Social Capital and Subjective Wellbeing in Europe: A New Approach on Social Capital

This paper aims to analyze the relationship between the various dimensions of social capital and subjective wellbeing. Data used in this study come from the fourth wave of the European Social Survey and different measures of wellbeing are used to take account of both the cognitive and affective processes of individual wellbeing (i.e. life satisfaction, happiness, and subjective wellbeing). A factor analysis is performed to summarize information coming from a large set of variables into different components corresponding to each dimension of social capital (i.e. networks, norms, and trust). Among the results, we find that the impact of social capital on subjective wellbeing differ depending on the component of social capital which is under analysis. In particular, social networks, social trust and institutional trust are the components that show a higher correlation with subjective wellbeing. Furthermore, in addition to the positive effects of the individual variables, our results suggest that social capital at the aggregate level positively correlates with individual wellbeing, thus pointing to an external or environmental effect of social capital.     

Social Capital Inequality and Subjective Wellbeing of Older Chinese

Using longitudinal data from the China Family Panel Studies, this study provides insights on comparative wellbeing outcomes for older people who are institutionally segregated into clusters that produce uneven social capital. We present the first study that examines how institutionalized social capital inequality, measured by the social capital gap generated by hukou (household registration) status in China, affects the wellbeing of older people. Our results show that high levels of social capital inequality are associated with lower subjective wellbeing, measured by life satisfaction. This general conclusion is robust to a number of sensitivity checks including alternative ways of measuring subjective wellbeing and inequality. We also find that the negative relationship between social capital inequality and subjective wellbeing is strongest for people with a non-urban hukou living in urban areas. Our findings highlight the need for policies aimed at narrowing the social capital gap and the dismantling of institutional structures that hinder upward social capital mobility.

     

The Compensating Income Variation of Social Capital

There is a small but growing literature on the determinants of social capital. Most of these studies use a measure of trust to define social capital empirically. In this paper we use three different measures of social capital: the size of the individual’s social network, the extent of their social safety net and membership of unions or associations. A second contribution to the literature is that we analyze what social capital contributes to our well-being. Based on this, we calculate the compensating income variation of social capital. We find differences in social capital when we differentiate according to individual characteristics such as education, age, place of residence, household composition and health. Household income generally has a statistically significant effect. We find a significant effect of social capital on␣life␣satisfaction. Consequently, the compensating income variation of social capital is substantial. Thanks to Tijl Woortman for his research assistance.     

Social Capital,Government and Democracy Satisfaction,and Happiness in Turkey: A Comparison of Surveys in 1999 and 2008

Based on data from a 1999 and a 2008 European Values Survey, the main objective of this study is to explore the relationship between a variety of social capital indicators, satisfaction with government and democracy, and subjective well-being. Happiness and life satisfaction were used as outcome measures of subjective well-being. The indicators of social capital used in this study are general trust, trust in institutions, political engagement, concern for others, societal norms, and membership in volunteer organizations. The analyses reveal a significant increase in happiness, life satisfaction, and many social capital variables between 1999 and 2008. Generalized trust, trust in institutions, government satisfaction, and democracy satisfaction are positive correlates of well-being, although some relationships are significant only in 2008. Several demographic variables are also linked with subjective well-being such as income, employment status, age, gender, and education. We discuss the findings in relation to the significant societal, economic, and political changes experienced in Turkey between 1999 and 2008. Policy implications are also emphasized such as improved trust among individuals, trustworthiness of government institutions, and functioning of democracy.     

All in the Family: How Do Social Capital and Material Wellbeing Affect Relational Wellbeing?

We use a unique dataset from Italy to investigate the impact of socioeconomic characteristics and social capital on family wellbeing and satisfaction. We assess wellbeing using four dimensions of satisfaction with family life: satisfaction with decision making processes, with relationships with partner and children, and with time spent with children. Social capital is measured through information about membership in organizations, trust, and interactions with others. We find that while socioeconomic characteristics in general do not have strong effects on family wellbeing, social capital matters for family life satisfaction.

