Social Networks, Family Social Capital, and Child Health

Abstract

This article reviews literature on social network effects on children's health. Regarding structural aspects, it can be seen that social networks for children consist in the inner circle mainly of members of the core family (parents, siblings) and in the extended circle of other family members such as grandparents and friends. Network size and the proportion of friends in the network increase with the age of the children. With regard to network effects on health it becomes clear that child health is influenced directly by the child’s social network as well as indirectly by the social network of the parents. Of the various theoretical mechanisms that can be used to explain these findings —for example, social support, social contagion, or social control—the support mechanism is best empirically confirmed. Furthermore, it is consistently shown that family social capital correlates positively with the socioeconomic resources of parents in Western industrialized countries. In emerging and developing countries, it is apparent that children’s health is increasingly dependent on the availability of social support.