Exploring the relationship between subjective well-being and diversity and intensity in cultural consumption

This paper proposes a novel approach to explore the relationship between cultural participation and subjective well-being. While most empirical research has considered such a connection using cultural activities individually or in additive terms, we adopt cultural consumption profiles that simultaneously combine variety and intensity of engagement in different cultural activities. Using data from the 2018 Italian Multipurpose survey on households “Aspects of daily life”, we first derive major profiles of cultural consumers through Latent Class Analysis and investigate how heterogeneity in cultural profiles which combine intensity and diversity is associated with overall life satisfaction and relevant domains (health, leisure and friendship relations). The results of our empirical analysis indicate a positive relationship between cultural participation and overall life satisfaction, which generally increases according to the diversity and intensity of practices expressed in the profiles of cultural consumers. Still, diversity in consumption becomes more relevant in specific domains of life satisfaction. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the role of cultural consumption habits on individual well-being and have implications for the variety of culture-led welfare policies.