Contextual Effects of Bridging Social Capital on Subjective Well-being

MEXT-Supported Program for the Strategic Research Foundation at Private Universities (2014-2018)Forming a Social Well-being Research Consortium in AsiaThis paper investigates the statistical relationship between social capital and subjective well-being. Social capital is conceptually divided into four categories, i.e., bonding civic engagement, bridging civic engagement, bonding trust, and bridging trust. Web-survey data conducted in Japan in February 2015 is used (N = 11,814). The OLS regression for female sample shows that both of bonding and bridging trust have significantly positive effects on subjective well-being. On the other hand, the OLS regression for male sample indicates that there are significantly negative interaction effects between bridging and bonding social capital on subjective well-being. These findings suggest that at least in the male, bridging social capital facilitates subjective well-being not in anytime but only when one is poor in bonding social capital, in other words, he is isolated from their neighboring community