Life satisfaction and the variety and intensity of cultural participation in Italy: disentangling the individual and regional dimensions

This paper proposes a novel approach to explore the relation between cultural participation and subjective well-being, and to dig into the relation between the individual and regional dimensions. Using the Italian Multipurpose survey, we derive major cultural consumer profiles that combine the variety and intensity of engagement through latent class analysis. We then investigate how heterogeneity in cultural profiles at the national and regional levels relates to overall life satisfaction and relevant domains (leisure and friendship relationships). The results indicate a positive relation with diversity in consumption becoming more significant in specific domains. At the same time, we find patterns of regional variation in the relation, which is only partly explained by indicators of cultural supply at the regional level. The findings shed light on the role of habits of cultural consumption in individual well-being and inform the policy debate on culture-led interventions.