Social Capital and Health Inequality: Evidence from Taiwan

Abstract

Does social capital, resources embedded in social relationships, influence health? This research examines whether social capital impacts depressive symptoms and overall perceived health status over and above the effects of social support. Our analyses use unique data from the Taiwan Social Change Survey collected in 1997, and measures social capital and social support through two network instruments (the position generator and the name generator). Results replicate the effects of social support, as measured through the name generator, on both outcomes. Results show that social capital, as measured through the position generator has direct effects on both outcomes net of social support, while social support is a stronger predictor than social capital. This research indicates that social capital contributes to health beyond and distinct from the contribution of social support, and it suggests that social capital and social support are two independent relationship-based causes of disease which require different instruments of measurement.

Individual social capital, neighbourhood deprivation, and self-rated health in England

“…This instrument asks people about their network members" occupational positions and considers these positions as good indicators of the network resources. Position generators have already been used in health studies (Carpiano & Hystad, 2011;Moore et al, 2011;Song, 2011;Song & Lin, 2009). In this study, respondents were asked whether they know friends, relatives or acquaintances who have any of the jobs from a list of 11 occupations.…”

“…This school of social capital is rooted in the work of Bourdieu (1986) and Lin (2001) and is called the "network resources" approach (Ferlander, 2007). Although health studies using this approach are less numerous, they have shown that network resources are positively associated with self-rated health (Carpiano & Hystad, 2011;Moore et al, 2011;Song & Lin, 2009;Verhaeghe et al, 2012) and several mental health outcomes (Acock & Hurlbert, 1993;Haines et al, 2011;Song, 2011;Song & Lin, 2009;Webber & Huxley, 2007;).…”

The association between network social capital and self-rated health: Pouring old wine in new bottles?

“…Carpiano and Hystad (2011) already found that network social capital is positively associated with a sense of belonging. Secondly, network social capital may affect health through providing people access to job opportunities, decent housing, high-quality health care and other instrumental resources (Berkman and Glass, 2000;Song and Lin, 2009). Haines and her colleagues (2011) suggested that better access to instrumental resources is responsible for the negative association between the average educational level of network members and reporting depressive symptoms.…”

“…The studies of Song and Lin (2009) and Haines and her colleagues (2011) used the name generator to measure social support. This instrument lists the names of a few network members by asking questions about actual social support interactions during a specific timeframe before the interview (e.g.…”

“…This instrument has a long tradition in measuring social capital (Van der Gaag, 2005;Lin, 2001) and has already been used to measure network social capital in previous health studies Song and Lin, 2009;Carpiano and Hystad, 2011;Moore et al, 2011).…”