Life Satisfaction, Social Capital and the Bonding-Bridging Nexus
The paper investigates the relation between social capital and life satisfaction focusing on the distinction between bonding and bridging. Using the latest version of the combined World and European Values Surveys, the authors first address the que...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?menuPK=64187510&pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187510&searchMenuPK=64187283&siteName=WDS&entityID=000158349_20120112114129 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/3230 |
| Summary: | The paper investigates the relation
between social capital and life satisfaction focusing on the
distinction between bonding and bridging. Using the latest
version of the combined World and European Values Surveys,
the authors first address the question of measurement of
social capital by means of a multi-step factor analysis.
Through this procedure, they nd that proxies typically used
for social capital tend to polarize around two dimensions
interpreted as bonding and bridging. These two dimensions
are in fact associated with a single latent variable with
opposite signs suggesting that they describe two sides of
the same latent variable rather than two independent latent
variables. The authors call this latent variable the locus
of socializing and use it to explore the relation between
social capital and life satisfaction across world citizens
and across groups of similar countries. The results indicate
that people with extreme bonding or bridging attitudes are
less happy than people with more balanced attitudes. Unlike
the literature on social capital and economic growth that
finds bridging attitudes more desirable than bonding
attitudes, they nd that bonding attitudes are at least as
important as bridging attitudes for life satisfaction. This
suggests that the social capital dimensions important for
economic growth may not necessarily coincide with the social
capital dimensions important for life satisfaction. |
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