Sports participation and subjective well-being Quality o li e and well-being have been analyzed through di erent points o view over time. During the last years, several studies have used the most diverse terms such as happiness and li e satis action when aiming to study the way people evaluate their own lives (Diener and Diener 1996). De initions o subjective well-being can be grouped into three domains (Diener 1984). During this study, the adopted de inition will be the one ormulated by social research, according to which subjective well-being depends on how and why individuals positively evaluate their lives, this is, individual's li e satis action. his dimension has been attracting sociologists' attention and stands out as the main indicator o well-being (Giacomoni 2004). According to Diener et al. (1999, 277), subjective well-being is 'a broad category o phenomena that includes people's emotional responses, domain satis actions and global judgments o li e satis action' , which translates the individuals' current assessment o their own happiness (Schwartz and Strack 1999). It is worthy to mention three aspects o subjective well-being (Diener 1984): 1) well-being is subjective, depending on the individual's perception and personal experience; 2) well-being implies not only the absence o negative actors, but also the presence o positive actors; 3) well-being must be seen as an overall measure rather than a measure o a single aspect o li e. In what concerns the sports participation, the European Commission's (2014) de inition o physical activity was adopted. here ore, physical activity was considered as any orm o physical activity that has been practiced in a sporting or related context, such as swimming, running outdoors, running at a gym or club, sports competitions etc. An important share o the literature has ocussed on identi ying the sociodemographic and economic determinants o individuals' subjective well-being (Dolan, Peasgood, and White 2008; Kahneman 1999; Scorsolini-Comin and Santos 2010) such as income, work situation, academic degree, gender and race. However, in the sports ield, ew studies have attempted to examine whether physical and sporting activity impacts individuals' overall well-being. Pawlowski, Downward, and Rasciute 2011) argue that practicing physical activity and sports is a personal and rational decision that maximizes an individual's rational utility, and must there ore, be logically associated with increased subjective well-being. Results have shown convergence o positive and signi icate e ects o sports practice on subjective well-being: Becchetti, Pelloni, and Rossetti (2008) ound that sports participation in either type (i.e. collective and individual) increased subjective well-being; Lechner (2009) observed signi icant e ects o sports participation on men's subjective well-being but not on women's; Rasciute and Downward (2010) concluded that walking and recreational cycling had a positive e ect on individuals' happiness; Downward and Rasciute (2011) veri ied di erent e ects on subj...
