most determining factors of social well-being. Practical implications – Well-being benefits countries by improving living standards. Indeed, taking care of other people, corruption perception, freedom to make life choices and healthy life expectancy directly and positively correlate with social well-being. Originality/value – This study contributes to the previous literature in three ways. First, this paper provides fresh and recent data on social well-being. Second, the author introduced a multidimensional approach using a principal component analysis of the different social well-being factors to detect correlation between these indicators and to determine homogeneous clusters. Third, through these indicators, a country's leaders can formulate policies to enhance social well-being because it is closely linked to the improvement of the standard of living, good governance and therefore an increase in GDP.