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Social capital has been studied by academics for more than 20 years and within the past decade there has been an explosion of growth in research linking social capital to health. This paper investigates social capital in Hamilton, Ontario by way of a telephone survey of 1,002 households in three neighbourhood groups representing high, mixed and low socio-economic status (SES). A Social Capital Measurement Tool is proposed as a straightforward way to account for differences in social capital perceptions and actions among residents. Consistent with the literature, the paper found that there was a strong association between social capital perceptions and health, particularly mental health and life stress. Social capital was greater in the high and mixed SES neighbourhoods and much weaker in the low SES neighbourhoods. With respect to social capital actions, both volunteering and voting was associated with positive overall health and mental health. Finally, the paper identified the social capital "elite"--respondents with high or above average perceptions and who participated in the two social capital actions--voting and volunteering. Prominent among the social capital elite in Hamilton is the "health wealthy" senior, a positive development for the continued social well-being of the city.

The report by the Stiglitz Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress highlighted the idea that sustainability in essence is about quality of life. This paper discusses and elaborates this notion. It argues that sustainable development should be seen as a process which does not focus on economic development alone, but which also includes well-balanced ecological and social development. Social aspects of sustainability deserve attention because of their instrumental and intrinsic relevance. A society needs a sense of community and commitment. The presence of social capital is very important for the liveability of a society. It is argued that the amount of social capital may fluctuate over time. This means that in the long term, future societies may be better in a social respect (more trust, more participation, less inequality) than today's. Ensuring social sustainability is thus not only a matter of ensuring that present social cohesion is preserved, but also ensuring that this cohesion will increase or improve. The paper ends by addressing lines of research on social sustainability. The following research themes are mentioned: (1) Quality of life, social capital and social cohesion in a longitudinal perspective. (2) "Sustainability of what, why and for whom?" Sustainability as an issue of choice: trade-offs. (3) Civil society and governance aspects of sustainability. (4) Public perceptions, values and opinions with regard to sustainability issues and (5) Fairness and inequality in relation to sustainability policy, both nationally and internationally.

The aim of the paper is to assess the construct validation of a multidimensional measure of social cohesion which is well theoretically grounded and has an equivalent/comparable interpretation across all European countries. Up-to-now published research on social cohesion is deficient in either one or both of these important aspects. This paper attempts to cover this gap. The task is accomplished in two steps. In the first step, we conceptualize social cohesion, flowing mainly from Bernard and Chan's definitions of social cohesion. Based on this theoretical framework we operationalize social cohesion and derive a set of intermediate indicators in the data. By return we verify whether these indicators empirically reflect/corroborate the multidimensional structure of the concept proposed by the theory. In the second step, we examine whether the obtained intermediate indicators of social cohesion form the same constructs across countries and whether they can yield a cross country equivalent measure of social cohesion. To test the validity of the theory we use multidimensional scaling and confirmatory factor analysis. Both models are able to verify the equivalence of the structural results between groups (i.e. countries). Confirmatory factor analysis produces further meaningful measures of these constructs. The analyses are based on the data from the 1999 European Values Study (EVS). The outcomes of the analyses reveal that, firstly, the existence of the multifaceted construct of social cohesion suggested by the theory has been corroborated by empirical analysis of the EVS data (i.e. social cohesion consists of components of formal and substantial relationships and political and socio-cultural domains). Secondly, the proposed constructs measuring social cohesion are equivalent across all analysed countries and thus allow the calculation of internationally comparable national scores of social cohesion. Application of the aggregate measures at the country level will illustrate the interest of the approach for further research.

This paper reviews the literature on social inclusion and social capital to develop a framework to guide the selection of items and measures for the forthcoming SA Department of Human Services Survey of Social Inclusion to be held in the region of Northern Adelaide in South Australia. Northern Adelaide is a region with areas of high socio-economic disadvantage, characterized by high unemployment and poverty. Survey respondents' perceptions of social inclusion and social capital in Northern Adelaide will be examined by developing indices, which address the theoretical schema discussed in this paper. Epistemological differences between seminal theorists on social inclusion and social capital suggest the development of a broad suite of indices is required to enable the collection of data of interest to researchers from differing theoretical perspectives. Data collected in the survey will be mapped using Geographic Information System (GIS) technologies against locations within Northern Adelaide and in relation to existing Australian Bureau of Statistics, Commonwealth and State Government databases on age, gender, relative socio-economic disadvantage and other variables.

The theoretical analysis of the concepts of social capital and of social cohesion shows that social capital should be considered as a micro concept whereas social cohesion, being a broader concept than social capital, is a more appropriate concept for macro analysis. Therefore, we suggest that data on the individual level should only be used to analyze the relationship between social capital, social cohesion indicators and subjective well-being and that they do not allow commenting on the level of social cohesion in a society. For this last type of analyses aggregated indicators of social cohesion have to be computed which is not the issue of this paper. Our empirical analysis is based on individual data for Luxembourg in 2008. In general, our results suggest that investments in social capital generate monetary returns (increased income) and psychic returns (increased subjective well-being) even in a highly developed and multicultural country like Luxembourg. When we are adding on the micro level variables representing the economic domain of social cohesion following Bernard (1999), then we observe that this domain also has an effect on income and on subjective well-being. Therefore, we recommend including the economic domain in any future analysis using the concept of social cohesion.