     

How Does Relative Income and Variations in Short-Run Wellbeing Affect Wellbeing in the Long Run? Empirical Evidence From China’s Korean Minority

Cognitively appraised life satisfaction is relatively stable over time and can be considered as reflecting subjective wellbeing in the long run. Affect is transitory and can be considered as reflecting subjective wellbeing in the short run. Using the Personal Wellbeing Index to measure cognitively appraised life satisfaction and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule to measure positive and negative affect we examine how income relative to one’s comparator group and variations in short run wellbeing impact upon wellbeing in the long run. We do so for China’s Korean ethnic minority. We find that affective state has an effect on wellbeing in the long run and that a negative shock to affectivity is more persistent than a positive shock. We also find that relative income, rather than absolute income, matters for wellbeing in the long run and that the results are consistent with a status effect.     

Regional Heterogeneity of Life Satisfaction in Urban China: Evidence from Hierarchical Ordered Logit Analysis

Given sheer geographic size and unequal regional development, common wisdom may attribute the heterogeneity of individual subjective wellbeing largely to regional disparity in China. Using a hierarchical ordered logit model and the Subjective Survey for Chinese Livelihood Index in 2012, this study however finds that regional factors only account for 3.7 % of total variance of individual subjective wellbeing in urban China. It implies that regional differences are not important for explaining individual happiness though some regional variables are statistically significant. Correspondingly, the Chinese governments should make policies down to individual level to promote people's life satisfaction. Other findings on income and social demographical variables are consistent with the current studies.     

Measurement and socio-demographic variation of social capital in a large population-based survey

Objectives The main objective of this study was to describe the variation of individual social capital according to socio-demographic factors, and to develop a suitable way to measure social capital for this purpose. The similarity of socio-demographic variation between the genders was also assessed. Data and methods The study applied cross-sectional data from the national Finnish Health 2000 survey (n = 8,028) which represents the adult population, aged 30 years and over. Several variables indicating social capital were condensed to dimensions on the basis of factor analysis. Participants were categorized into tertiles in each dimension of social capital by means of factor scores. The multinomial logistic regression model was used to produce the adjusted prevalences for the dimensions of social capital according to socio-demographic categories (age, gender, education, living arrangements, income, and type of region). Results Three dimensions of social capital were distinguished: social support, social participation and networks, and trust and reciprocity. Age had an inverse association with social support as well as participation and networks, and a curvilinear association between age and trust and reciprocity, the oldest age groups showing the highest level of trust. Married persons and those in the highest educational and income groups tended to have more social capital than other persons. Residents of urban and rural regions did not systematically differ from each other in their level of social capital although residents of urban regions participated less and showed less trust than people living in semi-urban or rural regions. Social support varied significantly with gender. The decline of social support by age was steeper in women than in men. Social participation and networks increased with education, the gradient appearing steeper among men. The difference between married and cohabiting men was substantial compared to women when it came to trust. Conclusions People who are young, married, educated, and well-off have plenty of social capital. This information might help various services to concentrate the actions on the people in danger of social exclusion. Our results also form a basis for the future by allowing the changes in social capital to be examined over time and over different studies.     

Aversion to Local Wellbeing Inequality is Moderated by Social Engagement and Sense of Community

Our subjective wellbeing is a mix of our personal and community wellbeing. One indication of their close relationship is the strong negative correlation between our own subjective wellbeing and the degree of subjective wellbeing inequality within our community. This negative relationship reflects our innate and socialized inequality aversion and holds regardless of whether the group is large as in the case of countries or small in the case of local neighbourhoods. While the country case has been well documented in the subjective wellbeing literature, the relationship between the local community distribution of subjective wellbeing and individual subjective wellbeing has received little attention. In this paper we demonstrate the sensitivity of individual life satisfaction to the distribution of life satisfaction within electoral wards in urban New Zealand and explore several possible behavioural drivers. We find that having social support and feeling a sense of community both reduce the negative effects of local subjective wellbeing inequality, while being less socially engaged exaggerates them. Our results highlight the potential that programmes aimed at reducing wellbeing inequalities within local communities might play in raising individual as well as average wellbeing.

