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Heterogeneity, Income Inequality, and Social Capital: A New Perspective*
Social Science Quarterly
Abstract
Objective
This article tests how income inequality mediates and moderates the relationship between racial diversity and social capital. We posit that racial diversity leads to higher levels of income equality, which reduces social capital. We also hypothesize that racial diversity has a stronger negative effect on social capital in places with high levels of income inequality (a compounding effect).
Methods
Drawing upon data from U.S. counties, we test these models using a series of regression models.
Results
Diversity and income inequality have negative effects on social capital. There is also evidence of both mediating and moderating effects. Income inequality partially mediates the negative relationship between diversity and social capital. As income inequality increases, the negative relationship between diversity and social capital decreases. Furthermore, we find that population growth moderates these relationships.
Conclusion
The relationship among social capital, income inequality, and diversity is complex. Although the direct effect is negative, there is some evidence for key mediating and moderating effects. More conceptual and empirical work is needed to assess the relationship between these concepts.
... Putnam's (2007) study was followed by testing of the relationships between aspects of racial and ethnic diversity and social capital in other contexts and geographic locations. For example, the results of several subsequent studies at different geographical scales of analysis have also found a negative association between racial diversity, ethnic diversity, and aspects of social capital (Letki, 2008;Mennis, Dayanim, & Grunwald, 2013;Paarlberg, Hoyman, & McCall, 2018;Sampson, Morenoff, & Earls, 1999). It is also increasingly common for racial diversity and ethnic diversity to be treated as separate indicators, given they represent different concepts. ...
... For example, at the neighborhood level in Philadelphia, ethnic diversity has been shown to be associated with lower collective efficacy, which has often been considered a dimension of social capital (Mennis et al., 2013). Moreover, in a study of U.S. counties, Paarlberg et al. (2018) found a negative relationship between racial diversity and structural dimensions of social capital (e.g., number of associations, voting behavior). As Letki (2008) observed, however, it is concerning that many of the conclusions made in prior studies about the negative impact of racial or ethnic diversity on aspects of social capital did not consider the effect of socioeconomic status. ...
... Given theoretical frameworks such as intersectionality or social stratification which emphasize the combined effects of various demographic attributes like race, ethnicity, and income (Crenshaw, 1991;Markides, Liang, & Jackson, 1990;Osborne, 2015), it is plausible that aspects socio-economic diversity would also be relevant predictors (or even co-variates to racial or ethnic diversity) of social capital. Subsequent research has confirmed this contention, finding that economic inequality and income diversity are negatively associated with social capital, as conceptualized through structural dimensions and social trust (Paarlberg et al., 2018;Portes & Vickstrom, 2011), and sometimes exhibit stronger relationships with social capital than either racial or ethnic diversity (Letki, 2008;Schmid et al., 2009, pp. 177-197). ...
Social capital provides important health, economic, and community benefits. While there are several types of social capital, that which is characterized by connections between diverse individuals from different social groups is thought to be particularly valuable. Despite the fact that both socio-demographic diversity and social capital exhibit significant spatial variation across the United States, there remains a lack of research investigating the relationships between these variables at the county level. This study utilized geographically weighted regression to explore the potential non-stationarity of the relationships between racial, ethnic, and income di-versity and social capital. Results indicate spatial non-stationary with regard to all three types of diversity, with statistical significance, strength of association, and direction of the relationships varying notably across the United States. These findings underscore the need for more attention to local variation in the relationships be-tween forms of diversity and social capital. The local spatial modeling strategies used here offer a different perspective on these relationships.
... Second, this article attempts to subject our theoretical expectations to rigorous empirical tests that are conducted at the U.S. county level. Although racial diversity and income inequality have received ample scholarly attention, only a few studies have empirically tested both together in their analyses and even fewer have explored their interaction effects (e.g., Alesina & La Ferrara, 2000;Leigh, 2006;Paarlberg, Hoyman, & McCall, 2018;Rupasingha, Goetz, & Freshwater, 2006). In addition, unlike many other studies conducted at state-or country-levels, or individual levels, this article sheds light on the effect of racial diversity and income inequality on social capital at a mid-level, focusing on U.S. counties. ...
... Third, we advance further predictions on how racial and economic heterogeneity affects social capital by considering their interaction effects. We share the view that the impact of racial and economic heterogeneity on social capital is complex (Finseraas & Jakobsson, 2012;Paarlberg et al., 2018). Therefore, it is important to recognize the multidimensionality of their influence on the stock of social capital. ...
... As a result, increased economic inequality ironically contributes to producing bridging (interracial) as well as bonding (income-based) social capital. To our knowledge, Paarlberg et al. (2018) is the only study that explores the interaction effect between racial diversity and income inequality besides ours, whose finding is similar to ours. However, the authors do not provide a theoretical explanation concerning this unconventional and mysterious positive conditioning effect of income inequality on racial diversity in their impact upon social capital. ...
This study examines how the interplay between racial diversity and economic inequality affects variations of social capital in the U.S. counties. In general, racial and economic heterogeneity is assumed to provide a negative environment for the growth of social capital. Building on this, we argue the effect of economic inequality is weaker than that of racial diversity because increased economic heterogeneity is felt less visibly and acutely than racial heterogeneity. Moreover, economic inequality can positively condition the adverse impact of racial diversity on social capital when the two interact. Based on the crosscutting cleavages theory, income inequality in a racially fragmented community works as an additional cleavage that crosscuts the different racial groups, mitigating the negative impact of racial diversity on social capital. The data analysis of 3,140 U.S. counties in 2009–2014 provides strong evidence for our arguments. Our findings offer important implications in understanding inequality, race and American democracy.
... These values influence regional patterns of political ideology and attitudes toward government and philanthropy. On the one hand, the local economic structure with financial capacity does not only affect local philanthropy, but collective willingness of the community to resolve local needs also shapes local philanthropy by mobilizing community resources as an institutionalized form of collective action (Paarlberg and Yoshioka, 2016;Paarlberg, Hoyman, and McCall, 2018). In particular, natural resources industries, which follow boom and bust cycles, may significantly dampen local philanthropy as local resource extraction corporations and their employees are more likely to feel less long-term connection to the community. ...
... The influx of employees working in fields of the extractive industry are more likely to increase community diversity, as experienced in Marcellus shale deposits (Lichter, 2012;Weber, 2012) However, according to constrict theory (Putnam, 2007), community heterogeneity dampens levels of social cohesion because people are less likely to interact with people from different social or racial groups (McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Cook, 2001), which has a negative impact on social capital in heterogeneous communities (Paarlberg, Hoyman, and McCall, 2018;Putnam, 2007). There is some evidence that racial diversity is negatively associated with secular volunteer rates (Rotolo and Wilson, 2014) and donations (Andreoni et al., 2016). ...
... In the category of non-Hispanic, the Census Bureau distinguishes between white and Hispanic or Latino population. A Gini-Simpson index is employed to measure community racial diversity as the following equation indicates (Paarlberg, Hoyman, and McCall, 2018): ...
Objective
This article explores the complex relationships between the energy boom, community economic and demographic conditions, and local philanthropy. This study aims to find direct effects of the energy boom and indirect effects of multiple mediators—community economic conditions, population change, racial diversity, and income inequality—on local philanthropy.
Methods
Drawing upon data from U.S. counties, a series of mediation analyses are tested by following Baron and Kenney's (1986, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 51(6):1173) causal‐steps procedures.
Results
The energy boom always has negative direct effects on local philanthropy. Although indirect effects of mediators are not always significant, total effects, as the sum of direct and indirect effects, reveal that income, population growth, and racial diversity positively mediate negative effects of the energy boom on local philanthropy. The energy boom increases levels of income inequality; however, increased income inequality paradoxically is positively associated with local philanthropy.
Conclusion
The relationship among the energy boom, community economic and demographic conditions, and local philanthropy is complex. Although direct effects of the energy boom are negative, key findings of positive indirect effects suggest implications for policymakers, nonprofit practitioners, and community leaders when dealing with grand societal challenges caused by natural resource development at the community level.
... The Census Bureau provides the following racial or ethnic categories: Hispanic or Latino, non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black or African American, non-Hispanic Asian, non-Hispanic American Indians and Alaskan Native, non-Hispanic other races. To measure racial diversity, we employed the Gini Simpson index (Paarlberg et al., 2018). The computational formula is as follows: ...
... Third, annual private nonfarm payroll is employed to control for the size of the local market; the variable is divided by the total population as per capita (Paarlberg and Hwang, 2017). Fourth, the local government revenue variable is employed to measure the size of local government institutions because the existing literature emphasizes that strong local public institutions positively influence social integration within the community (Paarlberg et al., 2018). Due to the high skewness, private nonfarm payroll and local government revenue variables are transformed to natural log. ...
... According to constrict theory (Putnam, 2007), collective action for community education is more likely to be promoted in racially homogenous communities (Goldin and Katz, 1999). Furthermore, the existing literature has found that racial diversity may dampen community solidarity and social capital (Putnam, 2007;Paarlberg et al., 2018). On the contrary, our findings imply that racial diversity at the community level may serve a more synergetic role in generating effective philanthropic collective action for community education when considering its moderating role in conjunction with urbanity. ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between social capital and collective action at the county level in the US while incorporating the moderating effects of community racial diversity and urbanity and to find the changing effects of social capital on philanthropic collective action for community education.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper employs a quantitative research design. The dependent variable measures philanthropic collective action for community education while the independent variable for social capital is measured as a community level index. Moderating variables include a community racial diversity index and urbanity. This analysis tests and interprets interaction effects using moderated multiple regression (MMR), with the baselines of MMR being grounded to multivariate ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. Analyses are carried out in the context of the USA during 2006 and 2010, with US counties employed as the unit of analysis.