This paper presents a new index to quantify, measure and monitor the progress towards the objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy. This index is based on a set of relevant, accepted, credible, easy to monitor and robust indicators presented by the European Commission at the time the strategy was launched. The internal analysis of the index shows that the Smart and the Inclusive growth dimensions of the strategy are strictly correlated and that the trade-offs between each of these two dimensions and the Sustainable one exist but are decreasing, suggesting that a change towards more sustainable models of development is occurring in Europe. The external analysis of the index shows that it can be a valid measure to assess the overall competitiveness of countries and that the most critical factors for this strategy to be successful are good governance and social capital.

In this paper, we examined dimensions of child health-related quality of life in Greece in relation to parental assessments of neighbourhood social capital and social support networks. For the analysis, two main measures were used: (1) child self-reported health-related quality of life in ten dimensions, as measured by the KIDSCREEN questionnaire; (2) subjective measures of parental neighbourhood social capital and social support. Parental assessments of neighbourhood social capital and social support were both independently and positively associated with child self-reported health-related quality of life. However, they were not associated with the same dimensions of child well being, nor were they associated with all dimensions of child well being. These results suggest that greater attention in future research needs to be paid to the differential associations between the various dimensions of social capital and child health-related quality of life, with clear focus implications for social and health policies.

This paper examines the influence of college education on social trust at the individual level. Based on the literature of trust and social trust, we hypothesize that life experience/development since adulthood and perceptions of cultural/social structures are two primary channels in the causal linkage between college education and social trust. In the first part of the empirical study econometric techniques are employed to tackle the omitted-variable problem and substantial evidence is found to confirm the positive effect of college education. In the second part contemporary information is used to examine the hypothetical mechanisms in the causal inference. That life experience is a primary channel via which college education promotes social trust fails to find support in our examination, while individual perceptions of cultural and social structures explain up to 77% of the causal effect. (Contains 3 figures, 8 tables, and 11 footnotes.)

This paper addresses a number of key challenges in current subjective well-being (SWB) research: A new wave of studies should take into account that different things may make different people happy, thus going beyond a unitary "happiness formula". Furthermore, empirical results need to be connected to broader theoretical narratives. Using a re-examination of the social context of well-being as its case study, this article therefore resorts to sociological theory and fills a gap by investigating how social capital is correlated in different ways with the SWB of men, women, parents, and non-parents. Ordered logit and OLS regression analyses systematically examine slope heterogeneity using UK data from the European Social Survey. It turns out that civic engagement is not at all associated with higher life satisfaction for mothers, while the relationship is positive for men and strongest for childless women. Moreover, informal socialising is positively and more strongly associated with life satisfaction among women, although only when OLS is used. In sum, the social context of well-being varies considerably by gender and parental status. Mothers do not seem to benefit from formal social capital, indicating a "motherhood penalty" (see Correll et al., Am J Sociol 112(5):1297-1338 in 2007) regarding the psychological rewards usually associated with volunteering. Given the high levels of formal social capital among mothers, the findings also highlight the importance of the homo sociologicus concept. Consequently, SWB research can be successfully used to provide new insights into long-standing interdisciplinary theory debates such as the one on homo economicus versus homo sociologicus.

Based on three surveys carried out for studying living conditions of youth, women and elderly living in six remote areas (Tuen Mun, Yuen Long, Tin Shui Wai, Sheung Shui, Fan Ling and Tai Po) in the New Territories of Hong Kong, this paper reports the poverty and social exclusion of these three groups of people. The quality of life of youth, women and elderly is adversely affected by limited job opportunities, high cost of travel for employment, and poor neighbourhoods in the community. However, perceptions of reasons for their problems are different for the three groups, due to differences in bonding and bridging social capital they have, as well as the differences in perceptions on social exclusion and discrimination directed upon them.

In this paper we examine whether individualization and informalization processes have occurred in the field of leisure in The Netherlands, by analyzing the social context of a wide range of activities between 1975 and 2005. We find that the choice of a particular leisure context is dependent on education, gender, year of birth, age and time pressure. We find evidence for informalization, but--contrary to popular belief--not for individualization. The informalization trend follows a pattern of cohort replacement, and is also caused by a rise in the average education level in the population. Our findings imply that research on civil society, community and social capital should not only be concerned with membership rates, but also with participation in alternative social contexts. (Contains 4 tables.)

This paper empirically examines the relationship between advantage, social capital and health status to assess (a) whether social capital adds explanatory power to what we already know about the relationship between advantage and health and (b) whether social capital adds anything beyond its component parts, namely social participation and trust. It uses 2 measures of advantage (income and education), 5 measures of participation (informal network size, number of community activities, formal group membership, informal group membership, and service use), 3 measures of trust (trust, sense of belonging, and willingness to participate) and 3 indicators of health (perceived health, mental health, and physical function). Cross sectional data are analyzed from a sample of 918 middle-aged individuals, using multi-variate analyses. Results show that there were no direct associations between informal or formal group membership, community activities attended, or trust with any of the 3 health variables examined. A test of interaction terms combining trust and participation variables into several combined social capital variables also failed to show any relationship with any of the 3 health measures. That is, no support was found for a direct relationship between the separate components or combined measures of social capital and health. Income, however, was directly important for both perceived health and physical function although not for mental health. However, data reveal indirect affects for trust and not participation or interaction terms, through self-efficacy for all 3 domains of health and through perceived expressive support for mental health. As such, the data suggest the concept of social capital adds nothing to its component parts when examining individual level of health and furthermore that trust, but not participation, has a significant, indirect relationship to some domains of health. Such findings confirm the importance of income, a measure of socio-economic status, as well documented within the social determinants of health literature. It questions the use of the concept of social capital and points to the need for greater research examining indirect pathways to health and a greater focus on the role played by trust.

