Measuring the Social Capital of Laid-off Chinese Workers

Abstract

Confusion over the concept of social capital is reflected in the variety of methodologies used to measure it. In studying the re-employment of laid-off Chinese workers, the author endeavours to measure their individual social capital in two ways. To measure their `possessed social capital' (i.e. the accessible resources in their social networks), their `spring festival contacts network' was studied for information about network size, density and embedded resources. The social capital actually used for re-employment was also measured. It was found that Chinese laid-off workers have less social capital than ordinary citizens. While searching for new jobs, they mainly depend on informal methods and substantial help from the network. Strong ties are more frequently used by these workers. However, workers with very low and high amount of possessed social capital tend to avoid using social capital in re-employment.

Competitive sport and social capital in rural Australia

“…He suggests that the bonds and bridges that make up social capital have been steadily eroded over the past few decades, largely as a result of declining levels of sociability, the rise of television as a dominant form of leisure, the erosion of trust in government, institutions and individuals, and a growing emphasis on individuality ahead of notions of 'collective good'. In other parts of the world, scholars have also attempted to track changes in social capital (see, for example, Hall, 1999;Zhao, 2002;Baron et al, 2000;Onyx and Bullen, 2000;Das, 2004). However, one of the problems in determining levels of social capital is measurement.…”

Social Capital and Civic Engagement in Urban China

“…Our measure of network diversity was adapted from previous studies (e.g., N. Lin and Dumin 1986;Zhao 2002) and contained forty items. Respondents were asked whether any of the following four groups -family members, relatives, friends, or acquaintances -worked in the following ten positions: 1) a leader in party or government offi ces, 2) an ordinary civil servant, 3) a leader in a state-owned or collectively owned enterprise, 4) a leader in a public service unit, 5) a manager or owner of a private enterprise, 6) an expert or scientifi c researcher, 7) a professional, 8) an ordinary clerk, 9) an ordinary technical worker, or 10) an ordinary worker in the service industry.…”

Capital social, sinergia, impacto social y las organizaciones de la sociedad civil

“…El marco de referencia inmerso dentro del capital social permite en mayor o menor medida dilucidar de una mejor manera la forma en que los entes sociales interactúan para la consecución de beneficios individuales y colectivos (Brunie, 2009y Claridge, 2007. Por lo anterior, el capital social ha sido empíricamente vinculado de forma positiva con posibles resultados favorables en lo que se refiere a cambio climático (Adger, 2003), vida comunitaria (Krishna, 2002), democracia y Gobierno (Uslaner, 2003), manejo de desastres (Murphy et al, 2005), desarrollo económico (Krishna, 2002(Krishna, y 2008 administración y conservación de recursos naturales (Ostrom, 2000) y educación, trabajo y organización (Zhao, 2002) entre otros. A pesar de ello, actualmente no existe una definición consensuada sobre lo que se entiende por capital social.…”