Findings
The effects of social capital on philanthropic contributions decline in counties with low- and mid-levels of racial diversity. On the contrary, the effects of social capital increase in highly racially diverse counties. The three-way interaction model result suggests that racial diversity positively moderates social capital on philanthropic collective action for community education where the effect of social capital is strong and positive in highly racially diverse urban communities.
Originality/value
This research complicates the notion that social capital and racial diversity are negatively associated when exploring collective action and community education, and suggests effects of social capital varies with moderating effects on philanthropic collective action for community education.
... In contrast to previous research findings that suggest income inequality at the national, community, and urban levels promotes charitable giving, our study contributes by proposing that individual-level income inequality negatively impacts charitable giving (Mastromatteo and Russo 2017;Payne and Smith 2015). This aligns with recent research attention to income inequality, relative deprivation, social capital, and charitable behavior, suggesting that relative deprivation weakens social capital and is significantly negatively correlated with charitable giving (Antinyan, Baghdasaryan, and Grigoryan 2022;Paarlberg, Hoyman, and McCall 2018). ...
... Individuals who feel socially excluded typically exhibit reduced enthusiasm for charitable giving (Twenge et al. 2007). When inequality decreases, social interaction among groups tends to increase (Paarlberg, Hoyman, and McCall 2018). The latest experimental study indicates that both online social interaction and face-to-face social interaction can effectively increase social connections (Fritz et al. 2023). ...
Objective
This study delves into the correlation between individual income inequality as measured by the relative deprivation index and charitable giving, while also examining urban–rural heterogeneity. Additionally, it further explores the mechanisms by which online and offline forms of social interaction operate in this context.
Methods
Utilizing data from the 2014–2020 China Family Panel Studies, we employed several methodologies including Probit regression models, cross‐model average marginal effects difference testing based on bootstrap method, instrumental variable method, and the Karlson–Holm–Breen (KHB) effect decomposition method.
Results
The findings reveal that individual income inequality measured by the relative deprivation index significantly reduces charitable giving among Chinese households. The inhibitory effect of individual income inequality on social charitable giving is higher than that on charitable giving directed toward friends or colleagues. Furthermore, this impact exhibits some heterogeneity between urban and rural areas. Mechanism analysis indicates that the adverse effect of income inequality on charitable giving operates through reducing social interaction, including both online and offline forms.
Conclusion
Our results demonstrate that income inequality has distinct adverse effects on two types of charitable giving and explain the mechanisms underlying these effects through social interaction. A pattern of the differential mode of association similar to “ripples” in Chinese society is beneficial for understanding these differentiated impacts. We believe it is necessary to improve economic inequality conditions and enhance the enthusiasm of the Chinese public for participating in charitable donations by promoting various forms of social interaction.
... The potentially positive effect of neighborhood-based social relationships on PTSD is an area of research that has not been well explored. Income inequality among community members is one factor that can influence the degree of connectedness between neighbors and therefore impact the onset of PTSD (Paarlberg, Hoyman, & McCall, 2018;Uslaner & Brown, 2005). In this study, we sought Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jason T. Carbone, 5447 Woodward Blvd., Detroit, Michigan 48202. ...
... Income inequality may be associated with negative health outcomes, including PTSD, due to its connection with lower levels of social capital and trust Paarlberg et al., 2018). Social connections, trust, and social ties enable individuals to access social support (Cohen & Wills, 1985;Saegert & Carpiano, 2017). ...
Certain neighborhood factors may increase the risk of exposure to trauma, therefore increasing the risk of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Other aspects of neighborhoods can be protective, such as neighborhood‐based social relationships, which provide social support that buffers the risk of developing PTSD. The strength of these social relationships may not be as dependent on neighborhood conditions as much as they are contingent on socioeconomic similarities between neighborhood residents. Using a nationally representative sample of hospital emergency department admissions in the United States (N = 13,669,251), this study hypothesized that an interaction between family‐level income and neighborhood‐level income would be associated with adolescent PTSD. The results show that female adolescents who resided in the highest income areas were 1.39 times more likely, 95% CI [1.09, 1.77], to be diagnosed with PTSD than those who lived in the lowest income areas. This association was not statistically significant for male adolescents. Additionally, low‐income female youth were nearly one‐third more likely than their non–low‐income counterparts to be diagnosed, odds ratio (OR) = 1.29, 95% CI [1.12, 1.48], whereas low‐income male youth were nearly twice as likely than their non–low‐income counterparts to be diagnosed, OR = 1.95, 95% CI [1.62, 2.34]. Furthermore, there was an interaction among both male and female adolescents such that lower‐income adolescents living in higher‐income areas had higher odds of a PTSD diagnosis compared to their higher‐income peers in areas that were in the same median household income quartile.
... Third, the percentage of the population living under the poverty line is employed. All three community-level independent variables have been widely used to measure aggregate socioeconomic status (Emrich et al., 2020;Hoyman et al. 2016;Paarlberg et al. 2018). ...
The challenge of building and maintaining public infrastructure in the face of climate change and natural hazards necessitates greater citizen involvement in decision-making processes. Coproduction aims to ensure equitable service distribution by engaging a diverse range of citizens. However, the literature highlights disparities, with certain citizens having greater resources for participation. This study explores how individual socioeconomic factors and risk perceptions influence citizens' willingness to engage in coproduction. Coproduction has been criticized for excluding marginalized populations, we analyze how multilevel factors shape willingness to participate in two modes of coproduction: co-planning and co-investing. The results indicate that risk perception is the most significant factor driving citizens' willingness to coproduce. Furthermore, well-educated or wealthy citizens are more inclined to participate. This study proposes an inclusive approach to coproduction, aiming to ensure equitable public service delivery regardless of socioeconomic status.
... Lower property values can affect local taxes and the ability of communities to invest in vegetation, trees and better construction materials [41][42][43] . Furthermore, areas with high income inequality have been linked to lower levels of social capital and community engagement [44][45][46] , which could impede a community's investment in public goods. Finally, reduced home-ownership rates can reduce residents' sense of belonging and investments in public goods in their communities 12 . ...
... As to the economic contingency, more-affluent countries with less economic inequality may allow a higher degree of trust toward others and, thus, more expansive social relations and greater social resources (Paarlberg et al., 2018). ...
The study proposes an integrative model of individual social capital and examines if trust, social networks, and social resources are related across countries. Although trust and social resources were often referred to as social capital or its essential components, the literature lacks empirical verification of whether and how they are associated. Particularly, examining the relationship by a specific measurement of social networks is imperative. The relationship should be identified considering the influences of country-level contingencies. The study applied a multilevel within-between mixed regression method to the International Social Survey Program 2017 data from 30 countries. Using a position generator of social networks, the study found that generalized trust was associated with interpersonal networks primarily through weak ties across countries, accounting for country-level contingencies. Both strong and weak ties were instrumental in embedding social resources. The results supported the integrative model of social capital that connects generalized trust to social resources.
... A wealth of empirical evidence suggests that an important consequence of income inequality is socioeconomic deprivation, which has been proven to increase mortality and impair individual health (Agovino et al., 2021;Hastings, 2019;Mishra & Carleton, 2015;Su & Zhang, 2021). Other empirical studies have found that income inequality is not conducive to promoting social capital and social cohesion (Elgar, 2010;Paarlberg et al., 2018); it also impedes improving public service quality and equal access to public services (Bhattacharya et al., 2016;Detollenaere et al., 2018), eventually leading to poor health outcomes. ...
Prior studies have documented the negative impact of socioeconomic inequality on population health, but few studies have discussed the heterogeneous health effects of socioeconomic inequality. This study proposes using a quantile regression model to examine the heterogeneous influence of socioeconomic inequality (educational inequality, income inequality, and unemployment rate) on population health (life expectancy and healthy life expectancy) based on macro panel data from 160 countries. It was found that in both rich and poor countries, elevated income inequality and unemployment rate significantly predicted reduced life expectancy and healthy life expectancy, while the influences of educational inequality on the two health outcomes were not significant. Furthermore, the negative influence of socioeconomic inequality on population health was mainly observed in countries with lower-level population health. Robust results supported the above findings when lagged population health outcomes were used. Therefore, nations with poor population health should pay more attention to socioeconomic inequality, and state regulations should be actively used to promote equality in income, education and employment for health promotion.
... Multiple FE indicated that we simultaneously control the provincial FE, regional FE, and community FE, as well as the income FE in the econometric model. * , ** , and *** indicate statistically significant levels of 0.1, 0.05, and 0.01, respectively high-income older adults commonly have more abundant social resources [47,48] and can get more ISS accordingly than low-income older adults. In addition to the above, other findings from our baseline regression results are worth discussing. ...
Background
This study aimed to assess the effect of informal social support (ISS) on the health of Chinese older adults, identify channels of the association between the two, and assess the magnitude of this effect in different groups of older adults.
