Social capital in cross-cultural comparison. Opportunity and limits: cultural dimension

and social network measurement in representative surveys

Jiří Šafr Institute of Sociology,

Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic

www.soc.cas.cz

WORKSHOP on Harmonisation of Social Survey Data for Cross - National Comparison

Institute of Sociology, AS CR, Prague 19th October 2010

Structure

• Cultural and structural dimensions of social capital

• ISSP 2004– Cultural dimension (Trust and Tolerance)– Social capital and democracy evaluation

• Network measurement: Position generator

Social capital• Cultural dimension

– generalized social trust– tolerance and norms of reciprocity Horizontal relationships between citizensBut → how to measure?

• Trust in state institution → vertical political (civic) culture (citizen – institution)

• Structural dimension:– voluntary organization membership

→ collective/community SC– „networking“ (diversity, upper reachability, density, …) → individual SC (as resource in individual's action /well being)

ISSP 2004 – Citizenship Cultural dimension of Social Capital• Generalized Social Trust

– How often p take advantage / act fairly? (v45)

– People: Be trusted or faced carefully? (v46)

• Respect and Tolerance (general)– Meet people: respect at first encounter (v68)

– Meet people: tolerance of disagreement (v69)

• Political tolerance (specific)– Allow public meetings-relig extremists (v14)– Allow public meetgs-p overthrow governm (v15)– Allow public meetings-racist people (v16)

• Trust in state → vertical relationship (political culture)

ISSP 2004 – Citizenship - Tolerance

Tolerance and respect to other people (in general) aske only in 15 countries

Political Tolerance

„Cultural“ Social capital

„Cultural“ Social capital + Political Trust

Social Trust & Tolerance/respect

Social Trust & Membership in voluntary org.

Tolerance/respect & Membership in voluntary org.

Democracy in (COUNTRY): Today

Democracy operation today with:

Political culture and social capital measures

Political trust ,435Generalised Social Trust ,271Nonconventional civic participation ,149Tolerance to other people ,126Political tolerance ,019

Tolerance and Democracy

Network measures?

• Membership in voluntary org. is „network“ measure only on aggregate level (collective-community social capital)

• At the individual level we need to measurelevel of „networking“ (eg. diversity of networks or resources embedded in networks) mainly in broader social circles (weak ties)

• → resource generators / position generator (as a roster techniques)

Position Generator (PG) in Czech survey Social Distance 2007

• egocentric social networks related to social standing (origin by Nan Lin in 1970‘s)

• Only in national surveys (ca 10 studies, see http://www.xs4all.nl/~gaag/work), but not standardized for international comparison yet (some effort already done: USA, China and Taiwan study)

• Respondents are asked if they know a person from a list of jobs that have different social status.

• Czech version (2007): 18 jobs in 3 ties: family, friends, acquaintances

• + duration of ties, and gender of contacts.

PG - % of a contacts in CR 2007ISEI % yes % family member

Worker in a factory 24 61,2 29,1Nurse 51 59,8 30,0Shop assistant in a supermarket 25 57,3 26,1Auto-mechanic 34 55,5 20,6Waiter 34 55,4 17,0Truck driver 34 48,3 26,1Teacher at elementary school 66 44,7 22,2Accountant / wages clerk 51 43,7 22,9Physician (doctor) 88 40,5 17,1Owner/manager, small store 49 40,4 19,0Policeman 50 38,2 18,2Secretary 51 37,5 26,5Cleaner 16 37,3 20,9Joiner 33 36,5 21,3Unskilled construction worker 21 30,2 16,0Programmer/IT specialist 71 29,2 24,3Lawyer 85 24,1 19,7Top executive of a large business firm 70 17,5 21,4

Social capital measures from PG in different social groups

PG in CR, Holland, TaiwanISEI CR Holland Taiwan CR-HOLL CR-Taiwan

Physician 88 41 50 50 -9 -9Lawyer 85 24 47 24 -23 0Manager ot large factory/firm 70 18 71 43 -53 -25Teacher at elem. sch. * 66 45 73 -28Nurse 51 60 75 54 -15 6Secretary 51 38 67 -29Accountant 51 44 63 -19Police 50 38 42 56 -4 -18Owner of small firm/shop* 49 40 x 68 -28Truck driver 34 48 50 52 -2 -4Car-mechanic 34 56 69 -13Saleswoman 25 57 62 -5Assemblymen/women * 24 61 38 23Saleswoman 21 30 66 -36Cleaning worker * 16 37 35 30 2 7

Holland: SNSS (van der Gaag) 1999-2000 30 jobs

Taiwan: Taiwan Social Network Study 1997 (Lin, Fu, Hsung) 15 jobs

Using network measures from PG:

• network ISEI score, upper reachability + their combination („double netw. Advantage“) → best capture the concept of social capital as hierarchically ordered social resources.

• outputs of the social network: income, job mobility, social trust, life satisfaction, and tolerance of ethnic groups

• → only very low correlations when controlled for ego‘s status

• But a good tool to reconstruct a closure in social structure of a specific part of society („networking“)

Further prospect of PG for int. comparison

• Which professions in a list? • not rare • from all strata (not only high status)• well specified (eg. „Worker“ is vague)• weigh different labor market labor structure• focus on weak ties (measure ties separately) →

„bridging effects / strength of weak ties“• Small list eg. 12 professions/positions for international

surveys • PG → status position (social capital in Bourdieu‘s concept)

• ideally supplemented with Resource Generator → social support

Thank you for your attention.

jiri.safr@soc.cas.cz