Ask me if I am happy: sport practice and life satisfaction in Italy

Marco Domizio () and Elena Fabrizi ()
Additional contact information
Marco Domizio: University of Teramo
Elena Fabrizi: University of Teramo

Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, 2024, vol. 58, issue 6, No 35, 5865-5881

Abstract: Abstract This paper investigates the influence of physical activity on well-being. We use data from the Aspects of Daily Life survey provided by the Italian National Institute of Statistics, for the period 2013–2019. To capture the effect of sport participation on life satisfaction we face the problem of endogeneity. We solve this issue from a methodological point of view by using an instrumental variable (IV) ordered probit model, where the instrument has been identified in living nearby to an equipped green area. Our investigation suggests that physical activity is positively and strongly associated with life satisfaction, showing that the probability of being very happy is very high (70%) among individuals practicing sport regularly. For this reason, policies targeted at promoting and supporting sport practice play a key role in determining the subjective well-being of citizens. Our results also indicate a significant association between life satisfaction and gender, and between life satisfaction and inability to work, revealing the need to foster inclusive policies to reduce differences in well-being among groups of population.

Keywords: Happiness; Life satisfaction; Physical activity; Sport participation; Ordered probit model; Instrumental variable (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11135-024-01921-x Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:qualqt:v:58:y:2024:i:6:d:10.1007_s11135-024-01921-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11135

DOI: 10.1007/s11135-024-01921-x

Access Statistics for this article

Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology is currently edited by Vittorio Capecchi

More articles in Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().