Methods
Based on the data from the 2018 China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey (CLASS), we first used both the Quality of Well-Being (QWB) scale and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method to construct the QWB score that can objectively measure the health status of Chinese older adults. Next, we conducted an econometric equation controlling for various high-dimensional fixed effects, estimated the effects using the Tobit model, and used various robustness check strategies and the propensity score matching (PSM) method to ensure reliability and deal with the potential endogeneity, respectively. Finally, we performed staging and grouping regression for mechanism and heterogeneity analysis.
Results
The mean QWB score of Chinese older adults was 0.778. ISS has a significant positive effect on the health of older adults (P < 0.001), and there were similar patterns of findings for the effects of SE (P < 0.001), PSS (P < 0.001), and ES (P < 0.001). Additionally, the health promotion effect is higher in older adults who are male (P < 0.001), under the age of 80 (P < 0.001), with agricultural household registration (P < 0.001), or with high income (P < 0.001) than in the control group.
Conclusion
ISS, including SE, PSS, and ES, had significant promotion effects on the health of older adults, especially on those who are male, under the age of 80, with agricultural household registration, or with high income. Meanwhile, these effects could be reflected through two channels: alleviating loneliness and improving the positive emotional status of older adults.
... These results suggest that SC can play a role in better lives. The results are in line with research showing that trust, as a component of SC, is positively associated with health and life satisfaction (Elgar et al., 2011) and economic inequality (Hooghe et al., 2009;Paarlberg et al., 2018). In terms of cross-level interactions on self-reported life satisfaction and health, and perceived economic inequality (Tables 2-4), there is a statistically significant interaction between education and SC whereby the impact of higher SC on decreasing perceptions of economic inequality increases with higher levels of education. ...
This paper investigates the role of social capital (SC) in subjective quality of life to address the limitations of existing observable indicators as evidence for public policy. We use a large-scale survey of 100,956 respondents across 37 countries, including both developed and less developed countries. The empirical results suggest that higher SC is more strongly associated with better subjective health and higher satisfaction in low-income countries than in high-income countries. Moreover, while low-income countries show a lower level of perceived economic inequality at the community level with higher SC, high-income countries present a higher level. We further find that higher levels of educational attainment increase the perception of economic inequality and that this impact decreases with SC. Enhancing SC may lead to improved quality of life in most low-income countries, and lifestyle and cultural factors also play a crucial role. These findings indicate that noneconomic factors underpin better lives, and further research is needed to address the social aspects of life.
... For example, lower property values can affect local taxes and the ability of communities to invest in vegetation, trees, and better construction materials (Schwarz et al., 2015;Hope et al., 2006;Kinzig et al., 2005). Further, areas with high income inequality have been linked to lower levels of social capital and community engagement La Ferrara, 2000, 2002;Paarlberg et al., 2018), which could impede a community's investment in public goods. We view our measures of perviousness, tree canopy, and street vegetation as capturing the ability of a community to invest in local public goods that reduce environmental risk. ...
... Diverse communities, in terms of racial identities and socioeconomic statuses, have more heterogeneous social networks and human capital pools, which contribute to the community's resourcefulness. Resourcefulness of a community then promotes collective resource mobilization for disaster relief activities (Paarlberg, Hoyman, and McCall 2018). Putnam (2007) suggested that cooperative and collective behaviors are limited in racially diverse communities because racial diversity erodes social capital and trust (Habyarimana et al. 2009). ...
Using the county-level data of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic in the United States, we test the relationship between communities’ social capital and philanthropic resource mobilization during a pandemic and how this relationship is moderated by the racial diversity and the severity of the pandemic in the community. The analysis suggests that the collective monetary contributions to frontline nonprofits responding to pandemics are closely related to the level of social capital in the community. The results also reveal that the positive relationship between social capital and resource mobilization is reinforced in racially diverse communities and when communities are affected by pandemics more severely. Our findings suggest that building inclusive communities by embracing diverse racial groups and individuals will contribute to communities’ resilience to pandemics and other disasters.
... Therefore, the community relationship acted as an informal support vector and played an active role in raising visit funds and improving psychological status. The ability of residents to benefit from social capital depends on the characteristics of network members and their close ties (41). The nature of social networks includes the scale, closeness, heterogeneity and reciprocity of the residents' network. ...
Aim
Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic, China adopted community isolation management measures. During the “lockdown” period, urban communities were the most basic prevention and control unit for the epidemic. The effectiveness of community epidemic prevention directly affects the spread of the virus and social stability. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore the status quo and influencing factors of psychological distress.
Methods
For this study, 1,430 community households were randomly selected in key cities affected by the epidemic, and a questionnaire survey was administered during the lockdown period. A structural equation model was used to analyse the influencing factors of community epidemic prevention effects. A total of 1,326 valid questionnaires were collected, with a valid response rate of 92.73%.
Results
In this study, the differences in psychological distress among different community types were statistically significant (t = 58.41, P < 0.01). The results showed that epidemic prevention capability played a mediating role. The results of the high-order structural equation model analysis showed that perceived social support (β = −0.275, P = 0.000) and community social network (β = −0.296, P < 0.01) were significantly negatively correlated with psychological distress.
Conclusions
Community social support indirectly relieves psychological anxiety and improves the effect of epidemic prevention by enhancing residents' ability to prevent epidemics. The community social network help residents reduce the risk of outbreaks and indirectly alleviate psychological distress.
... NID is often chronic and can have a range of negative implications for a given community (Santiago et al., 2011). NID may be positively associated with PTSS due to its connection to lower levels of social capital and trust, preventing community members from receiving mental health support (Paarlberg et al., 2018). Youth from lower-income neighborhoods may be less likely than their higher-income peers to have PTSS appropriately identified or diagnosed, potentially due to a lack of access to quality health services (Carbone et al., 2019) or implicit bias on the part of clinicians. ...
Previous findings suggest that experiences with systems of oppression that disproportionately affect individuals based on race and neighborhood residency (e.g., systemic racism, neighborhood income disadvantage [NID]) can be associated with higher odds of developing psychological problems following traumatic events. Although race/ethnicity and NID residency are often associated, they are separate concepts that play unique roles in mental health outcomes among youth. Residents of Black, Latinx, and income‐disadvantaged communities also have an increased risk of exposure to polyvictimization and the loss of multiple loved ones. Studies have not carefully delineated the potential relations between race/ethnicity and NID residency, polyvictimization, accumulated losses, and trauma and grief outcomes in youth. We examined mediation models to investigate whether polyvictimization, the loss of multiple loved ones, and exposure to violent death were potential mechanisms through which race/ethnicity and NID would predict trauma and grief outcomes in youth. Participants (N = 429) included Black (19.9%), Latinx (36.0%), and White (27.3%) children and adolescents who were assessed through a routine baseline assessment at a trauma and grief outpatient clinic. Black youth reported significantly elevated posttraumatic stress and maladaptive grief symptoms through higher polyvictimization and violent death exposure relative to White youth, βs = .06–.12, ps <.001. Latinx identity and NID were positively and directly associated with specific domains of maladaptive grief reactions, βs = .10–.17, ps < .001. If replicated longitudinally, these findings suggest that polyvictimization and violent death exposure may be mechanisms through which Black youth develop more severe traumatic stress and grief reactions.
... As a result, individuals may become economically disadvantaged in obtaining valuable financial information that will enable them to make important life decisions (Paarlberg, et al., 2018). For instance, Pichler and Wallace (2009) found that the quality of resources obtained from social networks depends on one's income status. ...
Purpose
Drawing on the literature regarding the social network and stock investment, this paper aims to focus on the use of the social network on stock ownership decisions at individual levels. This paper also attempts to shed light on potential mediators of the relationship between the social network and stock ownership.
Design/methodology/approach
To determine the relationship between stock ownership and using the social network, logistic regression was used. In order to isolate the effect of using hs on stock ownership, a decomposing method was adopted.
Findings
The findings provide evidence of the positive contribution of the use of social networks in stock ownership. Personal characteristics, such as household net worth, homeownership, education level and risk tolerance, may play a vital role in influencing individuals' decisions regarding stock investment. In addition, this study contributes to our understanding of income's mediating role in stock investment decisions.
Originality/value
First, the authors contribute theoretically by drawing from the assumptions of social networking contagion theory, social influence theory, and social capital theory. Second, we explored potential mediators of the relationship between the social network and stock ownership. Third, this study complements the literature in incorporating the social network in business, financial professionals to be exact.
... La forma en que se distribuyen las riquezas en un país posibilita la creación de capital social. Ciertamente, cuando esa acumulación de riquezas se concentra en un pequeño grupo, surge la polarización y la competencia por los pocos recursos disponibles entre aquellos que reciben menos (Paarlberg, Hoyman, & McCall, 2018). Stiglitz (2012, p. 30) afirmó que "la desigualdad es el resultado de la política tanto como de la economía ya que los gobiernos pueden, a través de las políticas públicas establecer reglas económicas más justas". ...
Resumen: Los jóvenes entre las edades de 18 a 24 años en Puerto Rico enfrentan importantes desafíos sociales y económicos que pueden inducirlos a migrar de forma masiva. No obstante, el país requiere de las nuevas generaciones para salir de la crisis económica y fiscal en la que se encuentra sumido por más de una década. Este es un estudio exploratorio que utiliza datos secundarios, articulado a partir de la metodología de análisis de políticas de Dunn (2018). La misma provee un acercamiento alterno para el estudio de problemas que requieren mayor comprensión previo al análisis de políticas públicas. El estudio busca conocer el estado sociodemográfico de esa población y sus implicaciones para el país. Además, explora los factores que pueden propiciar que las y los jóvenes permanezcan en el país o migren. Se identifican los temas de pobreza, empleo y educación como los que deben guiar las políticas gubernamentales.