     

In Social Capital We Trust?

It has been widely postulated in the literature that social capital is positively related to or is the same as trust. The present study presents three theoretical perspectives regarding how individual and organizational social capital may be related to network trust and generalized trust: the compositional element (Putnam), functional equivalence (Fukuyama), and mutual independence (Lin). To each of these perspectives we allocated distinct measures of individual and organizational network mechanisms considering their operational definition of social capital. Using nationally representative data sets from the United States and China, we developed a comparative research design through which the three perspectives were put into an empirical test. In conclusion, we found that the compositional element perspective is most prone to cross-national contingencies, whereas the mutual independence perspective is freer from such contextual influences. In particular, the positive association between number of membership in voluntary associations (organizational social capital) and generalized trust exists only in the United States, whereas individual social capital based on network diversity and resources is unrelated to generalized trust in neither country. Lastly, the functional equivalence perspective does not get empirical support from the data, particularly with regard to the proposed negative relationship between network closure and generalized trust. These findings challenge the assumptions concerning the positive association or equivalence between social capital and trust in the literature.

     

Structural and Cognitive Aspects of Social Capital and All-Cause Mortality: A Meta-Analysis of Cohort Studies

Social capital covers different characteristics such as social networks, social participation, social support and trust. The aim of this study was to explore which aspects of social capital were predictive of mortality. Criteria for inclusion in the meta-analysis were: population based observational cohort studies (follow-up ≥5 years); study sample included the adult population; parts of social capital as the primary exposure variable of interest; reported a mortality outcome; and sample size >1,000 individuals. Twenty studies provided eligible data for the meta-analyses. A random effect model was used to estimate the combined overall hazard rate ratio effects of structural social capital such as social participation and social networks, and cognitive social capital including social support and trust in relation to mortality. The results showed that social participation and social networks were negatively associated with mortality. The impact of social networks attenuated somewhat when controlling for gender and age. While trust also appeared to be negatively associated with mortality, we remain cautious with this conclusion, since only two studies provided eligible data. Perceived social support failed to show a significant impact upon mortality. The findings suggest that people who engage socially and report frequent contacts with friends and family live longer.     

A Multilevel Analysis of the Compositional and Contextual Association of Social Capital and Subjective Well-Being in Seoul, South Korea

The purpose of this study is to examine the association between social capital and subjective well-being (life satisfaction) by using multilevel analysis considering both individual and area-level social capital while adjusting for various control variables at multiple-levels in Seoul, South Korea. The data was from the 2010 (Wave 2) Seoul Welfare Panel Study, conducted by Seoul Welfare Foundation. The final sample for this study consisted of 5,934 individuals aged 18 years or older in 2,847 households within 25 administrative areas. Three-level multilevel linear regression analyses, with random intercept models, were applied. Our results provide evidence that various dimensions of social capital both at the individual and area-level are positively associated with subjective life satisfaction, even after controlling for various factors at the individual, household, and area-levels. All of individual-level social capital variables including organizational participation, perceived helpfulness, trust in authorities were positively associated with subjective life satisfaction. Except for trust in authority, area-level organizational participation and perceived helpfulness were positively associated with subjective life satisfaction. These results suggest that decision makers should consider both individual and area-level social capital targeting to enhance one’s well-being.     

