Social capital, social participation and life satisfaction among Chilean older adults

OBJECTIVE To examine factors associated with social participation and their relationship with self-perceived well-being in older adults. METHODS This study was based on data obtained from the National Socioeconomic Characterization (CASEN) Survey conducted in Chile, in 2011, on a probability sample of households. We examined information of 31,428 older adults living in these households. Descriptive and explanatory analyses were performed using linear and multivariate logistic regression models. We assessed the respondents’ participation in different types of associations: egotropic, sociotropic, and religious. RESULTS Social participation increased with advancing age and then declined after the age of 80. The main finding of this study was that family social capital is a major determinant of social participation of older adults. Their involvement was associated with high levels of self-perceived subjective well-being. We identified four settings as sources of social participation: home-based; rural community-based; social policy programs; and religious. Older adults were significantly more likely to participate when other members of the household were also involved in social activities evidencing an intergenerational transmission of social participation. Rural communities, especially territorial associations, were the most favorable setting for participation. There has been a steady increase in the rates of involvement of older adults in social groups in Chile, especially after retirement. Religiosity remains a major determinant of associativism. The proportion of participation was higher among older women than men but these proportions equaled after the age of 80. CONCLUSIONS Self-perceived subjective well-being is not only dependent upon objective factors such as health and income, but is also dependent upon active participation in social life, measured as participation in associations, though its effects are moderate.

Association between social capital and self-perception of health in Brazilian adults

OBJECTIVE To investigate the association between social capital and social capital and self-perception of health based on examining the influence of health-related behaviors as possible mediators of this relationship.METHODS A cross-sectional study was used with 1,081 subjects, which is representative of the population of individuals aged 40 years or more in a medium-sized city in Southern Brazil. The subjects who perceived their health as fine, bad or very bad were considered to have a negative self-perception of their health. The social capital indicators were: number of friends, people from whom they could borrow money from when needed; the extent of trust in community members; whether or not members of the community helped each other; community safety; and extent of participation in community activities. The behaviors were: physical activity during leisure time, fruits and vegetable consumption, tobacco use and alcohol abuse. The odds ratios (OR) and confidence intervals (CI) 95% were calculated by binary logistic regression. The significance of mediation was verified using the Sobel test.RESULTS Following adjustment for demographic and clinical variables, subjects with fewer friends (OR = 1.39, 95%CI 1.08;1.80), those who perceived less frequently help from people in the neighborhood (OR = 1.30, 95%CI 1.01;1.68), who saw the violent neighborhood (OR = 1.33, 95%CI 1.01;1.74) and who had not participated in any community activity (OR = 1.39, 95%CI 1.07;1.80) had more negative self-perception of their health. Physical activity during leisure time was a significant mediator in the relationship between all social capital indicators (except for the borrowed money variable) and self-perceived health. Fruit and vegetable consumption was a significant mediator of the relationship between the extent of participation in community activities and self-perceived health. Tobacco use and alcohol abuse did not seem to have a mediating role in any relationship.CONCLUSIONS Lifestyle seems to only partially explain the relationship between social capital and self-perceived health. Among the investigated behaviors, physical activity during leisure time is what seems to have the most important role as a mediator of this relationship.

Social capital : Social capital and psychological sense of community in the neighborhood - Predicting and preventing

Dissertação de Mestrado apresentada ao ISPA - Instituto Universitário

Entrepreneurial intention, cognitive social capital and culture: empirical anaylisis for Spain and Taiwan

The main purpose of this paper is building a research model to integrate the socioeconomic concept of social capital within intentional models of new firm creation. Nevertheless, some researchers have found cultural differences between countries and regions to have an effect on economic development. Therefore, a second objective of this study is exploring whether those cultural differences affect entrepreneurial cognitions. Research design and methodology: Two samples of last year university students from Spain and Taiwan are studied through an Entrepreneurial Intention Questionnaire (EIQ). Structural equation models (Partial Least Squares) are used to test the hypotheses. The possible existence of differences between both sub-samples is also empirically explored through a multigroup analysis. Main outcomes and results: The proposed model explains 54.5% of the variance in entrepreneurial intention. Besides, there are some significant differences between both subsamples that could be attributed to cultural diversity. Conclusions: This paper has shown the relevance of cognitive social capital in shaping individuals’ entrepreneurial intentions across different countries. Furthermore, it suggests that national culture could be shaping entrepreneurial perceptions, but not cognitive social capital. Therefore, both cognitive social capital and culture (made up essentially of values and beliefs), may act together to reinforce the entrepreneurial intention.