... These differences in prison experiences may be attributable to differences in social capital. Social capital varies in both quantity and quality across race, ethnicity, gender, and economic status (Campbell et al., 1986;Lin, 2000;Paarlberg et al., 2017;Reisig et al., 2002). Blau's (1964) social exchange model, for example, argues that socially disadvantaged groups, such as racial and ethnic minorities, females, and those living in poverty will inherently have less social capital because decisions to associate are often based upon the perceived ability of others to act as contributing members of their social networks (e.g., Molm et al., 2000). ...
This paper examines how social capital prior to incarceration may contribute to experiences during incarceration and whether visitation allows social capital to have protective effects. We investigate, too, whether disadvantages experienced during incarceration by racial and ethnic minorities, women, and individuals in poverty can be explained in part by reduced social capital. We test these ideas using national-level survey data from state prison inmates and a series of regression and mediation analyses. Three main findings emerge: (1) Pre-prison social capital reduces in-prison deviance and improves optimism about reentry. (2) Social capital operates through visitation to reduce social isolation. (3) There is some limited evidence that group disparities in in-prison experiences can be explained by inequalities in social capital.
... According to Ram (2013), when such a relationship is analysed in a labour context, generalised trust creates a sense of honesty and respect by the receipt of compensation that helps mitigate wage inequalities. Similar results occur with the inclusion of explanatory variables such as polarisation and race and ethnic diversity (Alesina & La Ferrara, 2000;Costa & Kahn, 2003;Ivarsflaten & Strømsnes, 2013;Paarlberg et al., 2018;Wright, 2015). ...
This paper aims to research whether the varieties of capitalism impact the relationship between social capital and inequality in developed economies (coordinated and liberal economies) and Latin America (hierarchical economies) in the period from 2000 to 2016. To do that, the study uses a panel analysis of developed economies and Latin America, that is, a fixed effect panel static analysis. The model includes one dependent variable (Gini index) and ten independent variables (generalised trust, informal economy , years of schooling, union density, market capitalization, annual gross domestic product, gross domestic product per cap-ita, health expenditure, feminine labour force, and gross capital). The findings show that the relationship between inequality and social capital is negative and significant and that hierarchical economies (Latin America) amplified such a relationship. ARTICLE HISTORY
... En Estados Unidos el impacto es relevante y negativo (Alesina & La Ferrara, 2000), pues crea aislamiento social (Putnam, 2007). Recientemente también se han descrito posibles interacciones complejas entre la diversidad racial y el capital social y la desigualdad de renta en los condados de los Estados Unidos (Paarlberg, Hoyman, & McCall, 2018). En Europa, Tolsma et al. no han encontrado ningún impacto claro de la inmigración en la cohesión social de los municipios y barrios holandeses (Tolsma, Meer, & Gesthuizen, 2009). ...
Ante la creciente importancia del estudio del capital social como componente institucional y la escasez de estudios empíricos a menor escala y fuera de los Estados Unidos, este trabajo pretende identificar algunos de determinantes observables del capital social en los municipios y comarcas de Cataluña, así como su relación con los niveles de capital social y su distribución territorial. Esto se consigue mediante el uso de la participación electoral, la densidad asociativa y las donaciones de sangre como variables de capital social. Usando datos de corte transversal y de panel y mediante regresiones por mínimos cuadrados ordinarios y de efectos aleatorios respectivamente se encuentran efectos relevantes sobre el capital social del grado de movilidad residencial, la densidad de población y asociativa, el régimen de propiedad de la vivienda, la renta, el nivel educativo y la edad. En ciertos casos las relaciones se corresponden con las encontradas en la literatura existente. Además, extrayendo sus componentes principales se elabora un índice de capital social, con el cual se observa una distribución geográfica desigual del atributo, penalizando el Área Metropolitana de Barcelona y la costa.
... Son and Bauer (2010) also reported rural mothers' utilization of familial supports to bridge family caretaking amid work expectations, in contrast to participants in the current study; however, the rural mothers also reported inaccessibility to community supports. And although analyses of racial diversity and income inequality on social capital show a complex relationship where social capital is decreased when a community is racially diverse (Paarlberg et al., 2018), the urban setting of this study and the community-mindedness of the participants (as recruited via our community partners) may have influenced their accessibility to and usage of community supports. ...
Following the passage of the Minneapolis Sick and Safe Leave city ordinance, a community-based participatory research (CBPR) project was launched to examine the perceived accessibility and usage of paid sick leave by African American employed caregivers as a work-based family support tool. This paper presents qualitative findings from the Paid Sick Leave and African American Families study, in which four focus groups (n = 32) were conducted. Participants were employed African American caregivers from the Minneapolis metropolitan area. Participants discussed how the intersections of their work and family environments and how their families created family-level meaning making around employment, income, and family caregiving. Themes that arose from the focus groups were: (1) an importance of defining family for themselves expressed through kin affinity and family ascribed membership, (2) an expressed desire for their family to be together, (3) family prioritization over work conditions they felt was inconsiderate of their personal or family sense of worth and (4) family legacy expressed as the culmination of families’ prioritization, togetherness, and defined membership and is the intergenerational transmission of the family’s, identity. Implications for future research and policy are presented.
... 2 Contextual community characteristics that may shape the number of strategies used include government capacity (Fleischmann, Green, & Kwong, 1992;Reese, 1997), community size (Besser, Recker, & Parker, 2009), economic distress (Feiock & Clingermayer, 1992; I. S. Rubin & Rubin, 1987;E. B. Sharp, 1986), macroeconomic conditions (Krebs & Pelissero, 2010), social infrastructure (J. S. Sharp, Agnitsch, Ryan, & Flora, 2002), and social capital levels (Ha, Lee, & Feiock, 2016;Oh, Lee, & Bush, 2014;Paarlberg, Hoyman, & McCall, 2018). Stokan's perspective on the intentionality of development policy choices implies that variables within a government's direct control might also help explain the number of strategies utilized by a city or county. ...
Rubin (1988) argued communities “shoot anything that flies and claim anything that falls” in their efforts to attract businesses. Such a perspective implies local governments will use large numbers of strategies as they try “everything but the kitchen sink” to promote job creation and private investment. Conversely, Stokan (2003) claims localities are more selective in how they approach economic development, which implies there should be wide variation in the number of development strategies used across jurisdictions. Based on original survey data from North Carolina cities and counties of all sizes, the findings provide support for both explanations. The data show localities vary considerably with respect to the number of strategies they employ. Notably, variation in strategy use is associated with certain community characteristics including government capacity and development network strength. However, the data also reveal that communities are, on average, utilizing a relatively high number of strategies, lending some credence to Rubin’s theory.
Using data on large loans to US firms, we show that higher economic freedom in borrowers' headquarters states reduces the cost of bank credit. A one standard deviation increase in economic freedom lowers loan spreads by 12.38 basis points ($1.5 million interest savings for the average loan). We also provide evidence supporting the economic mechanism by which lenders view economic freedom as enhancing borrowers' ability to capitalize on investment and growth opportunities. The main drivers of this effect are freedom from government spending and taxation, while labor market freedom particularly benefits smaller firms and those in high economic growth potential states. Furthermore, higher economic freedom is linked to longer loan maturities, reduced fees, and looser general covenants.
Tillit till andra människor är grundläggande för den sociala sammanhållningen. Tidigare forskning har visat att etniska minoriteter ofta uppvisar lägre nivåer av generaliserat förtroende. Emellertid har den svenskspråkiga befolkningen i Finland framstått som en avvikelse från det förväntade mönstret, där forskning visat att denna grupp uppvisar högre nivåer av generaliserat förtroende jämfört med finskspråkiga. Vidare indikerar nyare studier att denna skillnad i generaliserat förtroende har minskat över tid. Denna artikel syftar till att undersöka och jämföra nivåerna av generaliserat förtroende mellan svenskspråkiga och finskspråkiga i Finland, samt att analysera hur socioekonomiska och kontextuella faktorer påverkar detta förtroende. Studien använder två datamaterial: Barometern (en online-panel för svenskspråkiga i Finland) och Medborgaropinion (en online-panel för finskspråkiga), vilka är representativa för dessa språkgrupper. Resultaten visar att finskspråkiga, i motsats till tidigare forskning, har ett högre generaliserat förtroende än svenskspråkiga. Variationerna inom båda grupperna förklaras av socioekonomiska faktorer som utbildning, ålder, inkomst, sysselsättning och kön, samt kontextuella faktorer som kommunens språkförhållande och urbaniseringsgrad. Dessa resultat kan ha betydande implikationer för förståelsen av samhällssammanhållning och kräver vidare studier för att utforska deras långsiktiga påverkan på det finländska samhället.
