Measuring Social Capital in Surveys

1
Measuring Social Capital in Surveys

• Christian Haerpfer,
• Claire Wallace and Florian Pichler
• School of Social Science

2
Diverse theories, similar empirical indicators

• C. Welzel, R. Inglehart, F.Deutsch 2005
• Despite a great variety of theoretical
  approaches, empirical analyses of social capital
  are surprisingly similar.Virtually all of them
  treat membership in voluntary associations as the
  chief indicator of community involvement. p.121

3
Sources of indicators

• Eurobarometer Social Capital Survey 62.2
  fielded in November 2004 in 27 European countries
  (all EU states plus Romania and Bulgaria) PIs
  C.Wallace C.Haerpfer
• New Democracies Barometer-NDB 6 survey fielded
  in January 2002 in CIS countries (Russia,
  Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia,
  Kazakhstan and Kyrgystan) PIs C.Haerpfer
  C.Wallace N18.428

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Indicators of social capital

• Participation in voluntary associations/civil
  society
• Social networks and social support
• Trust (generalised trust and trust in
  institutions)
• Civic mindedness (norms and civic responsibility)
• (Other dimensions sometimes included feeling of
  security, getting things done, political action,
  elite-challenging activities)

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Trust 1. Generalised Trust

• Generalised trust highly correlated with
  membership of organisations at national level but
  not individual level.
• More nuanced approach in ESS includes fairness
  and helpfulness. Improvement on single item
  measure used in EB and WVS
• PROBLEMS
• Large variations across Europe. General trust
  generally low (between 10 and 35 across EU27)
  but very high in Nordic countries (Nordic
  exceptionalism?)
• Is trust measuring the outcomes or causes of
  social capital rather than social capital itself?

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Trust 2 Trust in institutions

• C.Haerpfer, C.Wallace and M.Raiser (2005)
  Formal Social Capital Trust in Institutions
• Major outcome of NDB 6 analysis for CIS
• Trust in political institutions
  (government,parliament, judiciary etc.)
  constitutes indicator (alpha0.90)
• Social trust (media, churches, health care
  system) constitutes different dimension of formal
  social capital

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Civic Mindedness

• This is usually measured by looking at a range of
  normative situations (eg. Accepting a bribe, not
  paying on public transport etc.)
• It helps to measure the way in which social
  capital reinforces social norms
• Not clear if this is an outcome or a cause of
  social capital rather than social capital itself.
  
• PROBLEMS
• The way this was asked in the EB was to ask about
  what made a good citizen. It proved almost
  impossible to analyse. The WVS question was the
  better one.
• Need to set it in the context of political and
  economic situation of the country

8
Participation in civil society

• List of range of organisations
• Need to distinguish active participation,
  volunteering and passive memberships
• Need to distinguish between types of associations
• ResultsLarge variations across Europe (90
  Sweden, 25 Greece
• Problems
• Some memberships more obligatory in some
  countries (ie.trades unions in Sweden, churches
  in Germany).
• Lack of organisations in Eastern and Southern
  Europe
• Longer list tends to produce more participation
• Does not take into account non-organisational
  participation (e.g. through internet
  mobilisations)

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Social networks

• Core concept of social capital but not adequately
  addressed in surveys
• 2 Issues
• Intensivity of social contacts (frequency of
  meetings with friends/neighbours etc.)
• Extensivity of contacts (range of social
  contacts)
• PROBLEMS
• No idea of the quality of these relationships
• Different semantic code of friends

10
Social support

• Asks what help is expected, was given across a
  range of situations
• Large European variations in social support, with
  the Nordic countries having the most. Variations
  also in kinds of social support.
• Eastern Europe NDB 6 5item indicator
  (alpha0.84) of receiving social support
  (informal social capital)
• PROBLEMS
• Cultural understandings of what social support
  means
• People in different life circumstances need
  different kinds of support
• People in the South and East maybe turn to
  families first.

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CONCLUSIONS

• CORE CONCEPTS OF SOCIAL CAPITAL
• 1. Participation in civil society-distinguish
  level of participation as well as different
  organisations (e.g.sociotropic vs. utilitarian).
• Need to take into account associations that women
  join such as consumer associations as well as
  young people, such as the internet otherwise
  results in bias)
• 2. Social networks and social support.
  (distinguish intensiveness of social contacts and
  extensiveness of social contacts bridging
  capital)
• Need to look at quality of social relationships
  in terms of social support across a range of
  situations, bearing in mind cultural variations.
• ASSOCIATED CONCEPTS
• Generalised Trust
• Trust in institutions
• Civic mindedness

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Conceptual framework of social capital
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References

• Christian W.Haerpfer, Claire Wallace and Martin
  Raiser (2005), Social Capital an Economic
  Performance in Post-Communist Societies, In
  S.M.Koniordos (Ed.), Networks, Trust and Social
  Capital (Ashgate Hants) pp.243-278

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References

• Christian Welzel, Ronald Inglehart and Franziska
  Deutsch (2005), Social Capital, Voluntary
  Associations and Collective Action Which aspects
  of social capital have the greatest civic
  payoff?, In Journal of Civil Society,
  vol12121-146