Structural versus nonstructural form of social capital: impact of ethnicity along caste and religious dimensions in Indian context

Despite much research work on the effect of social capital or the production of social capital along ethno-linguistic or racial dimensions, there is hardly any study in this line along the much fragmented character of Indian ethnicity. This article studies the impact of ethnicity along caste and religious dimensions on the growth of social capital in the Indian context. A simple theoretical model indicates that individual ethnicity formed out of individuals' separate pairwise connections with people, who are either of the same ethnic dimension or of different ethnic dimensions, is the only factor affecting endogenous social capital growth. Empirical results suggest that all forms of individual social capital are higher for people who are of the same caste or religion. It also shows that individuals' ethnicity with the same caste or religion is the only factor influencing high performance on the productivity of aggregate social capital in general and nonstructural form of social capital in particular.