Teleworking, social capital, and subjective well-being: Evidence from US county-level data

Abstract

The decline in the United States (U.S.) happiness rankings calls for research on improving subjective well-being (SWB). Teleworking has raised questions about its effects on SWB. Utilizing the county-level Twitter Sentiment Geographical Index, structural equation modeling (SEM), and geographically weighted SEM, we explore how teleworking impacts SWB directly and indirectly through social capital: economic connectedness (EC), civic engagement (CE), and network cohesiveness (NC), while accounting for spatial heterogeneity. We find that teleworking is negatively associated with SWB directly and indirectly by weakening EC and decreasing NC, while positively associated with SWB through promoting CE. These direct and indirect pathways associated with teleworking exhibit spatial heterogeneity, contributing to the net increase in SWB in the eastern U.S., Arizona, and New Mexico, and a net decrease in SWB in the western U.S., like California and the north Great Plains. We also summarized the number of pathways in each county that directly or indirectly link telework to SWB through social capital. The north Great Plains and the southeastern U.S. exhibit the most pathways, while no significant pathways were observed in the northwestern U.S. These findings offer valuable insights for targeted teleworking policies, advancing the understanding of the teleworking-social capital-SWB relationship to guide policy decisions.