How central and connected am I in my family? Bridging and bonding social capital in family configurations of young adults with psychiatric disorders

AIMS: This article explores the structures of relational resources that individuals with psychiatric disorders get from their family configurations using the concept of social capital. METHODS: The research is based on a sample of 54 individuals with psychiatric disorders and behavioural problems, and a comparison sample of 54 individuals without a clinical record matched to the clinical respondents for age and sex. Standard measures of social capital from social network methods are applied on family configurations of individuals from both samples. Differences are tested by variance analysis. RESULTS: Structures of family resources available to individuals with psychiatric disorders are distinct. Individuals with psychiatric disorders perceive themselves as less central in their family configurations and less connected to their family members. Their significant family members are perceived as less connected with each other. As a whole, their family configurations are smaller and do not include spouses or partners. Therefore bridging and bonding social capitals are not readily available for them. CONCLUSION: As family configurations of individuals with psychiatric disorders provide fewer relational resources than other families, they are not able to deal with social integration of individuals with psychiatric disorders on their own.

Cibernautes de la memòria : la construcció de la memòria col·lectiva de la guerra civil espanyola a través de la participació en espais virtuals de comunicació. El cas de la llista de distribució "Guerra Civil Española"

El present treball fa una anàlisi de la construcció, presència i reivindicació de la memòria col·lectiva de la guerra civil espanyola a internet mitjançant l'anàlisi etnogràfic de les interaccions i pràctiques en un espai de comunicació virtual: el de la llista de distribució "Guerra Civil Española". Aquest estudi de cas es contextualitza en el marc d'un doble escenari global i local, el context global de la cultura de la memòria a la societat de la informació i el context local de la dinàmica de la presència de la memòria de la guerra civil a l'entorn social i polític de l'Estat Espanyol al llarg dels darrers 30 anys.

Social capital and cognitive attainment

We review the different meanings that researchers have given to theconcept of social capital, differentiate four types – bridging, bonding,linking, and overheads –, and discuss their different functions as public,club, and common goods.For each form of social capital we distinguish its productivity (acollective characteristic) from the factors that account for individual’sdifferential access to its returns, and propose alternative ways formeasuring each.We show the utility of our theoretical and measuring approach byanalyzing the impact of the each form of social capital on 15 year-oldstudents’ cognitive attainment across OECD countries, using 2006 PISAdata.The results show that students’ cognitive attainments are a direct functionof the richness or productivity of each form of social capital and ofstudents’ degree of access to each.

PhD Students’ Research Group Social Capital in Two Countries: A Clustering Approach with Duocentred Network Measures

The article examines the structure of the collaboration networks of research groups where Slovenian and Spanish PhD students are pursuing their doctorate. The units of analysis are student-supervisor dyads. We use duocentred networks, a novel network structure appropriate for networks which are centred around a dyad. A cluster analysis reveals three typical clusters of research groups. Those which are large and belong to several institutions are labelled under a bridging social capital label. Those which are small, centred in a single institution but have high cohesion are labelled as bonding social capital. Those which are small and with low cohesion are called weak social capital groups. Academic performance of both PhD students and supervisors are highest in bridging groups and lowest in weak groups. Other variables are also found to differ according to the type of research group. At the end, some recommendations regarding academic and research policy are drawn

Social capital, government expenditures, and growth

Countries with greater social capital have higher economic growth. We show that socialcapital is also highly positively correlated across countries with government expenditureon education. We develop an infinite-horizon model of public spending and endogenousstochastic growth that explains both facts through frictions in political agency whenvoters have imperfect information. In our model, the government provides servicesthat yield immediate utility, and investment that raises future productivity. Voters aremore likely to observe public services, so politicians have electoral incentives to underprovidepublic investment. Social capital increases voters' awareness of all governmentactivity. As a consequence, both politicians' incentives and their selection improve.In the dynamic equilibrium, both the amount and the efficiency of public investmentincrease, permanently raising the growth rate.

Bowling for fascism: Social capital and the rise of the Nazi Party in Weimar Germany, 1919-33

Social capital a dense network of associations facilitating cooperation within a community typically leads to positive political and economic outcomes, as demonstrated by a large literature following Putnam. A growing literature emphasizes the potentially "dark side" of social capital. This paper examines the role of social capital in the downfall of democracy in interwar Germany by analyzing Nazi party entry rates in a cross-section of towns and cities. Before the Nazi Party's triumphs at the ballot box, it built an extensive organizational structure, becoming a mass movement with nearly a million members by early 1933. We show that dense networks of civic associations such as bowling clubs, animal breeder associations, or choirs facilitated the rise of the Nazi Party. The effects are large: Towns with one standard deviation higher association density saw at least one-third faster growth in the strength of the Nazi Party. IV results based on 19th century measures of social capital reinforce our conclusions. In addition, all types of associations veteran associations and non-military clubs, "bridging" and "bonding" associations positively predict NS party entry. These results suggest that social capital in Weimar Germany aided the rise of the Nazi movement that ultimately destroyed Germany's first democracy.