This paper investigates the influence of the economic, social, and cultural variables on life satisfaction in Asia and Europe. The second section sets a unifying theoretical framework for all three domains by defining life satisfaction as a function of aspirations and expectations which in turn are affected by micro- and macro-level variables. On the micro-level, economic capital is a resource for the actor. On the macro-level, societal economic capital improves the opportunity structure for the individual under certain conditions. Thus, economic capital on both levels positively affects the perceived chances of fulfilling aspirations. As long as the latter remain unchanged life satisfaction will increase. Social and cultural factors partially follow the same logic, as indicated by the terms social and cultural capital. Under a set of assumptions, the hypotheses derived are that personal and societal economic capital, national pride and national integration, religiosity, and societal religious integration, all positively affect the life satisfaction of the individual. A multi-level analysis of data from the European Values Study and the AsiaBarometer confirms the micro-level hypotheses. The economic macro-level indicators also display the theoretically expected positive effect on life satisfaction in the multivariate analysis of Asian and European data. By contrast, the direct cross-level effects of a society's national integration and particularly of religion do not become significant in Europe, yet they are highly significant in Asia. This strong influence of the social and cultural context in Asia can be interpreted in two different ways.

The European Social Survey, on which this issue of the journal focuses, is a 30-nation multi-funded survey series measuring attitude change. Started in 2001, it is characterised by unusually high standards of sampling and data equivalence. Its data are made available on-line with equal access to all, and have already attracted over 20,000 users. Many papers, articles and books based on the ESS have already appeared. But none has yet employed the data--whether alone or with other sources--to derive indicators of citizens' cognitive judgements of their society. A recent EC grant is enabling the authors to fill this gap, covering topics such as trust in national institutions, tolerance, social cohesion, social trust and fear of crime. The aim is to be able to monitor changes over time in the distance between what citizens believe their society ought to be in these respects and how they actually perceive it to be.

Recent findings indicate that more pronounced community heterogeneity is associated with lower levels of social capital. These studies, however, concentrate on specific aspects in which people differ (such as income inequality or ethnic diversity). In the present paper, we introduce the number of parties in the local party system as a more encompassing measure of community heterogeneity. This builds on the argument that the number of relevant socio-economic cleavages in the population (i.e. heterogeneity) determines the level of party system fragmentation. Using data on 307 Flemish municipalities, we find that municipalities with a more heterogeneous population indeed have lower levels of social capital. Hence, our study endorses--and generalizes--previous results linking community heterogeneity to lower levels of social capital.

This paper uses household level data from National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) of India, the 55th (1999-2000) and the 61st (2004-05) rounds, to show that even with a significant wage incentive for schooling of urban children, the school drop out rate and child labour incidence are not small over this period. The parents' level of education plays an important role in reducing this tendency; thus establishing the linkage between social and human capital outcomes in the family. We also look at the incidence of harmful and manual occupations among the child labour. Mother's education appears as the more important factor in the recent round in curbing the manual work incidences; supporting earlier findings that women's empowerment (one important indicator of which would be female educational level) is indeed becoming instrumental in increasing parental awareness. Using a pooled data set, we have also analysed the changes in the impact of parental education on these decisions between 1999-2000 and 2004-05.

Large-scale demographic changes have been occurring in Japan over the last few decades. During this time, the proportion of two-parent (nuclear) and single-parent families have doubled. Despite this rapid increase, the health of individuals in these family structures have received limited attention, as the focus has been directed towards the health of Japan's aging society and the health implications related to the decline in multigenerational households. However, researchers and policy planners cannot afford to overlook issues that influence the health of men and women in single- and two-parent family structures, not only because these families have become increasingly common throughout the nation, but also because the western literature has indicated that the health of families are largely influenced by the gender-by-family structure divide. Through logistic regression models, using the 1999 Nationwide Family Survey, this paper examines how financial, human and social capital influences the likelihood of good health among men and women in single- and two-parent families. As was expected, key determinants in predicting good health amongst these four sub-groups of parents were found. While parents in two-parent families were the least influenced by various measures of capital, these same measures were found to be significant in predicting good health amongst fathers, and more so mothers, in single-parent families.

Using the General Social Survey on Social Engagement conducted by Statistics Canada in 2003, this paper examines social capital derived from informal networks and its variation among men categorized as: (1) men with no children, and (2) men living with children in (a) intact, (b) step, and (c) lone parent families. The focus on men stems from a concern that their role in families has not been as extensively studied as that of women. The results show that married men living with children have higher social capital--measured in terms of the number of friends, relatives, and neighbors, and in their level of trust in them--than lone fathers or step fathers in cohabiting unions. Compared to child-free men, married fathers have higher social capital but also tend to have friends who are more similar to themselves in age, education, or income.

This paper uses household level data from National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) of India, the 55th round (1999-2000), to show that for urban male children there exists significant wage incentive for schooling, though school dropout rate and child labour incidence are not so small. The parents' level of education plays an important role in reducing this tendency; thus establishing the linkage between social and human capital outcomes in the family. We also look at the incidence of harmful and manual occupations among the child labour. Mother's education now appears as a very important factor in curbing these incidences; supporting earlier findings that women's empowerment (one important indicator of which would be female educational level) is indeed instrumental in increasing parental awareness.

There is a small but growing literature on the determinants of social capital. Most of these studies use a measure of trust to define social capital empirically. In this paper we use three different measures of social capital: the size of the individual's social network, the extent of their social safety net and membership of unions or associations. A second contribution to the literature is that we analyze what social capital contributes to our well-being. Based on this, we calculate the compensating income variation of social capital. We find differences in social capital when we differentiate according to individual characteristics such as education, age, place of residence, household composition and health. Household income generally has a statistically significant effect. We find a significant effect of social capital on life satisfaction. Consequently, the compensating income variation of social capital is substantial.