Income Inequality and Subjective Well-being: A Cross-National Study on the Conditional Effects of Individual and National Characteristics

In this study we raise the question how a nation’s income inequality affects subjective well-being. Using information on 195,091 individuals from 85 different countries from the World Value Surveys and the European Value Surveys, we established that in general, people living in more unequal countries report higher well-being than people from more equal countries. This association however does not apply to all people similarly. First, the positive effect of a nation’s income inequality is weaker when individuals express more social and institutional trust, and underscore egalitarian norms to a larger extent. Second, the positive association between national income inequality and subjective well-being is less strong for people from countries with high levels of social and institutional trust. So, our research predominantly indicates that there are far-reaching effects of an individual’s and a nation’s trust on people’s well-being.     

Social Capital or Social Cohesion: What Matters For Subjective Well-Being?

The theoretical analysis of the concepts of social capital and of social cohesion shows that social capital should be considered as a micro concept whereas social cohesion, being a broader concept than social capital, is a more appropriate concept for macro analysis. Therefore, we suggest that data on the individual level should only be used to analyze the relationship between social capital, social cohesion indicators and subjective well-being and that they do not allow commenting on the level of social cohesion in a society. For this last type of analyses aggregated indicators of social cohesion have to be computed which is not the issue of this paper. Our empirical analysis is based on individual data for Luxembourg in 2008. In general, our results suggest that investments in social capital generate monetary returns (increased income) and psychic returns (increased subjective well-being) even in a highly developed and multicultural country like Luxembourg. When we are adding on the micro level variables representing the economic domain of social cohesion following Bernard (1999), then we observe that this domain also has an effect on income and on subjective well-being. Therefore, we recommend including the economic domain in any future analysis using the concept of social cohesion.     

Socio-Cultural Dispositions and Wellbeing of the Women Left Behind: A Case of Migrant Households in Nepal

The concept of wellbeing is gaining popularity in the study of quality of life and cultural significance of living. The paper aims to contribute to our understanding of objective and subjective wellbeing by exploring the perceptions of women left behind by out-migrating husbands on their quality of life in a transnational social field. The paper uses both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Its primary focus is on the life stories of the four women left behind by their migrant husbands, complementing by quantitative data obtained from a survey among 277 households. Taking an example from Nepal's eastern terai, the paper shows that additional income from remittances has increased the objective wellbeing of the women left behind, but it may not have increased their subjective wellbeing. Hence, it is concluded that improved objective wellbeing of a woman does not necessarily translate into her (improved) subjective wellbeing. The subjective experiences are rather complex, multi-faceted and context specific depending on the family situation, socio-cultural disposition and prior economic situation of the actors involved.     

Effects of Social Networks on Health from a Stress Theoretical Perspective

This paper focuses on the relevance of quantitative and qualitative aspects of social networks in a health context. The study combined a stress theoretical perspective with theories of social support and social capital in order to investigate the mechanisms behind the association of social network size and self-rated health. The main research question in the study is whether social integration affects health by changing stressor appraisal (perceived stressor intensity or anticipated stressor burden). The study used a survey of an Austrian student sample (n = 246) to measure two models of hypothetical exposure to a potentially stressful event. The findings indicate that individuals with larger trust and support networks consider potential stressors to be less threatening, which leads to a reduced level of stress symptoms and a better subjective health condition. The influence of network size on stressor appraisal is fully mediated by the perceived social embeddedness that these ties induce.     

Development and Governance in the Ex-Soviet Union: An Empirical Inquiry

The widespread adoption of the concept of wellbeing in the social sciences literature has allowed researchers to move beyond a narrow economic focus on income and consumption as the primary measure of inequality and poverty. Although statistical measurement and analyses of wellbeing have become increasingly feasible due to the availability of rich datasets, the empirical literature on wellbeing remains deficient in a number of ways. In this paper we argue that it is necessary that empirical studies of wellbeing encompass multiple. Applying Sen’s capability approach as our theoretical model we subsequently develop a modelling framework that applies the polychoric principal component analysis (PCA) method for the calculation of objective wellbeing and wellbeing inequality using household asset, education, health and housing dimensions. Findings from our case study of Vietnam challenge previous single dimensional analyses and reveal a number of layers to our understanding of wellbeing inequality in Vietnam. We argue that our use of polychoric PCA is especially suited to the analysis of wellbeing by explicitly incorporating the analysis of both cardinal and ordinal variables and overcoming deficiencies established in the literature relating to the use of standard PCA.

