At which geographic scale does ethnic diversity affect intra-neighborhood social capital?

The claim that ethnic diversity within the living environment would hamper bonding and bridging social capital has been studied extensively, producing highly inconsistent findings. We studied whether ethnic diversity effects depend on the geographic scale at which ethnic diversity is measured. We examined ethnic diversity effects on intra- and inter-ethnic contacts in the neighborhood, respectively on opposition to ethnic in- and out-group neighbors. Hypotheses were derived from Blau’s meeting opportunities thesis and contact theory, ethnic competition theory, and constrict theory. Using information about 2545 Dutch respondents with their locality defined as egohoods and administrative units, we found that ethnic diversity effects vary with the geographic scale. Ethnic diversity of smaller localities is positively associated with bridging social capital. At larger scales, the findings are mixed: ethnic diversity is positively related to inter-ethnic contacts and opposition to out-group neighbors. Ethnic diversity of smaller localities is negatively related to bonding social capital. In contrast to often-made claims that diversity within the local context would matter most, estimates of diversity effects are not always stronger when diversity measures are aggregated to smaller geographic areas.     

Coalitional affiliation as a missing link between ethnic polarization and well-being: An empirical test from the European Social Survey

Many studies converge in suggesting (a) that ethnic and racial minorities fare worse than host populations in reported well-being and objective measures of health and (b) that ethnic/racial diversity has a negative impact on various measures of social trust and well-being, including in the host or majority population. However, there is much uncertainty about the processes that connect diversity variables with personal outcomes. In this paper, we are particularly interested in different levels of coalitional affiliation, which refers to people’s social allegiances that guide their expectations of social support, in-group strength and cohesion. We operationalize coalitional affiliation as the extent to which people rely on a homogeneous social network, and we measure it with indicators of friendships across ethnic boundaries and frequency of contact with friends. Using multi-level models and data from the European Social Survey (Round 1, 2002–2003) for 19 countries, we demonstrate that coalitional affiliation provides an empirically reliable, as well as theoretically coherent, explanation for various effects of ethnic/racial diversity.     

Ethnic social capital: Individual and group level sources and their economic consequences

Ethnic social capital shapes economic action by immigrants by providing information, training, and credit that is otherwise unavailable. However, prior research on the effects of ethnic social capital on economic attainment by salaried workers primarily relied on case studies of specific destinations or ethnic groups. Furthermore, prior research focused on group level effects of ethnic social capital while largely ignoring the effects of individual-level utilization of ethnic ties. This study addresses these limitations by combining data from the New Immigrant Survey and the 5% file of the 2000 US Census. This allows controlling for group differences in actual utilization of familial ties and for differences between groups in their demographic makeup, legal status, and human capital when estimating the effect of ethnic social capital. It also allows addressing the potentially divergent implications of ethnic social capital for individual and group economic attainment. Results suggest that, on both the individual and group levels, reliance on ethnic social capital is associated with lower earnings for recent legal immigrants to the US.     

Trust and contact in diverse neighbourhoods: An interplay of four ethnicity effects

Ethnically diverse neighbourhoods are generally less cohesive. A negative relationship between neighbourhood diversity and social cohesion is, however, neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition to conclude that neighbourhood diversity erodes intra-neighbourhood cohesion. This contribution shows – by using data collected during the second wave of the NEtherlands Longitudinal Lifecourse Study (NELLS) – that: (1) members of ethnic minority groups are more likely to report having contact with and trust their immediate neighbours than natives (ego ethnicity effect); (2) minority group residents are less likely to be contacted and trusted by their neighbours (alter ethnicity effect) and (3) all ethnic groups prefer to mix with coethnics (dyad ethnicity effect). Once we control for these three ethnic composition effects at the ego, alter and dyad-level, neighbourhood ethnic diversity is no longer related to less contact between neighbours. Previously identified negative relationships between neighbourhood diversity and cohesion should therefore be re-evaluated, as they may be the consequence of ethnic composition effects instead of a true neighbourhood diversity effect.     