This paper has a double purpose: to see how well Durkheim's [1897, Le Suicide (Paris: 1e edition)] findings apply a century later, and to see if the beneficial effects of social capital on suicide prevention are parallel to those already found for subjective well-being (Helliwell 2003, Economic Modelling 20(2), pp. 331-360). The results show that more social capital and higher levels of trust are associated with lower national suicide rates, just as they are associated with higher levels of subjective well-being. Furthermore, there is a strong negative correlation between national average suicide rates and measures of life satisfaction. Thus social capital does appear to improve well-being, whether measured by higher average values of life satisfaction or by lower average suicide rates. There is a slight asymmetry, since the very high Scandinavian measures of subjective well-being are not matched by equally low suicide rates. To take the Swedish case as an example, this asymmetry is explained by Sweden having particularly high values of variables that have more weight in explaining life satisfaction than suicide (especially quality of government), and less beneficial values of variables that have more influence in explaining suicide rates (Swedes have low belief in God and high divorce rates), because with the latest data and models the Swedish data fit the well-being and suicide equations with only tiny errors. If the international suicide data pose a puzzle, it is more because suicide rates, and their estimated equations, differ greatly by gender, while life satisfaction and its explanations are similar for men and women.

South Africa has a Gini co-efficient of 62, one of the world's highest (Finmark: Project FinScope 2004 and 2005, FinMark Trust, Johannesburg). Hence, measures of wealth are ubiquitous social indicators in South Africa. However, a growing emphasis in government towards measurable service delivery targets and remedial action to redress the inequalities of our past makes the reliable measurement of people's quality of life in greater depth in quantitative terms an imperative. We have developed a simple framework to measure people's quality of life in key domains that extend beyond that simply of wealth, using composite indices to allow progress to be tracked and to make valid comparisons across our diverse population. Termed the Everyday Quality of Life Index (EQLi), it comprises a suite of measures encompassing socio-economic status (with special reference to poverty), urbanisation, health (nutrition, exercise and fitness), stress/pressure, quality of the environment, satisfaction of human needs, connectivity, optimism, subjective well-being (happiness, after Diener and Lucas: 2000, in M. Lewis, J.M. Haviland (eds.), Handbook of Emotions. (2nd ed) (Guilford, New York)), and the overall measure of well-being, the EQLi itself. The initial framework was developed from a structured questionnaire administered to a probability sample of 2000 South African adults in 2002. From this, a 52-item shortlist was derived to create the series of measures. This has been tested and refined in three subsequent annual studies, each of 3500 people across urban and rural South Africa. In 2004, items involving work as well as determining the balance of skills and challenges at work using the concept of "flow" (Csikszentmihalyi: 1990, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Harper and Row, New York)) were added. This paper outlines the rationale behind the selection and development of these measures, describes the EQL of South Africans using these and other key measures and concludes with implications for policy-makers and service providers in South Africa. Some marketing implications are also given: there is a growing emphasis worldwide on corporate social investment initiatives and, particularly in South Africa, on community upliftment and development--poverty alleviation and improving the lives of the disadvantaged ("people" rather than "consumers"). Further, people's well-being affects how they react to marketing activities.

This paper empirically analyzes the impact that the spread of casino gambling has on social capital in communities throughout the United States. Social capital is a networking process that translates into an individual's effectiveness in the community and workplace, and binds communities together. Several recent studies have also demonstrated a link between higher levels of social capital and quality of life. In this study, social capital is measured based on six dimensions: trust, civic, volunteerism, group participation, giving, and meeting obligations of family and friends. Using data from the DDB Needham database for the years 1978, 1988, and 1998, regression analysis is conducted on over 300 Metropolitan Statistical Areas throughout the United States to determine the impact that the spread of casino gambling has on social capital. The results of the analysis indicate that the presence of casino gambling significantly reduces social capital when a casino is located within 15 miles of a community, suggesting that a casino's location influences a community's quality of life and should be a consideration when deciding on the merits of gambling legalization.

This paper is based on the results of a national survey of the quality of life of 999 randomly sampled people aged 65 and over, living at home in Britain. The survey was semi-structured, and a sample of survey respondents was followed up and interviewed in-depth in order to explore their perceptions of quality of life in full. Comparisons are made here between the results of (i) a hierarchical multiple regression model based on theoretically derived indicators of survey respondents' ratings of their overall quality of life, with (ii) the same respondents' own definitions of quality of life, categorised from their responses to open ended survey questions, and (iii) the views of a sub-sample of these survey respondents who were subsequently interviewed in greater depth. Respondents were asked the open ended questions on quality of life at the outset of the survey interview in order to prevent any respondent bias from the structured measures used. The core components, and the central planks, of quality of life, which were consistently emphasised by the three approaches, were psychological characteristics and outlook, health and functional status, personal and neighbourhood social capital. The lay models also emphasised the importance of financial circumstances and independence, which need to be incorporated into a definition of broader quality of life.

Social cohesion has emerged as a powerful hybrid concept used by academics and policy analysts. Academics use the concept to underline the social and economic failings of modernity, linking it to the decline of communal values and civic participation. Policy analysts use it to highlight the social and economic inequities caused by globalization. The desired effect of using this concept is often to influence governments to implement policies that will enhance social cohesion by reducing social and economic disparities. Despite its widespread use, however, statistical measures of social cohesion tend to overlook local, non-Western strategies of social inclusion as well as the social impact of non-Western economic systems, such as the mixed economy typical of many Aboriginal communities in North America. In this paper, we develop a model of social cohesion that addresses these omissions through the use of social indicators that measure both the behavior and perceptions of Inuit living in the Canadian Arctic with respect to the social, cultural and economic conditions of Arctic communities. We explain how and why measuring social cohesion is optimized by combining both culturally-specific and non-specific social indicators.

