Are there heterogeneous impacts of social support on subjective well-being?

Abstract

Subjective well-being is a global health issue exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Social support has a positive impact on subjective well-being, however, the level of impact and the regulatory mechanism of social support on subjective well-being with reference to economic and cultural differences is unknown. Based on the Gallup survey data, a panel fixed effect model is constructed to examine the heterogeneity and regulatory mechanisms of social support on subjective well-being according to country-based economic and cultural matrix. Our findings show that, first, economic differences cause heterogeneous influence of social support on subjective well-being. Specifically, high-income countries have positive impact of social support on subjective well-being; whereas the lower ones have no significant influence. Secondly, cultural differences also cause heterogeneous impact, i.e. generosity of cultural characteristics regardless of high or low level in countries has a significant positive impact on subjective well-being, however, the degree of impact varies and is associated with level of generosity. Thirdly, a cross examination of heterogeneous moderating effect shows that democracy and freedom have a significant positive adjustment effect in both high and low generosity culture-characterized countries. These findings are significant to shape the conception of economic dominated social support for well-being, with significant implication for balancing (or shifting) social and public health policy with economic support towards building generosity and democratic societies.

Keywords

• subjective well-being
• social support
• heterogeneous impact
• economic difference
• cultural difference