Capacitating welfare provision and subjective well-being: Social investment and life satisfaction among and beyond families and older populations

Abstract The social investment turn across Europe has strengthened the portent of in-kind service provision alongside traditional compensatory transfers. Service expansion has particularly alleviated family and old-age care responsibilities for both caregivers of immediate and extended family members. This article examines the policy complementarities between family and old-age care services and income protection buffers by testing whether easing life-course transitions, first through income security and then by capacitating welfare services, leads to higher life satisfaction. Linear regression results based on the European Social Survey (2002–2020), combined with social policy data from the OECD and Eurostat, demonstrate positive subjective well-being returns to higher in-kind social spending on families and old age when income compensation sufficiently safeguards against poverty. Therefore, income protection is vital for social investment services to be able to nurture effective capacitation at the individual level.