High political participation, high social capital? A relational analysis of youth social capital and political participation

Social capital has been alleged to increase the capacity for political mobilization. Yet, until now, the empirical debate has not succeeded in rendering a detailed account of the relationships between social capital and political participation partly because of the use of a reductive conception and operationalization of both concepts. Using a multidimensional and relational technique (multiple correspondence analysis) and a detailed youth survey data from Belgium, the article demonstrates that youth draw on diverse forms of social capital and that these forms vary along socio-economic status and ethnic origin. Six classes based on the forms of social capital were identified. Two of them - the ‘Committed’ and ‘Religious’ are highly political active. The ‘Committed’ Class, based on a diversified social capital, consists mainly of non-immigrant youth with a high socio-economic background undertaking a large diversity of political activities. The ‘Religious’ Class, based on a narrow social capital built around religious activities, is mostly composed of ethnic minority youth with a low SES involved in more specific political activities.     

Network effects across the earnings distribution: Payoffs to visible and invisible job finding assistance

This study makes three critical contributions to the “Do Contacts Matter?” debate. First, the widely reported null relationship between informal job searching and wages is shown to be mostly the artifact of a coding error and sample selection restrictions. Second, previous analyses examined only active informal job searching without fully considering the benefits derived from unsolicited network assistance (the “invisible hand of social capital”) – thereby underestimating the network effect. Third, wage returns to networks are examined across the earnings distribution. Longitudinal data from the NLSY reveal significant wage returns for network-based job finding over formal job searching, especially for individuals who were informally recruited into their jobs (non-searchers). Fixed effects quantile regression analyses show that contacts generate wage premiums among middle and high wage jobs, but not low wage jobs. These findings challenge conventional wisdom on contact effects and advance understanding of how social networks affect wage attainment and inequality.     

Moral opinion polarization and the erosion of trust

Since Puntam's seminal work on declining levels of social capital, the question of how social trust is formed has reached unprecedented heights of critical enquiry. While most of the current research concentrates on ethnic diversity and income inequality as the main influences driving down generalized trust, we focus on opinion polarization as another potential impact factor on trust. In more detail, we investigate the extent to which polarization over morally charged issues such as homsexuality, abortion and euthanasia affects individuals' likelihood to trust others. We hypothesize that moral issues have a natural tendency to divide societies' opinions into opposing poles and, thus, to challenge social cohesion in modern civil societies. Based on hierarchical analyses of the fifth wave of the World Values Survey (WVS) — comprising a sample of 39 countries — our results reveal that individuals living in countries characterized by more opinion polarization tend to have less trust in other people.     

Underage drinking, alcohol sales and collective efficacy: Informal control and opportunity in the study of alcohol use

Underage drinking among American youth is a growing public concern. However, while extensive research has identified individual level predictors of this phenomenon, few studies have theorized and tested the effect of structural social forces on children’s and youths’ alcohol consumption. In an attempt to address this gap, we study the effects of residential environments on children’s and youths’ underage drinking (while accounting for personality and familial processes). Integrating informal social control and opportunity explanations of deviance, we first suggest that while neighborhood collective efficacy prevents adolescents’ underage drinking, individuals’ access to local alcohol retail shops encourages such behavior. Focusing on the interactive effects of communal opportunities and controls, we then suggest that high presence of alcohol outlets and sales in the neighborhood is likely to increase youths’ probability of alcohol consumption in the absence of communal mechanisms of informal social control. We test our theoretical model using the unprecedented data design available in the PHDCN. Results from a series of multilevel logit models with robust standard errors reveal partial support for our hypotheses; specifically, we find that alcohol sales in a given neighborhood increase adolescents’ alcohol use. In addition, while the direct effect of collective efficacy is insignificantly related to children’s and youths’ alcohol consumption, our models suggest that it significantly attenuates the effect of local alcohol retailers and sales on underage drinking.     

Spaces of encounter and attitudes towards difference: A comparative study of two European cities

Scholars have been increasingly interested in how everyday interactions in various places with people from different ethnic/religious background impact inter-group relations. Drawing on representative surveys in Leeds and Warsaw (2012), we examine whether encounters with ethnic and religious minorities in different type of space are associated with more tolerance towards them. We find that in Leeds, more favourable affective attitudes are associated with contact in institutional spaces (workplace and study places) and socialisation spaces (social clubs, voluntary groups, religious meeting places); however, in case of behavioural intentions – operationalised as willingness to be friendly to minority neighbours – only encounters in socialisation spaces play a significant role in prejudice reduction. In Warsaw, people who have contacts with ethnic and religious minorities in public (streets, park, public services and transport) and consumption spaces (cafés, pubs, restaurants) express more positive affective attitudes towards them, but only encounters in consumption space translate into willingness to be friendly to minority neighbours.     

