Paper Title
Impacts of Indigenous Social Capital on Happiness - An Empirical Study in Taiwan

Abstract
This study aims to explore the impacts of indigenous social capital (SC) on happiness, and to provide suggestions for promoting indigenous happiness. Both ‘SC scale’ and ‘happiness scale’ were proposed, tested and created with high reliability and validity through various researched methods. The SC scale consists of 3 aspects – bonding, bridging and linking social capital, and the happiness is comprised of 6 aspects – psychological well-being, physical and mental health, work-life balance, living standard, physical safety, and good governance. The population of the study were indigenous adults aged over 20 and 790 people were invited through cluster sampling to participate face-to-face interview successfully. The outcome shows that the level of indigenous social capital is rather rich, and the degree of happiness is towards positive, in particular in the aspects of ‘psychological well-being’ and ‘work-life balance’. Most aspects of social capital and happiness are interrelated significantly. Both bridging SC and linking SC would contribute to the degree of happiness positively and significantly. Finally, according to the analyses, this study proposed two main suggestions for promoting the happiness of indigenous people, including: 1. To reduce risk of social exclusion and to strengthen capacity of linkage with communities and societies through educating and cultivating skills of social communication for indigenous people. 2. Best use of indigenous bridging SC and linking SC to create more opportunities of improving their disadvantaged circumstances and promoting their happiness through contacting with communities and societies outside families. Key words - Social capital, well-being, happiness, indigenous people