Compelling evidence from around the world suggests that ethnic diversity is detrimental to neighborhood trust and cohesion. Much of this evidence derives from empirical associations found with static indicators of diversity, measuring the mix of ethnic groups at a single point in time, and controlling for a varied mix of individual and community‐level covariates. Less attention though has sought to understand how dynamic processes of migration and residential settlement both create diversity and influence trust and cohesion. In this study, census and survey data are used to analyze the demographic and economic characteristics and dynamics coinciding with diversity in local communities in Australia, and the implications for neighborhood trust and cohesion. Diverse communities are heavily concentrated in moderately and highly disadvantaged communities in large immigrant gateway cities. Highly diverse communities experience continual high levels of immigration and population turnover and contain young age structures and more diverse and transient housing and household structures. Survey analyses reveal that these characteristics substantially explain observed negative associations between diversity and neighborhood trust and cohesion. The results point to the near‐intractable difficulties in isolating the effects of diversity and the importance of understanding the dynamic demographic processes in the construction of neighborhood diversity, trust, and cohesion.
How does economic inequality relate to prosocial behaviour? Existing theories and empirical studies from multiple disciplines have produced mixed results. Here we conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis to systematically synthesize empirical studies. Results from 192 effect sizes and over 2.5 million observations in 100 studies show that the relationship varies from being negative to positive depending upon the study (95% prediction interval −0.450 to 0.343). However, on average, there is a small, negative relationship between economic inequality and prosocial behaviour (r = −0.064, P = 0.004, 95% confidence interval −0.106 to −0.021). There is generally no evidence that results depend upon characteristics of the studies, participants, the way prosocial behaviour and inequality were assessed, and the publication discipline. Given the prevalence of economic inequality and the importance of prosocial behaviour, this systematic review and meta-analysis provides a timely study on the relationship between economic inequality and prosocial behaviour.
We provide new evidence that policies implemented nearly a century ago have significant causal effects on the exposure of 9 urban communities in the U.S. to climate-related risks. Using a boundary design, we show that redlining, a discriminatory federal housing policy pursued in the 1930s and outlawed in the 1960s, has resulted in persistent inequality in climate risk exposure. Locations in neighborhoods assigned lower credit grades have significantly higher exposure to flooding and higher air temperatures than comparable locations with higher grades. We attribute these disparities to lower measures of environmental capital, specifically tree coverage and ground surface perviousness, in these neighborhoods. Our findings underscore the ongoing causal effects of historical housing policies on present-day exposure to climate risks, and highlight the need to address the legacies of past policies in adapting to future climate risks.
El capital social se presenta en las relaciones sociales, las cuales, se apoyan en la comunicación interpersonal. La presente investigación se propone averiguar cómo la categoría de comunicación interpersonal entre los comerciantes de un tianguis ayuda a alcanzar un capital social fortalecido que favorezca a todos los integrantes del tianguis a mejorar sus procesos internos. De tal manera que, se examinan objetivos, metodologías, referentes teóricos, resultados y conclusiones de investigaciones realizadas, así como teorías que se han actualizado sobre la comunicación interpersonal y capital social; de la misma forma, se aplicó una encuesta a 30 comerciantes de un tianguis. Los resultados obtenidos no son definitivos y muestran que los comerciantes presentan una comunicación interpersonal y capital social aceptable, pero no son suficientes para solucionar los problemas que tiene el tianguis en sus procesos internos.
It is widely documented that social capital can benefit individual and social development. However, research on the roles of internet technologies in cultivating social capital has not arrived at a consensus. This article aims to understand the effects of online social interactions (OSIs) on generalized trust and prosocial civic engagement, two essential forms of social capital, with a longitudinal study and structural equation model. Fixed-effect model estimations consistently show that OSIs can effectively increase levels of generalized trust in China. Also, trust in parents is used as an alternative dependent variable to provide a comparative analysis. The mechanisms of these two sources of trust are different, and insignificant effects of OSIs on trust in parents are found to implicitly support the causal link between OSIs and trust in strangers. In this study, we implemented a series of robustness checks, for example, examinations using only the netizens as a sample and cross-sectional methods. Furthermore, we explored the relationship between OSIs and prosocial civic engagement (charitable donation), a behavior form of social capital. The SEM results suggested that charitable behaviors were positively affected by OSIs and generalized trust played a positive mediating role. Additionally, significant positive direct and indirect effects through the generalized trust in OSIs were found on prosocial behaviors.
Philanthropic endeavors are a form of institutionalized collective action that enhances a community’s capacity to address community needs and interests. Despite studies investigating the complex relationships between local economies, social capital, and local philanthropy, much remains unknown concerning the interaction between diverse local economic structures, social capital, and local philanthropy. Therefore, we explore whether local economies and social capital affect a community’s capacity to mobilize collective resources for two distinct forms of local philanthropy: elite and social welfare-oriented. Using a quantitative analysis, we empirically examine these relationships using a dataset covering three specified years spanning 3,036 US counties. Findings suggest that the diversity of local economic structures play a moderating role in facilitating the effect of social capital on local philanthropic activities aimed at satisfying local community demands and interests. The results illustrate important policy implications concerning the diversification of economic resources for local policymakers and community leaders.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between social capital and subjective ranking of household economic well-being in transition countries. The current study tests whether the performance of formal institutions moderates this link.
Design/methodology/approach
The analyses are based on the data from the second wave of the Life in Transition Survey. The measures “generosity of welfare policy (social safety nets)” and “ability of formal institutions to control inflation” were provided by the Bertelsmann Transformation Index Project. The study uses four measures of social capital: trust in family, trust in friends and acquaintances, trust in most people and the number of support sources. To test the hypotheses, the study employs mixed-effects regression models.
Findings
The study indicates a significant positive effect of social capital on subjective household well-being. Formal institutions do not have a significant effect on subjective ranking of household well-being. The evidence on institutions as moderators rejects the substitution effect between formal institutions and social capital. Higher generosity of welfare policy institutions and higher ability of formal institutions to control inflation strengthen the positive effect of particular trust (trust in family and trust in friends and acquaintances) on subjective ranking on the ladder of social standing (subjective ranking of household well-being), which is in line with the “crowding in” theory.
Originality/value
The paper adds on the limited research on transition countries. The paper contributes to the discussion on “crowding in” and “crowding out” effects of formal institutions on social capital.
Based upon the existing literatures surrounding collective action and the environmental justice frame, consciousness-raising is a social tool for community constituents facing the hazards of environmental pollution to community health. Environmental pollution is a complex phenomenon that poses grand societal challenges including global implications and locally situated contexts. We believe that locally situated social problems, such as air pollution emissions, influence the functions of community philanthropy, a means of effective collective civic action. By drawing upon resource mobilization theory and organizational ecology theory, this study aims to examine the direct effects of the social problem of environmental pollution to community health and its impact on collective resource mobilization. This is accomplished by analyzing both the organizational growth of the environmental nonprofit sector in terms of the density and aggregated resources at the community level, conceptualized here as community philanthropy. Collective civic action supports environmental activism and is embodied in the shared beliefs, values, and understandings of a community whom seek a legitimate means of collective action; these opportunities are often provided by the nonprofit sector. We also examine the moderating role of community racial diversity on this relationship. Empirical results demonstrate that in racially diverse communities, community philanthropy is facilitated when facing the social problem of increased environmental pollution. Our problem-driven research implies that community racial diversity may impact the mobilization of collective resources when dealing with locally situated social problems.
The authors examine major aspects of the connection between social capital and economic development in U.S. counties. They test the conclusions of Putnam, who saw associations as a force for positive development, and Olson, who concluded the opposite. The authors find that Putnam organizations have a negative effect on income, while Olson organizations have a positive effect by decreasing levels of income inequality. Drawing on the literature distinguishing between bridging versus bonding, the authors show that bridging capital has a positive effect on development by increasing per capita income, while bonding capital has a neutral effect on both per capita income and income inequality. Finally, religious variables are tested for their relationship with economic development. Overall, congregation density has a negative influence by increasing per capita income and income inequality, controlling for geographic type. Congregations with bridging characteristics have a mixed effect on development by decreasing income and decreasing inequality.
We have examined the extent to which ethnic diversity in neighbourhoods and municipalities in The Netherlands is related to personal contact with neighbours from ethnic in-groups and out-groups among the native majority as well as among ethnic minorities. The results indicate that ethnic diversity is negatively related to personal contacts with native neighbours, but positively to personal contacts with neighbours from other ethnic groups. This applies equally to native respondents and Turks and Moroccans, rejecting Putnam's hunkering-down hypothesis and ethnic competition theory. Instead, ethnic diversity increases meeting opportunities with ethnic minorities while decreasing meeting opportunities with the native majority.
This paper examines the effect of income inequality on individual wellbeing. The results show that those in the lowest twenty percent of income distribution have a marked reduction in wellbeing compared to the remainder. Hence, poverty is detrimental to wellbeing. The second key finding of this paper is that the existence of permanent aggregate income inequality reduces the wellbeing of individuals in other parts of income distribution, irrespective of their level of income. Income inequality is bad for everyone's wellbeing.
HE importance of social trust has become widely accepted in the social sciences. One reason for the interest in social trust is that, as measured in surveys, it correlates with a number of other variables that are normatively highly desirable. At the individual level, people who believe that in general most other people in their society can be trusted are also more inclined to have a positive view of their democratic in- stitutions, to participate more in politics, and to be more active in civic organizations. They also give more to charity and are more tolerant toward minorities and to people who are not like themselves. Trusting people also tend to be more optimistic about their own ability to influ- ence their own life chances and, not least important, to be more happy with how their life is going. 1
This chapter sheds more light on the sources of one important aspect of social capital, namely generalized trust. Most discussions about the sources of social capital thus far have been focused on the realm of civil society. The more people are engaged in voluntary associations and informal networks, the more trusting toward other people they will become (Putnam 1993, 2000). This approach is problematic because there is no successful theory of social capital that links aspects of civic life and trust at the micro- and macrolevels. Previous chapters have shown that, at the microlevel, voluntary associations do not necessarily work as producers of civic values and attitudes, such as generalized trust (e.g., Mayer, Wollebæk and Selle this volume; see also Stolle 2001; Uslaner 2002). In addition, it is difficult to distinguish between networks that produce distrust toward others, for example criminal or racist organizations, and networks that potentially produce trust, such as Parent-Teacher Associations or the Boy Scouts (however, Hooghe tries to make this distinction in this volume).
