Social Participation in Poland: Links to Emotional Well-Being and Risky Alcohol Consumption

Maria Pavlova (), Rainer Silbereisen and Kamil Sijko

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 2014, vol. 117, issue 1, 29-44

Abstract: Social participation has been hypothesised to have both positive and negative impact on health outcomes via a variety of pathways, but previous studies have found few significant effects of social participation, and there is a lack of research from post-communist societies, which are known to be low on social capital. Using cross-sectional data from Poland on 2,970 individuals surveyed in 2009, we investigated the individual-level relationships between formal and informal social participation, emotional well-being, and risky alcohol consumption while controlling for demographic variables, socioeconomic status, employment and partnership status, health, religiosity, and generalised trust. Frequent joint activities with friends and neighbours were related to higher positive affect but also to more risky alcohol consumption. Membership in voluntary organisations was associated with more risky alcohol consumption, especially among younger males and for certain types of organisations. In contrast, volunteer work was related to higher positive affect and fewer depressive symptoms in the whole sample and to less risky alcohol consumption among the younger participants. The findings illustrate that some types of social participation, even if they are not typical of a given context (e.g., volunteering in Poland), may be more beneficial than others. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Keywords: Social capital; Social participation; Formal and informal ties; Volunteering; Mental health; Alcohol abuse (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:soinre:v:117:y:2014:i:1:p:29-44

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DOI: 10.1007/s11205-013-0332-9

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