The Pursuit of Happiness: The Effect of Social Involvement on Life Satisfaction in Canada

Abstract

A popular area of discussion within “happiness studies” across disciplines is the question of whether money can buy happiness or not. Contradictory findings have encouraged an ongoing debate and keep the topic aflame among sociologists, economists, and psychologists. Recently, sociologists have branched out to consider other social factors that may bear a closer relationship to a person’s level of happiness: marital status, religiosity, work and employment, to name a few. Using quantitative methods to analyze data from the 2005-2006 World Values Survey, this paper shows that social involvement and civic participation can promote happiness among Canadians. Statistical controls rule out potential confounding variables, which are based off of past literature on happiness studies. The results suggest that social involvement does indeed promote happiness among Canadians; however, there are multiple factors which increase or decrease one’s likelihood of being socially involved. Three major influencers were identified: affluence, education and religiosity.