The effect of informal caregiving on social capital investments

Social capital is a resource derived from a person's social network and is important for various outcomes. Social capital declines over time and requires investments to avoid further declines or to increase the stock. However, certain life events can negatively affect social capital. This paper analyzes how informal caregiving, defined as unpaid assistance to persons who cannot perform the usual activities of daily living without help, affects social capital investments. Drawing on the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) with data for 15 years, I apply fixed-effects (FE) regressions to estimate the effect of changing caregiving status (extensive margin) and the effect of an additional hour of caregiving (intensive margin) on social capital investments. The results show that caregiving negatively affects investments in social capital for weak and strong ties unrelated to the care task. Furthermore, caregiving increases investments in strong ties that are care related.     

School ethnic diversity and White students’ civic attitudes in England

The current paper focuses on White British students in lower secondary education and investigates the effect of school ethnic diversity on their levels of trust and inclusive attitudes towards immigrants. Use is made of panel data of the Citizenship Education Longitudinal Study (CELS) to explore these relationships. Ethnic diversity is measured with the proportion of students in a grade identifying with a minority. In agreement with contact theory, the paper initially finds a positive relation between diversity and inclusive attitudes on immigrants. However, this link disappears once controls for social background, gender and prior levels of the outcome are included in the model. This indicates that students with particular pre-enrolment characteristics have self-selected in diverse schools and that inclusive attitudes have stabilized before secondary education. Diversity further appears to have a negative impact on trust, irrespective of the number of controls added to the model.     

What You Know or Who You Know? Occupation-specific work experience and job matching through social networks

While work experience is generally seen as an indicator of human capital, it may also reflect the accumulation of social capital. This study examines how work experience facilitates informal access to employment—that is, being matched with a new employer through an informal search or informal recruitment through the non-search process (without engaging in a job search). Results from fixed effects regression on panel data from the NLSY show that experience is related to informal entry into new jobs, though in a very specific way. The odds of being informally recruited into a new job improve as work experience in related occupations rises, but this relationship holds only among men. These findings highlight the social benefits of occupation-specific work experience that accrue to men but not to women, suggesting an alternative explanation for the gender disparity in wage returns to experience.     

Immigrant generation, selective acculturation, and alcohol use among Latina/o adolescents

Do alcohol use and binge drinking among Latina/o adolescents increase in the second and third generation? This study explores generational differences in alcohol use behaviors for three Latina/o ethnic groups. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health on 1504 Latina/o adolescents in secondary school, we found that the factors associated with alcohol use behaviors differed across the Latina/o groups. For Mexican and Cuban adolescents, but not Puerto Ricans, immigrant generation was associated with alcohol use. For Mexican, but not Cuban adolescents, acculturation mediated the effect of immigrant generation on alcohol use behaviors. Although generally social capital and a co-ethnic presence were protective factors against alcohol use behaviors, we found that some forms of social capital were actually risk factors for Cubans and Puerto Ricans. Our results provide support for segmented-assimilation theory.     

关于社会资本的再思考

社会资本的实质是以小规模关系网络为基础的信任、合作、互惠等规范,社会资本存在作为社会制度的社会资本与作为经济制度的社会资本之分,后者由于内生于经济过程之中,因此对经济行动具有确定性的影响,但是只有与市场制度、企业规则相结合,这种内生性的社会资本才能在降低经济行动的成本的同时提高其经济绩效。     

企业家社会资本与家族企业的融合研究

现有的将社会资本分成社会金融资本、社会人力资本、社会网络资本和社会文化资本的研究,虽有启发意义,但难免有泛化之嫌。鉴于此,笔者对企业家社会资本重新作了厘定,并以非正式制度补充正式制度的视角对家族企业作了分析：企业家社会资本的正向运作有助于形成对称性信息、对称性信任,有益于泛化家族网络、家族理性,有利于降低信息成本、代理成本;家族企业所有人和经营人在运作社会资本中达成的“关系契约”可通过关系曲线加以描述：企业家社会资本与企业家个人能力、泛家族理性、对称性信息、对称性信任、制度性信任等因素正相关。     