Una nova societat civil: accions col·lectives de masses a l'Espanya postransicional (ca. 1982-2002)

INFORME DE RECERCA: Aquest treball ha consistit en una indagació sobre la protesta socialrecent al nostre país (Espanya, 1982-2002); específicament, sobre els principals episodis contemporànisd'acció col.lectiva que han esclatat a Espanya i a Catalunya, amb dos paràmetresdelimitadors bàsics:a) haver-se produït en el periode postransicional, és a dir, amb la fase de resolució dela transició política ja culminada (cosa que, com altres investigadors, hipotitzemque es produí pel 1982, amb el primer relleu democràtic i pacífic del Govern iamb el que anomenem transició institucional ja acabada); per tant, entre 1982 i2003 aproximadament.b) haver mobilitzat un seguiment massiu i adquirit, degut a aquest motiu, a vegadesreforçat per altres, una significació política excepcional, fora d'allò que esconsidera normal en l'activitat política quotidiana (itenint en conseqüència un impacte molt notable en el decurs mateix delperiode postransicional).

Disentangling the link between health and social capital: A comparison of immigrant and native-born populations in Spain

An increasing body of research has pointed to the relevance of social capital in studying a great variety of socio-economic phenomena, ranging from economics growth and development to educational attainment and public health. Conceptually, our paper is framed within the debates about the possible links between health and social capital, on one hand, and within the hypotheses regarding the importance of social and community networks in all stages of the dynamics of international migration, on the other hand. Our primary objective is to explore the ways social relations contribute to health differences between the immigrants and the native-born population of Spain. We also try to reveal differences in the nature of the social networks of foreign-born, as compared to that of the native-born persons. The empirical analysis is based on an individual-level data coming from the 2006 Spanish Health Survey, which contains a representative sample of the immigrant population. To assess the relationship between various health indicators (self-assessed health, chronic conditions and long-term illness) and social capital, controlling for other covariates, we estimate multilevel models separately for the two population groups of interest. In the estimates we distinguish between individual and community-level social capital. While the Health Survey contains information that allows us to define individual social capital measures, the collective indicators come from other official sources. In particular, for the subsample of immigrants, we proxy community-level networks and relationships by variables contained in the Spanish National Survey of Immigrants 2007. The results obtained so far point to the relevance of social capital as a covariate in the health equation, although, the significance varies according to the specific health indicator used. Additionally, and contrary to what is expected, immigrants’ social networks seem to be inferior to those of the native-born population in many aspects; and they also affect immigrant’s health to a lesser extent. Policy implications of the findings are discussed. Keywords: health status, social capital, immigration, Spain

A civil society response on the report of the UN High-Level Panel on system-wide coherence

Abordamos el Informe del Grupo de Alto Nivel sobre la Coherencia en todo el Sistema de las Naciones Unidas («Informe del Grupo») y el proceso de reforma de las Naciones Unidas del que forma parte como grupos de la sociedad civil que tienen una larga experiencia por lo que se refiere a propugnar reformas del sistema de las Naciones Unidas.

Workplace adjustment of an expatriate manager: identifying key components from a social capital perspective

Perustaen tutkimuksen kansainvälisen sopeutumisen teoreettiselle rungolle täydentäen sitä sosiaalisen pääoman teorialla, tämä tutkielma tutkii kuinka johtoasemassa oleva ulkosuomalainen luo hyvin toimivan sosiaalisen verkoston hong kongilaisella työpaikallansa. Tutkielma lähestyy aihetta Nahapietin ja Ghoshalin (1998) kehittämän sosiaalisen pääoman kolmen ulottuvuuden mallin avulla. Tutkielmassa kirjallisuudesta haettua teoriaa käytetään tutkimustavarten tehtyjen haastattelujen analysointiapuna. Tutkimalla sosiaalista pääomaa, kansainvälisen sopeutumisen kirjallisuutta, ekspatriootin perinteisiä menestystekijöitä ja guanxia (kiinalaisten henkilökohtaisia siteitä) tämän tutkimuksen teoriaosuus implikoi, että sosiaalisella pääomalla tulisi olla täydentävä rooli kansainvälisen sopeutumisen kirjallisuudessa. Sosiaalisen pääoman kolmen ulottuvuuden mallia käytetään pohjana empiirisen datan analysointiin. Tutkielman empiiriset tulokset osoittavat, että työpaikan sosiaaliseen verkostoon sopeutuminen liittyy exspatriootin kykyyn käsitellä estäviä ja mahdollistajia sosiaalisen pääoman luontiin vaikuttavia tekijöitä. Lisäksi sopeutuminen vaatii exspatriootin tunnistavan kohdemaalle tyypillisiä exspatriootin menestystekijöitä ja ekspatriootinomia tärkeitä henkilökohtaisia ominaisuuksia.