Cultural Participation and Life Satisfaction: Is the Engagement in the Arts a Benefit for Everyone?

Abstract Sustaining and preserving well-being has become a critical priority for policymakers, and a primary goal for institutions such as the European Union. In this context, renewed attention has been directed towards the role of cultural participation, deemed to be a crucial trigger of socio-economic development and social inclusion. Several studies have explored the relationship between cultural participation and well-being, often measured through life satisfaction. Results highlight a positive, but modest, association. Specifically, while the effects on life satisfaction are analysed at an individual level, they are the results of more complex intergenerational dynamics. In fact, taste formation and habits are greatly affected by parents through education and imitation mechanisms. These, in turn, affect not only the propensity to participate, but also the ability to derive utility from cultural participation. This paper employs mixture models (FMM) to examine the association between cultural participation and life satisfaction, assessing how it is moderated by family background. Our findings show a positive link, especially for disadvantaged social groups, where family background sometimes acts as a barrier to fully benefiting from engagement in the arts.