A paper examined the relationship between family background and access to top occupations in the United Kingdom. It said that graduates who had been privately educated were one-third more likely to enter into high status occupations than were people of similar backgrounds who had been state educated. It examined underlying mechanisms and discussed policy implications.
Source: Lindsey Macmillan, Claire Tyler, and Anna Vignoles, Who gets the Top Jobs? The role of family background and networks in recent graduates access to high status professions, Working Paper 13-15, Institute of Education (University of London)
Links: Paper
Date: 2013-Dec
An article examined the association between ethnicity, social capital, and mental health in England. The association between ethnic density and social capital was found to vary according to the level of measurement of social capital, and differed across minority-ethnic groups. Social capital was not found to mediate the association between ethnic density and health.
Source: Laia Becares and James Nazroo, 'Social capital, ethnic density and mental health among ethnic minority people in England: a mixed-methods study', Ethnicity and Health, Volume 18 Issue 6
Links: Abstract
Date: 2013-Dec
An article examined the role of social networks in the labour market, comparing immigrant and native men. Immigrants were more likely than white British-born men to rely on social networks as a main job search method, although no crucial difference was found when using personal contacts as a method of job search. However, immigrants were as likely as natives to find employment through their social network. Among both groups, the less educated were more likely to succeed in obtaining jobs through contacts. There was no systematic pattern in the effect of years in the United Kingdom on job search success among immigrant groups.
Source: Corrado Giulietti, Christian Schluter, and Jackline Wahba, 'With a lot of help from my friends: social networks and immigrants in the UK', Population, Space and Place, Volume 19 Issue 6
Links: Abstract
Date: 2013-Dec
An article examined the role of a pre-existing stock of social trust in explaining the long-run sustainability of comprehensive welfare states. It considered factors such as high levels of political confidence, strong legal institutions protecting private property rights, and low levels of bureaucratic corruption.
Source: Christian Bjornskov and Gert Tinggaard Svendsen, 'Does social trust determine the size of the welfare state? Evidence using historical identification', Public Choice, Volume 157 Issue 1-2
Links: Abstract
Date: 2013-Sep
An article examined the association between social capital (specifically trust and social participation) and self-rated health using British Household Panel Survey data. The association appeared to be confounded by shared environmental factors not previously considered by researchers. However, the association with trust remained, adding to existing empirical evidence that generalized trust might be an independent predictor of health.
Source: Giuseppe Giordano, Juan Merlo, Henrik Ohlsson, Maria Rosvall, and Martin Lindstrom, 'Testing the association between social capital and health over time: a family-based design', BMC Public Health, Volume 13
Date: 2013-Jul
A new book examined the ways in which social cohesion measured as trust in unknown fellow citizens could be established and undermined. In the United Kingdom and the United States of America, social cohesion had declined in the latter part of the twentieth century: people had come to believe that most other citizens belonged to an untrustworthy, undeserving, and even dangerous 'bottom' of society rather than to the trustworthy middle classes. By contrast in Sweden and Denmark, where social cohesion had increased, people believed that most citizens belonged to the 'middle' of society rather than to the 'bottom'; and that the (perceived) narrow 'bottom' of their society was trustworthy, deserving, and peaceful. The author said that social cohesion was primarily a cognitive phenomenon, in contrast to previous research that had emphasized factors such as the presence of shared moral norms, fair institutions, networks, and engagement in civil society.
Source: Christian Albrekt Larsen, The Rise and Fall of Social Cohesion: The construction and de-construction of social trust in the US, UK, Sweden and Denmark, Oxford University Press
Links: Summary
Date: 2013-Jun
A report said that social trust had deteriorated considerably in those European countries that had been affected the most by the recent economic downturn. Because trust and social capital were crucial for economic and institutional development, countries needed to both monitor developments closely and pursue policies that cultivated civic social capital.
Source: Elias Papaioannou, Trust(ing) in Europe? How increased social capital can contribute to economic development, Centre for European Studies (European People s Party)
Links: Report
Date: 2013-Jun
An article examined the way in which social capital resources were incorporated, appropriated, and distributed by different social classes in Europe.
Source: Renato Miguel Carmo and Nuno Nunes, 'Class and social capital in Europe: a transnational analysis of the European Social Survey', European Societies, Volume 15 Issue 3
Links: Abstract
Date: 2013-Jun
An article drew on British Household Panel Survey data to show that individuals giving up resources for others were associated with communities with fewer social vices (higher levels of social capital). Analyzing resource flows between people offered a new way of evaluating social capital and its determinant factors. Positive social capital was characterized by individuals investing resources in people who were not better off than themselves.
Source: Lorna Zischka, 'Valuing social capital by the resources people allocate to one another', Journal of International Development, Volume 25 Issue 5
Links: Abstract
Date: 2013-Jun
An article examined the linkage between institutional configuration and social trust in advanced industrial democracies, highlighting the role of welfare states in co-ordinating interests among different labour market actors. Public investment in skill provision prevalent in training-supplemented welfare states led to higher accumulation of social trust, whereas passive social transfers resulted in lower social trust.
Source: Cheol-Sung Lee, 'Welfare states and social trust', Comparative Political Studies, Volume 46 Number 5
Links: Abstract
Date: 2013-Apr
A paper examined the potential of EU-SILC survey and Eurostat statistic database to describe the relationships between social capital and household poverty in Europe. It focused on two sets of variables: an active variables proxy for community and household social capital endowment, and a set of supplementary variables describing household economic well-being. A strong association was found between social capital and household economic well-being, especially as far as poverty perception was concerned.
Source: Isabella Santini and Anna De Pascale, Social Capital and Household Poverty: The case of European Union, Working Paper 109, Universita degli Studi di Roma (La Sapienza)
Links: Paper
Date: 2013-Jan
A new book examined whether social capital influenced health and health inequalities in European welfare states.
Source: Mikael Rostila, Social Capital and Health Inequality in European Welfare States, Palgrave Macmillan
Links: Summary
Date: 2013-Jan