Social Capital and Subjective Well-being in the Countries of the Andean Community (CAN)

Abstract

In the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), its political management seeks to establish the level of social capital and subjective well-being of the population. This study utilizes data from the seventh wave of the World Values Survey (WVS) to analyze social capital and subjective well-being in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. A total of 5343 cases were collected using non-probabilistic sampling, and the research is documentary and temporally horizontal, covering the period from 2017 to 2021. Data were processed using SPSS software version 25, with variables measured on a Likert scale of 1 to 3 (1 = a lot, 2 = a little, 3 = not at all). Descriptive statistics were applied for the first objective, while Spearman's correlation was used to analyze the relationship between social capital (CS) and subjective well-being (BS). Among the most important results, it is evident that Colombia and Ecuador have a better perception of life satisfaction compared to Bolivia and Peru. The strongest correlation was found between trust in women's organizations and trust in charitable or humanitarian organizations, with a Spearman's Rho of 0.585. These findings highlight that CS and BS are indispensable variables for understanding people's perception of their environment.