This article examines why people violate rationality and take part in their communities, differentiating by types of participation, particularly political versus other, more communal types of participation. The authors argue that trust plays an important role in participation levels, but contrary to more traditional models, the causal relationship runs from trust to participation. In addition, the authors posit that trust is strongly affected by economic inequality. Using aggregated American state-level data for the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, the authors present a series of two-stage least squares models on the effects of inequality and trust on participation, controlling for other related factors. Findings indicate that inequality is the strongest determinant of trust and that trust has a greater effect on communal participation than on political participation.
Up till now, a systematic test of the impact of theoretically relevant locality characteristics on social cohesion has been lacking in Europe. In this paper, we investigated the impact of a wide array of characteristics of Dutch neighbour-hoods and municipalities on contact frequency with one's neighbours, tolerance to neighbours from a different race, generalized social trust and volunteering. Based on the homophily proposition, we expected that ethnic and economic heterogeneity in Dutch localities negatively affect these indicators of social cohesion. We also expected that poor localities, localities with high crime rates and localities that suffer from high residential mobility rates offer their residents less favourable circumstances for social cohesion to arise. For our individual level data, we used the survey 'Culturele Veranderingen 2004', which contains 2949 individuals living in 503 neighbourhoods and 245 municipalities. Economic deprivation (at the neighbour-hood level) is most consistently negatively related to social cohesion. We did not find a consistent negative impact of ethnic heterogeneity on social cohesion. We conclude that not all aspects of social cohesion are affected in the same way by neighbourhood and municipality characteristics and that the impact of these characteristics on social cohesion depends on residents' income and educational level. Acta Politica (2009) 0, 000–000.
In the last decade considerable research in social sciences has focused on interpersonal trust, treating it as a remedy for most maladies modern democracies suffer from. Yet, if others act dishonestly, trust is turned into gullibility, thus mechanisms linking interpersonal trust with institutional success refer implicitly to honesty and civic morality. This paper investigates the roots of civic morality. It applies hierarchical models to data from 38 countries, and tests the individual, community and structural explanatory factors. The results of the analysis point to the relevance of an institutional dimension, both in the form of individuals’ perceptions as well as the quality of governance: confidence in political institutions and their objective quality are the strongest predictors of civic morality. At the same time, the findings show that the recently popular claims about the importance of social capital for citizens’ moral standards are largely unfounded.
While most current research documents a negative relation between ethnic diversity and generalized trust, it has to be acknowledged that these results often originate from one-country analyses in North America. In this article, attitudinal measurements from the European Social Survey are combined with Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development data on migration patterns, thus examining the relationship between diversity and trust in a comparative manner across 20 European countries. More fine-grained measurements of diversity ( including type and rise of diversity over time and legal status of immigrants) are included in a multilevel model. At the individual level, most of the familiar relations were confirmed. At the country level, hardly any indicators for migration or diversity proved to be strongly and consistently related to generalized trust. Results suggest that the pessimistic conclusions about the negative effects of ethnic diversity on generalized trust cannot be confirmed at the aggregate level across European countries.
A growing number of sociologists, political scientists, economists, and organizational theorists have invoked the concept of social capital in the search for answers to a broadening range of questions being confronted in their own fields. Seeking to clarify the concept and help assess its utility for organizational theory, we synthesize the theoretical research undertaken in these various disciplines and develop a common conceptual framework that identifies the sources, benefits, risks, and contingencies of social capital.
This analysis of variations in the level of generalized social trust (defined here as the belief that others will not deliberately or knowingly do us harm, if they can avoid it, and will look after our interests, if this is possible) in 60 nations of the world shows that trust is an integral part of a tight syndrome of social, political and economic conditions. High trust countries are characterized by ethnic homogeneity, Protestant religious traditions, good government, wealth (gross domestic product per capita), and income equality. This combination is most marked in the high trust Nordic countries but the same general pattern is found in the remaining 55 countries, albeit in a weaker form. Rural societies have comparatively low levels of generalized trust but large-scale urban societies do not.
Cause and effect relations are impossible to specify exactly but ethnic homogeneity and Protestant traditions seem to have a direct impact on trust, and an indirect one through their consequences for good government, wealth and income equality. The importance of ethnic homogeneity also suggests that the difference between particularized and generalized trust may be one of degree rather than kind.
In this article, we attempt to distinguish between the properties of moderator and mediator variables at a number of levels. First, we seek to make theorists and researchers aware of the importance of not using the terms moderator and mediator interchangeably by carefully elaborating, both conceptually and strategically, the many ways in which moderators and mediators differ. We then go beyond this largely pedagogical function and delineate the conceptual and strategic implications of making use of such distinctions with regard to a wide range of phenomena, including control and stress, attitudes, and personality traits. We also provide a specific compendium of analytic procedures appropriate for making the most effective use of the moderator and mediator distinction, both separately and in terms of a broader causal system that includes both moderators and mediators.
Recent studies have demonstrated that income inequality is related to mortality rates. It was hypothesized, in this study, that income inequality is related to reduction in social cohesion and that disinvestment in social capital is in turn associated with increased mortality.
In this cross-sectional ecologic study based on data from 39 states, social capital was measured by weighted responses to two items from the General Social Survey: per capita density of membership in voluntary groups in each state and level of social trust, as gauged by the proportion of residents in each state who believed that people could be trusted. Age-standardized total and cause-specific mortality rates in 1990 were obtained for each state.
Income inequality was strongly correlated with both per capita group membership (r = -.46) and lack of social trust (r = .76). In turn, both social trust and group membership were associated with total mortality, as well as rates of death from coronary heart disease, malignant neoplasms, and infant mortality.
These data support the notion that income inequality leads to increased mortality via disinvestment in social capital.
Education is usually the most important predictor of political and social engagement. Over the last half century, educational levels in the United States have risen sharply, yet levels of political and social participation have not. Norman Nie, Jane Junn, and Kenneth Stehlik-Barry (NJS-B) have offered an elegant resolution to this paradox based on a distinction between the relative education having positive effects on participation. Using a broad range of evidence, including the data used by NJS-B, this paper shows that increases in average education levels improve trust and do not reduce participation levels. The contrast with the NJS-B participation results is found to be due to the definition of the educational environment. We use a changing regional comparison group, theoretically preferable to NJS-B's static national measure. Our results point to a more optimistic conclusion about the consequences of increases in average education levels, while leaving open the puzzle of sluggish participation.
The effect of social capital on economic growth is examined using linear regression analysis and U.S. county-level data. Results reveal that social capital has a statistically significant, independent positive effect on the rate of per-capita income growth.
Social science research notes that racial context is related to attitudes toward social issues; however, surprisingly little research has examined how the impact of racial context on attitudes is activated. The aim of this article is to examine racial context "effects" for policy preferences, but to do so within a broader perspective. This article extends the literature on racial attitudes by considering a conditional relationship between racial and ethnic context and socioeconomic context and expanding racial context to include multiple racial and ethnic groups. The findings indicate that racial and ethnic contextual effects do emerge; however, these effects are conditional on the socioeconomic context in which an individual resides. Specifically, high socioeconomic contexts and highly diverse contexts are related to higher levels of support for racial social issues; however, contexts characterized by low socioeconomic context and high racial and ethnic diversity are associated with lower levels of support for such issues.
Recent years have seen a sharp increase in empirical studies on the constrict claim: the hypothesized detrimental effect of ethnic diversity on most if not all aspects of social cohesion. Studies have scrutinized effects of different measures of ethnic heterogeneity in different geographical areas on different forms of social cohesion. The result has been a cacophony of empirical findings. We explicate mechanisms likely to underlie the negative relationship between ethnic heterogeneity and social cohesion: the homophily principle, feelings of anomie, group threat, and social disorganization. Guided by a clear conceptual framework, we structure the empirical results of 90 recent studies and observe three patterns. We find that (a) there is consistent support for the constrict claim for aspects of social cohesion that are spatially bounded to neighborhoods, (b) support for the constrict claim is more common in the United States than in other countries, and (c) ethnic diversity is not related to less interethnic social cohesion. We discuss the implications of these patterns.
Social capital is the web of cooperative relationships between citizens that facilitates resolution of collection action problems (Coleman 1990; Putnam 1993). Although normally conceived as a property of communities, the reciprocal relationship between community involvement and trust in others is a demonstration of social capital in individual behavior and attitudes. Variation in social capital can be explained by citizens' psychological involvement with their communities, cognitive abilities, economic resources, and general life satisfaction. This variation affects citizens' confidence in national institutions, beyond specific controls for measures of actual performance. We analyze the pooled General Social Surveys from 1972 to 1994 in a latent variables framework incorporating aggregate contextual data. Civic engagement and interpersonal trust are in a tight reciprocal relationship, where the connection is stronger from participation to interpersonal trust, rather than the reverse.
