Life Satisfaction, Social Capital and the Bonding-Bridging Nexus

Pugno, Maurizio ; Verme, Paolo

关键词: ART;    BASIC;    BELIEFS;    CHURCH;    CHURCHES;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-5945
RP-ID  :  WPS5945

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The paper investigates the relationbetween social capital and life satisfaction focusing on thedistinction between bonding and bridging. Using the latestversion of the combined World and European Values Surveys,the authors first address the question of measurement ofsocial capital by means of a multi-step factor analysis.Through this procedure, they nd that proxies typically usedfor social capital tend to polarize around two dimensionsinterpreted as bonding and bridging. These two dimensionsare in fact associated with a single latent variable withopposite signs suggesting that they describe two sides ofthe same latent variable rather than two independent latentvariables. The authors call this latent variable the locusof socializing and use it to explore the relation betweensocial capital and life satisfaction across world citizensand across groups of similar countries. The results indicatethat people with extreme bonding or bridging attitudes areless happy than people with more balanced attitudes. Unlikethe literature on social capital and economic growth thatfinds bridging attitudes more desirable than bondingattitudes, they nd that bonding attitudes are at least asimportant as bridging attitudes for life satisfaction. Thissuggests that the social capital dimensions important foreconomic growth may not necessarily coincide with the socialcapital dimensions important for life satisfaction.