In India, despite heavy constitutional protection, due to caste-based discrimination, millions of residents are still struggling to access their basic rights such as good food, quality of education, merit-based employment and basic living conditions. This paper illustrates the role of marginality (for more details please, see Braun and Gatzweiler 2014) in determining the accessibility of social capital and its functions to sustain basic needs in old-age. The coverage on discrimination and social hierarchy are some of the significant criterions in which functions of social capital are unproductive and further blocks the opportunities of adaptability in the later years. The paper addresses the issues of living arrangements and financial security among the elderly population. In conclusion, it recommends promotion of institutional care, pension protection and social safety measures for the creation of supportive environment for elderly population across all sections of the society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The determinants of health are influenced by genetics, lifestyle, social environment, medical conditions, etc. As an informal system, social capital plays an increasingly recognized role in individual health. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the direct and indirect effects of social capital on individual health in China. Using cross-sectional data from the China Family Panel Studies 2016, this paper explores the effects of cognitive and structural social capital on individual health from a micro perspective. The results show that both types of social capital have significant positive effects on individual health, and this effect remains after endogeneity is considered. The two types of social capital show obvious heterogeneity in age samples, urban and rural samples and north–south samples. In addition, the mechanism analysis shows that the health promotion effects of the two types of social capital are mainly derived from the effects of informal finance and access to medical resources. Based on the above findings, this paper puts forward policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this review paper is to present a holistic conceptualization by synthesizing mindfulness and social sustainability literature and introducing an integrative mindfulness-social sustainability framework. To this end, we conducted an extensive review of the mindfulness and social sustainability literature. The findings revealed that there is a paucity of research that has examined the relationship between mindfulness and social sustainability. While some recent studies have begun to explore the role of mindfulness in ecological sustainability, the link between mindfulness and social sustainability has remained under-researched. This paper introduces an integrative mindfulness-social sustainability framework that explicates how mindfulness practice can be employed in the workplace context to achieve social sustainability outcomes. In this regard, we first discuss how mindfulness is related to social sustainability at the individual (e.g., employee health and well-being) and organizational (e.g., ethical behavior, employee performance, workplace spirituality) levels. Next, we examine how individual and organizational social sustainability might relate to some wider societal sustainability outcomes (e.g., social justice, collective social capital). We argue that this is one of the few early theoretical papers that has investigated the potential connections between two important, albeit fragmented disciplines—mindfulness and social sustainability. This paper suggests potential courses of action to address social sustainability challenges by integrating mindfulness and social sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Netherlands faces a shortage of organ donors. Figures from Statistics Netherlands show that of Dutch residents aged 12 and over, only one in four is a registered organ donor. In July 2020, a new law has changed the system from 'opt-in' to 'opt-out', with the aim of increasing the number of registered donors. Under the new system, everyone is in principle automatically registered as a donor unless they decline permission for their organs to be used. But what are the drivers of organ donation? This question is particularly interesting in the Netherlands, not only because of the new law, but also in light of the diversity in social capital and religious involvement which may play an important role in the decision to donate. This paper explores the impact of social capital on organ donation. It uses a unique database which contains information on organ donation for the whole Dutch population over 12, enriched by the Survey on Social Cohesion and Wellbeing covering the period 2012–2017 (N = 45,645). Results demonstrate a linear increase in registered organ donors as individual social capital, measured by a composite index based on 17 participation and trust indicators, increases. The results further show that religion has a detrimental impact on organ donation. The paper also discusses the effects of the separate social capital indicators on organ donation and their policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we develop a new composite indicator, named Social Catalyst, able to account for the complex and multifaceted nature of the social capital in a unitary measure. We use our indicator, as well as its components, to explore the relation between social capital and electoral participation in the parliamentary elections in Italy from 1994 to 2008, addressing the potential endogeneity bias. Our findings show that (i) the Social Catalyst positively and significantly affects voter turnout in both Chambers; (ii) among the different dimensions of social capital, social norms and associational networks play a prominent role in the Italian regional context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the impact of regional cultural diversity of working cities on the income of rural workers. Using a nationally representative micro-dataset in China, and adopting dialect diversity at the city level as the indicator of regional cultural diversity, we find that regional cultural diversity has a highly significant hump-shaped effect on rural workers' incomes from the wage employment and self-employment, reflecting a trade-off between the beneficial