Authors: Wolfgang Jagodzinski
Publish Date: 2009/12/31
Volume: 97, Issue: 1, Pages: 85-104
Abstract
This paper investigates the influence of the economic social and cultural variables on life satisfaction in Asia and Europe The second section sets a unifying theoretical framework for all three domains by defining life satisfaction as a function of aspirations and expectations which in turn are affected by micro and macrolevel variables On the microlevel economic capital is a resource for the actor On the macrolevel societal economic capital improves the opportunity structure for the individual under certain conditions Thus economic capital on both levels positively affects the perceived chances of fulfilling aspirations As long as the latter remain unchanged life satisfaction will increase Social and cultural factors partially follow the same logic as indicated by the terms social and cultural capital Under a set of assumptions the hypotheses derived are that personal and societal economic capital national pride and national integration religiosity and societal religious integration all positively affect the life satisfaction of the individual A multilevel analysis of data from the European Values Study and the AsiaBarometer confirms the microlevel hypotheses The economic macrolevel indicators also display the theoretically expected positive effect on life satisfaction in the multivariate analysis of Asian and European data By contrast the direct crosslevel effects of a society’s national integration and particularly of religion do not become significant in Europe yet they are highly significant in Asia This strong influence of the social and cultural context in Asia can be interpreted in two different ways
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