A presentation by Fabrice Murtin

1. CULTURAL PARTICIPATION AND
LOCAL DEVELOPMENT
Fabrice Murtin
Head of Research, Modelling and Advanced Analytics
OECD Centre on Well-Being, Inclusion, Sustainability and
Equal Opportunity (WISE)

2. 1. The well-being agenda has expanded rapidly and measurement
frameworks have been extensively developed
2. Culture is central in several national well-being measurement
frameworks (Bhutan, NZL…)
3. …but poor measures at international level:
a. Too prescriptive (focus on classical culture)
b. Too narrow (inputs vs outcomes)
c. Poor country coverage (except cinema)
4. Main measurement difficulties:
a. Many forms of culture
b. Ambiguity: Identity vs participation
5. Parallel between social and cultural capital: Cultural participation
is a bridging social relationship, identity is a bonding sense of
community or belonging (Putnam)
-> extend measurement of bridging activities (e.g. time-use surveys)
2
Cultural indicators in well-being
frameworks

3. 3
The impacts of cultural participation
Bridging social capital
• Yields trust, economic development and social stability
Individual Well-being
• Forthcoming paper with Pier Luigi Sacco on “cultural participation
and well-being”
• Micro level (time-use): cultural participation yields the highest
well-being across all human activities (but selection effect)
• Macro level: strong link between life satisfaction and cinema
attendance
• Multi-disciplinary literature review spanning social sciences,
epidemiology, medical and neurological studies, and covering
music, visual arts, literature, cinema and theatre (active & passive):
– Lower heart rates and blood pressure, less stress and higher well-being for
all activities (active & passive)
– Only mixed results with active literature (selection effect)

4. • Intrinsic reward from cultural participation
(gene-culture coevolution?)
• Social cognition and pro-sociality
• Social connectedness
• Physical activity
• Resilience
• Eudaimonic sense-making
• Emotional regulation
• Social incentives (recognition, identity)
4
Pathways from cultural participation
to wellbeing

5. 5
Next steps
• Statisticians: Get better measures at international level
(Eurostat) recognising the diversity of culture
• Economists: Value cultural participation through its
mental health and SWB impacts: calculate shadow price
of several cultural activities for extended cost-benefit
analysis (e.g. NZL Treasury), in line with the research
programme of the OECD Well-being Center (WISE)
• Policy-makers:
– Factor in well-being benefits when budgeting culture
(culture is like health, it is more than a cost)
– Probably expand funding (more decentralised?)