This article explores the relationship between informal networks of interaction and trust among neighbors and political engagement by neighborhood residents. The United States lacks mass-based political organizations that directly represent the interests of poor and working class citizens. Therefore, geographically based neighborhood associations are one of the few mechanisms available to represent these interests. The segregation of urban neighborhoods by class and race presents many disadvantages for lower income residents, but geographical concentration can have the advantage of facilitating organized political action. Because neighborhood organizations are such an important mechanism by which disadvantaged urban populations assert their needs and perspectives, it is critical to understand which characteristics of residents encourage the formation of such organizations and enable them to be effective in influencing public policies. What kinds of networks and relationships exist among residents of lower income neighborhoods that might encourage them to organize for political action?
This paper examines the effects of economic structural change on community social capital. The content of 156 interviews in Southern communities entrenched in the offshore oil economy, were used to investigate the consequences of industrial and civic restructuring on the social structure and social ties among local residents. The central finding is that population turnover and in-migration of workers demanded by a rapidly expanding economy enhances the density of weak tie networks within the community. However, the activation of these weak ties is highly dependent upon perceptions of future reciprocity from newcomers to the community by the entrenched members. Weak ties are important because they serve as a foundation for community members engaging in collective problem solving. Civic and social institutions can mediate the negative effects of rapid community growth shown. When newcomers are not integrated into the community, it may lead to exploitation and exclusion due to stigmatic labels.
The idea of social capital has had a powerful impact on the study of politics, policy, and social science at large. Much of what we know about the causes and effects of social capital, however, is limited by the nature of data used regularly by scholars working in this area. Current data sets allow researchers to study changes in social capital over time at the national level and static differences in the distribution of social capital across the states. The inability of scholars to know how social capital varies over time and across space limits the kinds of questions that can be asked. In this article, we use sample data of more than 20,000 individuals conducted biannually in the continuous 48 states by the marketing research firm MediaMark Research, Inc. to create a unique measure of social capital that varies across time and space. These data are available at the state level from 1986 through 2004.
Most studies on ethnic diversity and social trust rely on the standard measure of generalized trust. This study complements existing work on this topic by examining the effect of diversity on trust toward outgroups. This innovation is motivated by two closely connected arguments: At first, most existent studies are conducted in the framework of intergroup contact and conflict theory. These theories directly allude to trust toward outgroups. Second, recent empirical studies show that the standard measure of generalized trust is much less generalized than theoretically assumed. Instead it is blurred by a great deal of particularized trust. Explicit outgroup trust therefore seems to be better suited to empirically testing the extent to which growing ethnic diversity influences trust toward people different from oneself. The cross-national analysis yields a positive relationship between diversity and outgroup trust, which is an interesting finding given the current debate dominated by conflict theoretical reasoning.
This study analyzes the impact of various forms of "social capital" on governmental performance in the American states. Aspects of social capital that are conceptually identified with generalized reciprocity (such as social trust, volunteering, and census response) are associated with better governmental performance, as measured by ratings constructed by the Government Performance Project. In contrast, aspects of social capital identified with social connectedness (including activity in associations and informal socializing) are unrelated to governmental performance. These findings call into question the use of heterogeneous indexes of social capital that mix social connectedness indicators together with indicators of generalized trust and reciprocity.
A number of studies have found a negative relationship between ethnic diversity and social capital and assumed from this a
harmful effect of diversity on social cohesion. This article suggests that social cohesion must be treated as a multifaceted
concept and any analysis into the relationship between diversity and social capital needs to be complemented by an analysis
of diversity’s effect on ‘relations between ethnic groups’. Our results show that while increasing diversity does have a negative
impact on social capital, it simultaneously improves perceptions of, and relations between, ethnic groups. Furthermore, we
find that forming ‘bridging’ ties in diverse environments plays a significant role in the positive relationship between diversity
and tolerance, and that the presence of ‘bridging’ ties can also reduce the negative impact of diversity on social capital.
However, while our results show that diversity has both positive and negative effects on social cohesion, we find that it
is disadvantage which has the most detrimental impact, undermining both social capital and interethnic relations. We also find evidence that using a more sensitive measure of diversity (creating an area typology
based on the proportional size, number, and type of ethnic groups in an area) reveals that living in different structures
of diversity may lead to different social cohesion outcomes.
This paper starts with a discussion of definitions of social capital, then turns to issues in measurement, and finally, presents some evidence on the consequences of social capital. In the last five years, I have been working exclusively on some specific and perhaps unique problems about social capital in the United States, so all of my examples are going to be drawn from the United States experience. I don’t want to be interpreted as saying these trends are common to all OECD countries. It is just that the United States has been the main focus of my research for the past five years. There are, among those of us who work in the area, some marginal differences in terms of exactly how we would define social capital, but Michael Woolcock correctly says in his paper that among the people who are working in this field, there has been a visible convergence, definitionally, toward something like the definition he offers. The central idea of social capital, in my view, is that networks and the associated norms of reciprocity have value. They have value for the people who are in them, and they have, at least in some instances, demonstrable externalities, so that there are both public and private faces of social capital. I am focussing largely on the external returns, the public returns to social capital, but I think that is not at all inconsistent with the idea that there are also private returns. The same is no doubt true in the area of human capital, i.e. there are simultaneously public and private returns. In the great debate of the two Cambridges about "capital", the focus of much of the discussion was on whether physical capital was homogeneous enough to be susceptible to aggregate measurement. There is room for similar debates about human and social capital. Obviously there are many different forms of physical capital. For instance, both an egg-beater and an aircraft carrier enter into the American national accounts as little bits of physical capital, and yet they are not interchangeable. Try fixing your morning omelette with an aircraft carrier, or try attacking the Serbs with an eggbeater. The same thing is true about social capital. Social capital is certainly far from homogeneous.
The concept of 'social capital' has met with huge success among governmental agencies, including governments themselves at all levels and transnational entities such as the OECD and the World Bank, as well as NGOs, academics, policy analysts, etc., in short, any and every institution concerned with or about the well-being of populations. And yet the concept has been subjected to a critique so devastating that it is difficult to understand why it has been so popular. The paper investigates a number of the reasons given in the literature for its popularity. These reasons are both admiring (e.g. it broadens our understanding of community well-being beyond the economic - ABS), and critical (e.g. 'a sort of capital- and capitalism-fetishism, by analogy with commodity fetishism, reigns supreme' - Ben Fine). The paper will conclude by suggesting that the question of why 'social capital' continues to prevail, despite its dubious epistemological status, can most usefully be explored by asking who stands to benefit (if anyone) from its continued usage.
Most research on the environmental determinants of whites' racial attitudes focuses on the "threat" hypothesis, i.e., that white racism increases with the competition posed by a larger black population. We argue that in the segregated United States, contextual effects are more complicated than this, involving both race and socio-economic status. Cross-level data on individual racial attitudes and the environment's racial and education composition, constructed from the 1991 Race and Politics Survey and the 1990 Census, support this assertion. Living amongst more uneducated whites has a greater impact on whites' racial attitudes than does living amongst more blacks. Further analysis shows that the sources of this effect come less from interracial competition and more from a psychological response of out-group hostility generated by low status contexts. We also find that whites' views on racially targeted policies are shaped by racial contexts but only where the contextual parameter coincides with the policy outcome. Our findings suggest specific limitations to the threat thesis and highlight other ways that social contexts shape racial attitudes.
In this study we focus on the relationship between ethnic diversity and informal social capital.
As this refers to rather strong social ties in the intimate domain, it is a strict test of Putnam’s
claim that ethnic diversity would decrease social capital. In order to explain these
relationships, we derived mediating mechanisms from conflict and contact theory. Using
data from the European Social Survey (2002/2003), we applied multilevel analyses considering
three levels: individuals, regions and countries. Our results revealed a direct positive
effect of ethnic diversity at the country level on informal helping, yet no indirect effect via
the mediating variables. At the regional level, we only found an indirect effect of ethnic
diversity. Here, ethnic diversity increases the likelihood of intergroup contact that in turn
is positively related to both informal social meeting and helping. Perceived ethnic threat
turned out to have a negative effect on informal social meeting.
Similarity breeds connection. This principle - the homophily principle - structures network ties of every type, including marriage, friendship, work, advice, support, information transfer, exchange, comembership, and other types of relationship. The result is that people's personal networks are homogeneous with regard to many sociodemographic, behavioral, and intrapersonal characteristics. Homophily limits people's social worlds in a way that has powerful implications for the information they receive, the attitudes they form, and the interactions they experience. Homophily in race and ethnicity creates the strongest divides in our personal environments, with age, religion, education, occupation, and gender following in roughly that order. Geographic propinquity, families, organizations, and isomorphic positions in social systems all create contexts in which homophilous relations form. Ties between nonsimilar individuals also dissolve at a higher rate, which sets the stage for the formation of niches (localized positions) within social space. We argue for more research on: (a) the basic ecological processes that link organizations, associations, cultural communities, social movements, and many other social forms; (b) the impact of multiplex ties on the patterns of homophily; and (c) the dynamics of network change over time through which networks and other social entities co-evolve.