and the detrimental effects of regional cultural diversity on rural workers' incomes. The results remain robust to the inclusion of a set of covariates, alternative estimation technique, alternative measure of regional cultural diversity, and a placebo test. We also find that the detrimental effect of diversity is weaker for high-educated rural workers, and the impact of regional cultural diversity remains stable in the short term. To address potential endogeneity, we employ an instrumental variable approach by using the river length of cities to instrument the dialect diversity, and the instrumented results confirm the conclusions. In addition, we provide empirical evidence that the cost and benefit of regional cultural diversity on the income of rural workers can be attributed to reduced social capital and increased creativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although workplace social capital (WSC) is a relevant construct that contributes positively to employee and organizational wellness, there is lack of consensus regarding its definition and measurement. The aim of this paper was to synthesize a valid definition of WSC and develop an instrument measuring the construct. Based on a literature review of existing definitions (Phase 1), we conceptualized WSC as a workplace resource that concerns employees' perceptions regarding trust, reciprocity (cognitive WSC), and network interactions (structural WSC) that exist among peers (bonding WSC) and among individuals across hierarchical levels and organizations (bridging WSC). Next, we developed the WSC Inventory (WoSCi; Phase 2) and, we tested the psychometric properties of the new scale (Phase 3). The initial structure of the scale was explored in a sample of university employees (N = 376). Multilevel confirmatory factor analysis in a heterogeneous sample of 733 employees nested in 158 work groups supported the hypothesized factor structure of the WoSCi. Results also supported the internal consistency, as well as the convergent, criterion-related and incremental validity of the WoSCi in explaining work engagement, burnout, job performance over and above similar constructs, such as individual social capital and psychological capital. These results highlight the relevance of WSC as defined and measured with the WoSCi and underline its value for explaining work-related well-being and organizational behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests whether social capital can explain differences in labor market success between ethnic majority and minority members. To overcome problems of reverse causality—labor market success is not only the result of social capital, but also leads to better networks—the focus is on adolescents who enter the labor market. Data from the 'Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey' are used (N = 2574) and matched to register data from Statistics Netherlands. Hypotheses are tested with structural equation models and a longitudinal approach. Two different mechanisms are tested: the capital deficit and the return deficit. Ethnic majority and minority members do not differ in social capital, thus refuting the capital deficit hypothesis. However, for majority members, the upper reachability of their social capital negatively affects chances of unemployment and positively affects chances of having a permanent contract. For minority members, no such effects were observed, indicating that the same level of social capital that benefits majorities, does not benefit minorities. More research into the return deficit minority members face is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely accepted that individual happiness is not, or not solely, related to material possessions, at least once basic needs are fulfilled. It has been demonstrated that interpersonal relationships and social capital matter too, and people whose values are more centred on material possessions have a greater probability of being less happy. Is this still true during the COVID-19 pandemic, when interpersonal relations, health and economic security are threatened and feelings of insecurity emerge? This is the issue that we address in this paper. We exploited the unique natural situation of the pandemic and lockdown in Italy to investigate the relationship between happiness and relational and material goods. Data collected by questionnaire during the lockdown suggests that the main direct effect of the pandemic on the happiness of respondents was related to the effect of the pandemic and lockdown on interpersonal relationships. Those who declared that COVID and lockdown had jeopardized their interpersonal relationships were significantly less likely to report higher levels of happiness, especially when controlling for other personal and contextual covariates. An important gender, religious and town size effect also emerged. Moreover, relational goods and good health were considered to be the most important determinants of happiness, though people were not so worried about their own health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we made an effort to understand logic of management system standards with related thinking, and harness it to develop fractal model, focused on the scientific community. Therefore, we briefly explored the world of quality management and infrastructure, particularly its metrology with related concepts and vocabularies, in order to construct the new quality indicators and synthesize them to measure scientific human and social capital. This required us to discover utterly novel data sources, suitable to inform policy makers about changes regarding not only scientific results, but also attitudes, perceptions and behavior (ultimately, the Worldview) of scientists and researchers. The paper results with a proposal of a new social metrology model inspired by principles of the complexity theory and potentially capable of moving the whole process from aggregated macro statistics to smaller details, adjusted to the circumstances of the scientific communities. The novel, complexity-based model for measuring scientific human and social capital is explained through its seven main constructs (performances, metaphor, contexts, cultural, community, sustainable development and the Worldview) with belonging quality indicators and related stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

