Cultural Well-Being and GDP Per Capita in Italy: Empirical Evidence

Social and cultural participation has always been a means to promote high economic growth and the development of the individual in a given society. Public and private institutions often try to make available efforts and resources to promote the usability of free time and social participation. This paper uses data from the multipurpose survey on Italian households, conducted by the Italian Institute of Statistics, and it analyses the relationship between cultural capability and the income and economic means of Italian households through the construction of a composite indicator of cultural well‐being. The analysis of the individual indicators of education and cultural participation makes it possible to study issues related to the development of social capital in the northern and southern areas, thus highlighting the gap and enabling the decision‐maker to apply possible corrections.