Abstract Conventional wisdom says that social capital is more common among families in rural communities than urban communities. Using data from the 1988 wave of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we compare the prevalence, type, and extent of social exchanges in these places. Results indicate that families living in rural areas are more likely to exchange exclusively with kin than are families living in urban areas. In particular, families living in rural areas are more likely to receive money help from kin than families in urban areas. Results on patterns of giving are more complex, with rural origin families with younger household heads more likely to give support to kin, and rural origin families with older heads less likely to provide such support, as compared to otherwise similar families of urban origin. Finally, only modest urban-rural differences in amounts exchanged (in dollars) are found among otherwise similar families. Overall, some of the urban-rural differences in patterns of exchange are explained by different family characteristics; however, key urban-rural differences remain, probably reflecting differences in norms and the availability of institutional support services in different areas.
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How do conditions of diversity and inequality affect the sense of solidarity with each other that is manifested as social trust? This article brings together the literatures on racial heterogeneity, inter-group contact and relative deprivation to test and enrich the existing theoretical understanding of trust. It explores the effects of city and neighborhood contexts, individual experiences of inter-group relations, and their moderating effects on social trust. Findings suggest that the influence of a city's level of ethnic/racial diversity and income inequality is conditioned by inter-group social ties and experiences of discrimination. By considering the characteristics of neighborhoods, racial diversity of cities no longer has any significant association with trust in others. However, income inequality at the city level interacts with experiences of discrimination to undermine trust. Public policies aimed at improving social cohesion would benefit from considering the joint impact of economic and social policies that regulate resource distribution and hence shape inter-group relations.
Ethnic diversity is increasing in most advanced countries, driven mostly by sharp increases in immigration. In the long run immigration and diversity are likely to have important cultural, economic, fiscal, and developmental benefits. In the short run, however, immigration and ethnic diversity tend to reduce social solidarity and social capital. New evidence from the US suggests that in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods residents of all races tend to ‘hunker down’. Trust (even of one's own race) is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friends fewer. In the long run, however, successful immigrant societies have overcome such fragmentation by creating new, cross-cutting forms of social solidarity and more encompassing identities. Illustrations of becoming comfortable with diversity are drawn from the US military, religious institutions, and earlier waves of American immigration.
A large and growing body of research is devoted to the effects of social capital on institutional performance. This literature reveals that societies characterized by higher levels of social capital tend to achieve superior performance. Still, enquiries to date predominantly concentrate on country-level data or large sub-national units. The primary purpose of this article is to extend the empirical work to the local government level, while retaining the use of objective data to gauge institutional performance. This use of local data has the advantage of increasing the data set available and provides a more stringent test of the effect of social capital because social capital is likely to vary less at lower levels of government. The results—based on an empirical analysis of 305 Flemish municipalities in 2000—support the view that social capital leads to government (out)performance also at the local level of government.
With more than 400,000 trust evaluations, we examine inter-population trust in the European Union. We focus on social capital theory explanations in a context where European inhabitants from 20 countries rate trust in the populations of 27 other European countries and in their own national population. We emphasize the role of ethnic heterogeneity, but we extend the research by studying the importance of the presence of specific European migrants in a country for trusting this population as a whole. Moreover, we consider the relation with the citizen's country and characteristics of the trusted populations' country. We use the European Election Studies, showing that diversity is important for explaining trust in other populations and trust in one's own population - but opposite to what is expected by Putnam.
The popularity of the concept of social capital has been accompanied by increasing controversy about its actual meaning and effects. I consider here the alternative applications of the concept as an attribute of individuals vs. collectivities and discuss the extent to which causal propositions formulated at each level are logically sound. I present some empirical evidence illustrating the possibility that, despite the current popularity of the concept, much of its alleged benefits may be spurious after controlling for other factors. Implications of this analysis and results for theory and policy are discussed.
This cross-national investigation examines hypotheses derived from two major alternative perspectives on the determinants
of trust in contemporary societies. Is a society’s level of generalized trust a function of its ethnic composition, or of
its type of governance and political system? The argument that social diversity (ethnic, linguistic, and religious) leads
to lower levels of trust, at least in the short run, is assessed with cross-national data (N=98). Two hypotheses derived from this perspective are not confirmed. The alternative rational governance argument, which
holds that trust is a function of rational governance, stable democracy, and civil rights is also assessed. Three hypotheses
derived from this political perspective reveal mixed results. The findings highlight the complex interplay of multiple factors
in shaping a society’s overall level of generalized trust.
KeywordsSocial diversity–Interpersonal trust–Governance–Democracy
A growing belief exists that social capital contributes to economic growth of communities. In this paper, we identify inputs into the production of social capital at the level of US counties, using an array of individual and community factors that are theoretically important determinants of social capital. We use data from the Bureau of the Census, County Business Patterns, USA Counties on CD, National Center for Charitable Statistics, and the Regional Economic Information System for two time periods. Ethnic homogeneity, income inequality, attachment to place, education, age, and female labor force participation are strongly associated with levels of social capital across US counties.
Video-based media spaces are designed to support casual interaction between intimate collaborators. Yet transmitting video is fraught with privacy concerns. Some researchers suggest that the video stream be filtered to mask out potentially sensitive ...
We review the bourgeoning literature on ethno-racial diversity and its alleged effects on public trust and cohesion in the context of the evolution of the concept of social capital and earlier claims about its manifold positive effects. We present evidence that questions such claims and points to the roots of civicness and trust in deep historical processes associated with race and immigration. We examine the claims that immigration reduces social cohesion by drawing on the sociological classics to show the forms of cohesion that actually keep modern societies together. This leads to a typology that shows "communitarianism" to be just one such form and one not required, and not necessarily ideal, for the smooth operation of complex organizations and institutions. Implications of our conclusions for future research and immigration policy are discussed.
This paper presents evidence that “social capital” matters for measurable economic performance, using indicators of trust
and civic norms from the World Values Surveys for a sample of 29 market economies. Memberships in formal groups—Putnam's measure
of social capital—is not associated with trust or with improved economic performance. We find trust and civic norms are stronger
in nations with higher and more equal incomes, with institutions that restrain predatory actions of chief executives, and
with better-educated and ethnically homogeneous populations.
Social capital consists of features of social organization--such as trust between citizens, norms of reciprocity, and group membership--that facilitate collective action. This article reports a contextual analysis of social capital and individual self-rated health, with adjustment for individual household income, health behaviors, and other covariates.
Self-rated health ("Is your overall health excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor?") was assessed among 167,259 individuals residing in 39 US states, sampled by the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. Social capital indicators, aggregated to the state level, were obtained from the General Social Surveys.
Individual-level factors (e.g., low income, low education, smoking) were strongly associated with self-rated poor health. However, even after adjustment for these proximal variables, a contextual effect of low social capital on risk of self-rated poor health was found. For example, the odds ratio for fair or poor health associated with living in areas with the lowest levels of social trust was 1.41 (95% confidence interval = 1.33, 1.50) compared with living in high-trust states.
These results extend previous findings on the health advantages stemming from social capital.
Both individual experiences and community characteristics influence how much people trust each other. Using data drawn from US localities we find that the strongest factors that reduce trust are: i) a recent history of traumatic experiences, even though the passage of time reduces this effect fairly rapidly; ii) belonging to a group that historically felt discriminated against, such as minorities (black in particular) and, to a lesser extent, women; iii) being economically unsuccessful in terms of income and education; iv) living in a racially mixed community and/or in one with a high degree of income disparity. Religious beliefs and ethnic origins do not significantly affect trust. The latter result may be an indication that the American melting pot at least up to a point works, in terms of homogenizing attitudes of different cultures, even though racial cleavages leading to low trust are still quite high.
Three families of social capital concepts are discussed: (fa1) trust, (fa2) ease of cooperation, and (fa3) network. In the language of game theory, social capital is the excess propensity to play cooperative solutions in prisoners' dilemma games. The three families lead to different definitions, and thus to different measurement methods. Some measures are theory-near, while others are easy-to-use proxies. It is shown that all definitions and measures are related. The "social capital dream" is that all definitions try to catch aspects of the same phenomenon, so that all measures tap the same latent variable. It is discussed whether this dream is likely to come true. Copyright 2000 by Blackwell Publishers Ltd
Using a large Australian social survey, combined with precise data on neighbourhood characteristics, I explore the factors that affect trust at a local level ('localised trust') and at a national level ('generalised trust'). Trust is positively associated with the respondent's education, and negatively associated with the amount of time spent commuting. At a neighbourhood level, trust is higher in affluent areas, and lower in ethnically and linguistically heterogeneous communities, with the effect being stronger for linguistic heterogeneity than ethnic heterogeneity. Linguistic heterogeneity reduces localised trust for both natives and immigrants, and reduces generalised trust only for immigrants. Instrumental variables specifications show similar results. In contrast to the USA, there is no apparent relationship between trust and inequality across neighbourhoods in Australia. Copyright © 2006 The Economic Society of Australia.
This paper asked if changes in social capital influence the level and disparity of household income in the United States. Social capital is defined in this paper as one's sympathy (antipathy) for others and one's idealized self. Changes in social capital are expected to produce the following economic consequences. First, increases in social capital are expected to alter the terms of trade and to increase the likelihood of trades between friends and family. Second, increases in social capital are expected to increase an economic agent's concerns for the external consequences of his or her choices, internalizing what otherwise would be considered externalities. Third, increases in social capital between firms are expected to increase the likelihood that they will act in their collective interest. Fourth, increases in social capital are expected to increase the opportunities for specialization and the likelihood of trade. Finally, increases in social capital are expected to raise the average level of income and reduce the disparity of income.