City managers search for new concepts of city development in order to satisfy growing demands and manage risk. The research assumes that city management requires the combination of ideas of sustainable development, a smart city and resilience. These three concepts are the components of the so-called "Fundamental Power of the City". The aim of this paper is to present and test the operationalization of the new hybrid approach to city development through the index named the Fundamental Power of the City Index which includes 80 variables. The research applies six linear ordering methods to investigate the functionality of the Index. These are used to investigate each city's performance and compare it with other cities by ranking them according to a chosen measure. The research considers 18 voivodship capital cities of Poland. The research draws attention to different approaches of development assessment although analysis shows that most linear ordering methods produce similar rankings. Investigation shows that human and social capital factors contribute to high positions in the ranking which is consistent with the development strategies formulated by the leading cities. The results of the analysis also identify the most urgent problems of the municipalities. The research confirms that the Fundamental Power of the City concept, by including the requirements for sustainable, smart and resilient cities, fills the gaps between them and provides a holistic approach to city management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the association between social capital of young people at 12–13 years and their subjective well-being using Finland's sub-sample of the third wave of the International Survey of Children's Well-Being. Despite much previous research on this topic, relatively little knowledge is accumulated given that different studies define and measure social capital differently. In line with Robert Putnam, we understand social capital as a combination of social networks, trust, and norms of reciprocity. We measure well-being with two context-free scales: a one-dimensional overall life satisfaction scale and a five-dimensional Student's life satisfaction scale. The analysis is done with linear and unconditional quantile regression. The results indicate that all three dimensions of social capital are significantly associated with well-being. Of the three, trust is the strongest predictor explaining over 30% of the variance in both well-being scales. The study demonstrates the relevance of considering all dimensions of social capital together to avoid unobserved variable bias. Quantile regression reveals that while social capital is important for well-being across the quantiles, it is particularly important for the youth who fare poorly otherwise. Family-related variables showed the strongest association with well-being while relationships with friends, schoolmates, teachers, and other people mattered considerably less. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While providing equal opportunities to all members of society independent of an individual's socio-economic background is a major objective of German policy makers, educational opportunities of children with a non-academic family background are still unequally obstructed. When analysing the labour market implications of this disadvantage, social capital as an additional source of inequality often lacks attention. Drawing on the instrumental value of rather loose contacts (i.e. weak ties) on the labour market as revealed by Granovetter (Getting a job. A study of contacts and careers, The University of Chicago Press, Cambridge, 1974), this paper goes beyond the human capital approach and includes a measure of instrumental social capital in the form of weak-tie career support in the earnings function. Applying an Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition and quantile regressions, we find a significant average wage gap between those with and without an academic family background. A large part can be explained by deficits that those from less educated families incur with respect to human and instrumental social capital: Lower educational attainment accounts for more than half of the wage gap between the two groups while fewer career support explains around five percent of the differential. Additionally, a non-academic family background is associated with a significant deficit in returns to their instrumental social capital along the wage distribution. The findings therefore suggest that inequalities of opportunity on the German labour market occur beyond the education system, as not only the quantity but also the quality of career supporting networks of those from a non-academic family are inferior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically examines the disparities over time across six dimensions of poverty (monetary, education, health, housing, basic services, and durable assets) between ethnic minority and majority households in rural Vietnam. Using the five-wave panel data of the Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS) 2008–2016, we observe improvements in most non-monetary dimensions of poverty for both ethnic groups, while the monetary dimension shows the highest degrees of deprivation and the lowest rate of decrease during the studied period. Health is the only dimension in which ethnic minority households are not only better off than those of majority households during the studied period, but also report improvement. We further explore the role of social capital in ethnic minorities and non-minorities at household and community levels in multiple dimensions of poverty by employing multilevel models. Our study reports the significant effects social capital have at the community level on reducing poverty in the monetary, education, housing, and basic services dimensions for ethnic minorities, while social capital at the household level shows significant effects on monetary, basic services, and durable assets. These findings indicate that policy makers ought to consider the role of social capital when designing poverty alleviation strategies for the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the association between sense of community belonging and health among settlements of different size and across the urban to rural continuum in Canada. Using data from the recent 2007/08 Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS), the objective is to identify the major health, social and geographic determinants of sense of community belonging and to consider policy options aimed at improving sense of belonging among certain segments of the population. The research found a significant and consistent association between sense of belonging and health, particularly mental health, even when controlling for geography and socio-economic status. At the same time, sense of community belonging improved progressively across the urban to rural continuum with remarkably high levels of belonging evident in the outer most regions of Canada. Despite the health deficit that exists in rural and small-town Canada, the paper postulates that these communities are able to overcome health challenges to create conditions conducive to a positive sense of belonging. Overall, sense of belonging was also found to be highest among seniors, people residing in single-detached homes and among couples with children and was lowest among youth, residents of high-rise apartments and among single-parents. Finally, in the context of addressing deficiencies in sense of belonging, the paper examines several recent policy developments aimed at improving mental health services in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the late twentieth century, researchers began calling attention to declining social capital in America and the potential consequences of this trend for a healthy society. While researchers empirically assessed the decline in social capital from the mid-1900s onward, this line of research diminished when the major source of data, the General Social Survey, stopped fielding critical questions in 2004. We do not know, therefore, whether social capital, especially associational social capital, has declined, stabilized, or even increased in a twentyfirst century America. In this paper, we develop a new measure of associational social capital using a confirmatory factor analysis of six indicators from the Civic Engagement Supplement to the Current Population Survey for 2008–2011 and 2013. Our findings support previous research suggesting that associational social capital does not seem to be declining over time. However, we do find evidence of a nonlinear decrease in associating during the Great Recession years. Across the entire time period, though, membership in groups has not declined and there has been little practical change in the amount of time that individuals spend with neighbors. Our analysis of the variance of social capital also shows no general change in the national dispersion of social capital from 2008 to 2013. The paper advances the measurement of social capital and updates our understanding of its possible decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inherent complexity of the Europe 2020 Strategy, focused on areas where the European Commission has not full jurisdictional competence, increases the relevance of a timely and precise monitoring system and of effective and efficient institutional settings. This paper performs a quantitative evaluation of countries' performances, using the Europe 2020 Index (Pasimeni in Soc Indic Res 110(2): 613-635, . doi:). We observe differences among countries and across time, and investigate their determinants by means of a model including potential explanatory variables, such as level of wealth, growth, sustainability of public finances and institutions. We refer to institutions in the sense