     

Political Distrust and Social Capital in Europe and the USA

Levels of rising political distrust in the USA and parts of Europe attracted political scientists’ attention in the 1990s, and urged them to look at possible consequences of this phenomenon for the functioning of democracies and social life. Approximately during the same period, from a sociological viewpoint, social capital theorists started studying the effects of declining social capital on political and economic life. In this article, we looked at the relationship between political distrust and social capital from an interdisciplinary perspective. We studied the relationship in six European countries from three regions (North-West, South and East), and the USA, and we were interested in the question of whether this relationship varies over the regions, or whether it is approximately the same everywhere. We used ISPP data from the 2004 wave, which included a range of social capital indicators and political distrust items. Social capital was subdivided into four dimensions, namely, networks (membership of organizations), interpersonal or social trust, social norms (citizenship norms), and linking social capital (political activities). First we studied the effect of political distrust on these four dimensions of social capital, while controlling for other variables such as political efficacy, political interest and a set of socio-structural background variables. One of our main findings was that the only significant effect of political distrust we found throughout all countries was a negative effect on one dimension of social capital, namely, interpersonal trust: the more people distrust politicians and people in government, the less they trust other people in general, even when controlled for all other variables. The reverse relationship led us to the same conclusion: the more people tend to trust people in general, the less they distrust politics, a result we found in all countries. This finding refutes the claim that there is no or either only a very weak relationship between political and social trust, as some have strongly argued before. Other important political attitudes connected to social capital were political interest and political efficacy, and for political distrust it was external efficacy. Significant socio-economic factors were religiousness and educational level for membership of voluntary organizations, educational level for interpersonal trust, religiousness for citizenship norms, and educational level and age for political activities. The reciprocal relationship was strongest in the USA and North-Western Europe, as were the explained variances of our (more extensive) regression models. In Southern and Eastern Europe other factors appear to be at work which influence both social capital and political distrust.     

Social Comparisons and Life Satisfaction Across Racial and Ethnic Groups: The Effects of Status,Information and Solidarity

This paper explores the role of within group social comparisons on the life satisfaction of different racial and ethnic groups in the US. For Whites, we find that higher group income levels are associated with lower levels of life satisfaction, a result that is consistent with a preference for within group status. In contrast, life satisfaction is increasing in group income for Blacks. This result is consistent with the existence of social norms that emphasize Black solidarity. It is also consistent with an information effect in which Blacks rely on peer income levels to form expectations regarding their future prospects. We introduce a theoretical framework to help to distinguish between solidarity and information effects. Our empirical results provide strong support for the hypothesis that solidarity rather than information accounts for the positive relationship between average Black income and the subjective wellbeing of US Blacks. Finally, we consider two theories of social solidarity and find support for social salience but not social density in determining the strength of solidarity effects.     

Informal Networks Social Capital of Fathers: What Does the Social Engagement Survey Tell Us?

Using the General Social Survey on Social Engagement conducted by Statistics Canada in 2003, this paper examines social capital derived from informal networks and its variation among men categorized as: (1) men with no children, and (2) men living with children in (a) intact, (b) step, and (c) lone parent families. The focus on men stems from a concern that their role in families has not been as extensively studied as that of women. The results show that married men living with children have higher social capital – measured in terms of the number of friends, relatives, and neighbors, and in their level of trust in them – than lone fathers or step fathers in cohabiting unions. Compared to child-free men, married fathers have higher social capital but also tend to have friends who are more similar to themselves in age, education, or income.