It is increasingly recognized that health and well-being positively influence political participation. The mechanism that links well-being to participation relates to the availability of resources: paying attention to political issues requires resources, which can be more scarce among those suffering from poor health and ill-being. Considering that subjective well-being is an integral part of personal health, indicators of well-being, such as happiness and life satisfaction, vitality, and absence of anxiety, could increase the likelihood of participation in elections and extra-electoral political activities. Despite its potential, subjective well-being has so far been underexplored as a determinant of political participation. Meanwhile, better understanding the impact of well-being on political participation could further explain why inequalities in participation persist, and teach politicians lessons on how to maximise voters’ well-being in view of increasing their support.
This Paper aims to contribute to the emerging field of research on health and political behaviour by examining the association between subjective well-being and political participation. We will use measures of experienced, emotional and eudaimonic well-being to investigate the influence of well-being on political activity. By taking a comparative approach and using cross-sectional survey data provided by the European Social Survey, our study sheds light on the following: how do emotional, evaluative and eudaimonic well-being affect political activity, across various forms of participation in selected European countries? We hypothesize that the relationship between subjective well-being and political participation is curvilinear: after an initial increase, the positive effect wears off at the highest levels of well-being. We also expect to find cross-country variation in the results due to cultural and institutional factors, which can influence the effect of well-being on participation. The data suggests that subjective well-being can significantly influence political activity, and should be paid more attention to in future research on health and political behaviour.