of North (J Econ Perspect 5(1):97-112, ), and apply the distinction between formal and informal ones. The analysis confirms the importance of formal and informal institutions, both in absolute and in relative terms, compared with the other factors considered. Institutional variables, such as good governance and social capital, are the most significant ones and have the strongest estimated effects on countries' performances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores whether the concept of social capital as popularized by Robert Putnam is a good social science concept. Taking Gerring's work on concept evaluation as the starting point, the paper first presents a set of criteria for conceptual 'goodness' and discusses how social capital performs on these criteria. It is argued that social capital eventually may be a good concept if it can be shown empirically to be a unidimensional concept. An empirical section therefore explores the validity of the unidimensionality assumption and rejects it in four separate tests at both the individual and aggregate level. We conclude that even if social capital has been a remarkably productive idea, it is not a good concept as most popular conceptualizations define social capital as several distinct phenomena or as phenomena that already have been conceptualized under other labels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much scholarly attention is paid to understanding subjective well-being (SWB) from a spatial perspective. Various features of a city including social capital may have significant impacts on SWB in addition to individual attributes and national characteristics. However, the extant empirical studies of SWB tend to focus on the national- or regional-scale analysis rather than the city-scale analysis. Particularly, few studies inquire into the impacts of social capital and urban amenities on SWB along with the spatial dependence at the city level. This paper aims to examine the spatial effects of social capital and urban characteristics on the SWB of cities. For this purpose, we construct a series of spatial panel models for SWB using data for 219 cities in South Korea, from the Korean Community Health Survey (KCHS) conducted in 2011, 2013, 2015, and 2017. The results show that income, Gini-coefficient, social trust, social networks with friends, participation in charity activities, open space, and cultural opportunities all affect the SWB. Particularly, social capital and open space have spatial spillover effects on the SWB, even after controlling for socio-demographic variables. These findings will not only draw some important policy implications for urban planning and public management to improve the level of urban SWB, but also provide a piece of significant evidence for follow-up studies of its kind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trends of subjective well-being (SWB) in transition countries are peculiar: they show substantial changes that are more strongly correlated with the trends of GDP than in other developed countries. This paper examines the role of the trends of GDP and of social trust in predicting the trends of well-being. We find that the strength of the relationship between social trust and SWB over the medium-term is comparable to that of GDP. We conclude that in the medium-term, even in countries where material concerns strongly affect well-being, social trust is a powerful predictor of the trends of SWB. However, in the short run the relationship between social trust and SWB does not hold and GDP stands out as the only significant correlate of SWB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a previous exploratory analysis of the 2009 EU-SILC survey and the Eurostat statistics database, the authors tried to reveal to what extent self-perceived poverty in Europe is associated with specific household socioeconomic characteristics and particular aspects of household/community social capital endowment, by means of a multiple correspondence analysis. Such an analysis has appeared to be a useful tool to disclose the primary risk factors of family poverty status and, in particular, it showed that self-perceived poverty (measured by the proxy variable 'ability to make ends meet') is strongly associated not only with household socioeconomic characteristics, but also with the indicators commonly recognized as elementary proxies of household/community social capital endowment. The aim of the present paper is to capture the effect of social capital on household subjective poverty. More precisely, a generalized ordered logit model is estimated, in order to highlight to what extent: (a) self-perception of poverty in Europe is affected by the respondent/household socioeconomic characteristics and by household/community social capital endowment; (b) probabilities corresponding to response categories vary according to different levels of predictors; (c) differences among European countries in terms of self-perception of poverty may be related to different levels of social capital endowment. The results are very encouraging and confirm that social capital could be used by local and central governments as a further key function, in addition to the traditional socioeconomic ones for planning poverty reduction policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from national socio-economic panel surveys in Australia, Britain and Germany, this paper analyzes the effects of individual preferences and choices on subjective well-being (SWB). It is shown that, in all three countries, preferences and choices relating to life goals/values, partner's personality, hours of work, social participation and healthy lifestyle have substantial and similar effects on life satisfaction. The results have negative implications for a widely accepted theory of SWB, set- point theory. This theory holds that adult SWB is stable in the medium and long term, although temporary fluctuations occur due to life events. Set-point theory has come under increasing criticism in recent years, primarily due to unmistakable evidence in the German Socio-Economic Panel that, during the last 25 years, over a third of the population has recorded substantial and apparently permanent changes in life satisfaction (Fujita and Diener in J Pers Soc Psychol 88:158-64, ; Headey in Soc Indic Res 85:389-403, ; Headey et al. in Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 107(42):17922-17926, ). It is becoming clear that the main challenge now for SWB researchers is to develop new explanations which can account for medium and long term change, and not merely stability in SWB. Set-point theory is limited precisely because it is purely a theory of stability. The paper is based on specially constructed panel survey files in which data are divided into multi-year periods in order to facilitate analysis of medium and long term change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social capital has been studied by academics for more than 20 years and within the past decade there has been an explosion of growth in research linking social capital to health. This paper investigates social capital in Hamilton, Ontario by way of a telephone survey of 1,002 households in three neighbourhood groups representing high, mixed and low socio-economic status (SES). A Social Capital Measurement Tool is proposed as a straightforward way to account for differences in social capital perceptions and actions among residents. Consistent with the literature, the paper found that there was a strong association between social capital perceptions and health, particularly mental health and life stress. Social capital was greater in the high and mixed SES neighbourhoods and much weaker in the low SES neighbourhoods. With respect to social capital actions, both volunteering and voting was associated with positive overall health and mental health. Finally, the paper identified the social capital 'elite'-respondents with high or above average perceptions and who participated in the two social capital actions-voting and volunteering. Prominent among the social capital elite in Hamilton is the 'health wealthy' senior, a positive development for the continued social well-being of the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper extends a two-period overlapping generations model of endogenous growth in which associations between human capital, social capital, and health outcomes are critically examined for a low income country, India. If individuals with higher levels of human capital can build strong social ties and have more robust social networks, they are then less likely to have health problems and are therefore physically healthier. In an attempt to test the so-called relationship between the variables in question, a unique dataset, where micro-level data from the world values survey and regional-level macro data from the central statistics office of India were both utilised, was accessed. A three-equation model has been then estimated using the conditional mixed-process method in order to address endogeneity issues explicitly. Our estimation results provide important insights into the theoretical thesis in several ways. Firstly, human capital has a favourable impact on social capital, which in turn enhances self-reported health. Secondly, we provide a comparison of three main experiments: an increase in the share of public spending by region on education, social capital-enhancing activities, and health. The results confirm the positive effect of an increase in each form of government spending on outcome variables. Thirdly, the correlation coefficient between disturbances of these three equations turns out to be statistically significant, suggesting that there are unobserved factors, which can affect self-reported health, social capital and human capital variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]