Community-Level Social Capital and Household Strategies for Coping with Global Crisis in Transitional Countries

This study examines the ways in which the fabric of community-level social capital has affected the ex-post strategies of households in dealing with the 2007–2008 crisis in the transitional economies of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The data has been derived from nationally-representative surveys conducted in 28 transitional countries. The findings reveal that choices made with respect to survival strategies during the crisis were strongly dependent on community-level social capital. Higher levels of social capital within a community are associated with an increase in the utilization of active and safety net coping strategies. It was also found that most households were forced to employ depleting coping strategies, and that few households applied to safety net strategies.