Implications of Social Capital on Life satisfaction in a Stratified Society: Gendering the Bonding, Bridging, and Linking framework using representative samples of India

Subjective wellbeing (happiness or life satisfaction) has become a fundamental goal in assessing social progress. However, given the limited understanding of the drivers of SWB in the context of India, formulating public policy has been difficult. The current study attempted to address this difficulty by examining social capital, or a particular type of it, as a potential predictor of life satisfaction. Further, we surmised that given the inherence of sharp gender-based social stratification in Indian society, the relationship between social capital and life satisfaction is bound to be different for males and females. We used trifurcate theoretical descriptions of social capital—bonding, bridging, and linking—and conducted principal component analysis (PCA) to empirically identify distinct components of social capital utilizing the data extracted from the sixth wave of the World Values Survey (2010–2014). In India’s gender-based stratified society, we found that men tend to have higher social capital levels than women. The multivariate regression analyses reveal gender preferences of social capital: while bridging social capital was significantly crucial for happiness among men, it was bonding social capital for women. We found that linking social capital predicts life satisfaction for both genders, indicating that policies to improve the functioning of, and nurturing a trustworthy environment towards formal institutions—such as the legislative and judiciary bodies—among the citizens, may maximize and optimize their happiness.