Me and Jasmina down by the schoolyard: An analysis of the impact of ethnic diversity in school on the trust of schoolchildren

Earlier research has indicated a negative relationship between ethnic diversity and trust. Whereas previous analyses have been carried out at the country, city or neighbourhood level, this paper adds to the literature by analyzing the impact of ethnic diversity on generalized trust in others and out-group trust in the primary school context. The question of the impact of ethnic diversity in school on the trust of schoolchildren is addressed by drawing on a unique survey of children with immigrant and native Danish backgrounds, respectively, in the last three grades of primary school in Denmark. The survey design holds several qualities strengthening the potential for drawing inference about the impact of ethnic diversity in school on trust. The results of the analysis do not confirm the negative relationship between ethnic diversity and trust found in earlier research. In the primary school setting, ethnic diversity does not affect generalized trust and even has a positive impact on out-group trust of native Danish pupils (i.e., their trust in immigrants).     

实践性社群内社会资本对知识分享的影响

实践性社群(Communities of Practice,COP)已被发展为企业内以及企业间知识分享及创造的主要平台,其强调的是松散且非正式的社群架构,而当中的成员组成也是强调自愿加入,所以社群的维系来自于人际关系及社群意识的形塑,即人与人之间的互动也就格外的被重视.本研究以具备实践性社群特质的社群成员为研究对象,在问卷中以社会资本的三大方面为研究角度,企图了解在以创新及知识分享为目标的社群特质下,其社群内人际关系以及社群内知识互动对社群成员的个人知识分享的影响.研究结果发现,除了认知面社会资本外,关系面社会资本和结构面社会资本都对个人在社群中的知识分享有显着影响.     

The resilience of neighborhood social processes: A case study of the 2011 Brisbane flood

Social disorganization theories position neighborhood social capital and collective efficacy as key social processes that should facilitate community resilience in the aftermath of disaster. Yet limited evidence demonstrates that these social processes are themselves resilient with some studies showing that disaster can fracture even once cohesive neighborhoods. In this paper we assess the stability of neighborhood level collective efficacy and social capital before and after a disaster. We use multilevel structural equation modeling and draw on census and longitudinal survey data collected from over 4000 residents living in 148 neighborhoods in Brisbane, Australia before and after a significant flood event. We examine what happens to social capital and collective efficacy in flooded and non-flooded neighborhoods and assess whether demographic shifts are associated with change and/or stability in these processes. We find strong evidence that these processes operate similarly across flooded and not flooded communities. Our findings also reveal significant stability for our measures of social capital across time, while collective efficacy increases post flood across all neighborhoods, but more so in flooded neighborhoods. Neighborhood demographics have limited effect on patterns of stability or change in these social processes. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings for our understanding of neighborhood resilience in the wake of disaster.     

社会资本:渊源·理论·局限

社会资本理论是近年来经济社会学研究中新兴的理论。它产生于社会网络研究基础之上 ,逐渐发展成为较系统的理论体系。它的产生 ,为研究经济行动、社会关系和社会结构对经济发展的作用提供了一个新的分析框架 ,大大拓展了社会学家与经济学家的研究视野。但是 ,它在概念的界定、测量等方面存在的问题 ,制约了社会资本理论的发展与应用。本文主要对社会资本的理论渊源、概念界定、基本理论以及社会资本理论的局限进行分析和探讨 ,以使人们对社会资本理论有一个全面、清晰、准确的认识 ,促进社会资本理论的进一步深入研究。     

Volunteer work, informal help, and care among the 50+ in Europe: Further evidence for ‘linked’ productive activities at older ages

Taking a cross-national perspective, we investigate linkages between volunteer work, informal help, and care among Europeans aged 50 or older. Based on 27,297 personal interviews from the 2004 Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, we estimate univariate and multivariate probit models, which allow us to analyze the interrelationship between those non-market productive activities. There is substantial variation in the participation in volunteering, helping, and caring between countries. Independent of the general level of activity in a country, we find evidence for a complementary and interdependent relationship between all three activities. Our findings not only suggest an important role of societal opportunity structures in elders’ productive engagement, but also support notions of the existence of a general motivation to be active.