IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/soinre/v108y2012i2p215-238.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measuring Social Capital in Hamilton, Ontario

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Kitchen
  • Allison Williams
  • Dylan Simone

Abstract

Social capital has been studied by academics for more than 20 years and within the past decade there has been an explosion of growth in research linking social capital to health. This paper investigates social capital in Hamilton, Ontario by way of a telephone survey of 1,002 households in three neighbourhood groups representing high, mixed and low socio-economic status (SES). A Social Capital Measurement Tool is proposed as a straightforward way to account for differences in social capital perceptions and actions among residents. Consistent with the literature, the paper found that there was a strong association between social capital perceptions and health, particularly mental health and life stress. Social capital was greater in the high and mixed SES neighbourhoods and much weaker in the low SES neighbourhoods. With respect to social capital actions, both volunteering and voting was associated with positive overall health and mental health. Finally, the paper identified the social capital ‘elite’—respondents with high or above average perceptions and who participated in the two social capital actions—voting and volunteering. Prominent among the social capital elite in Hamilton is the ‘health wealthy’ senior, a positive development for the continued social well-being of the city. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Kitchen & Allison Williams & Dylan Simone, 2012. "Measuring Social Capital in Hamilton, Ontario," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 108(2), pages 215-238, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:108:y:2012:i:2:p:215-238
    DOI: 10.1007/s11205-012-0063-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11205-012-0063-3
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11205-012-0063-3?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Snelgrove, John W. & Pikhart, Hynek & Stafford, Mai, 2009. "A multilevel analysis of social capital and self-rated health: Evidence from the British Household Panel Survey," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(11), pages 1993-2001, June.
    2. Veenstra, Gerry, 2005. "Location, location, location: contextual and compositional health effects of social capital in British Columbia, Canada," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(9), pages 2059-2071, May.
    3. Veenstra, Gerry & Luginaah, Isaac & Wakefield, Sarah & Birch, Stephen & Eyles, John & Elliott, Susan, 2005. "Who you know, where you live: social capital, neighbourhood and health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(12), pages 2799-2818, June.
    4. Kawachi, I. & Kennedy, B.P. & Glass, R., 1999. "Social capital and self-rated health: A contextual analysis," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 89(8), pages 1187-1193.
    5. Tiepoh, M. Geepu Nah & Reimer, Bill, 2004. "Social capital, information flows, and income creation in rural Canada: a cross-community analysis," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 427-448, September.
    6. Veenstra, Gerry, 2000. "Social capital, SES and health: an individual-level analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 50(5), pages 619-629, March.
    7. Schultz, Jennifer & O'Brien, A. Maureen & Tadesse, Bedassa, 2008. "Social capital and self-rated health: Results from the US 2006 social capital survey of one community," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(4), pages 606-617, August.
    8. Giordano, Giuseppe N. & Lindstrom, Martin, 2010. "The impact of changes in different aspects of social capital and material conditions on self-rated health over time: A longitudinal cohort study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(5), pages 700-710, March.
    9. Rose, Richard, 2000. "How much does social capital add to individual health?A survey study of Russians," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 51(9), pages 1421-1435, November.
    10. Kennelly, Brendan & O'Shea, Eamon & Garvey, Eoghan, 2003. "Social capital, life expectancy and mortality: a cross-national examination," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 56(12), pages 2367-2377, June.
    11. Poortinga, Wouter, 2006. "Social capital: An individual or collective resource for health?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 292-302, January.
    12. Peter Kitchen & Allison Williams & James Chowhan, 2012. "Sense of Community Belonging and Health in Canada: A Regional Analysis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 107(1), pages 103-126, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Irene Daskalopoulou & Athanasia Karakitsiou, 2020. "Regional Social Capital and Economic Growth: Exploratory Evidence from Testing the Virtuous Spiral vs. Vicious Cycle Model for Greece," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-25, July.
    2. Nelson Ositadimma Oranye & Peter Ezeah & Nora Ahmad, 2017. "Elements of Social Capital and Academic Performance of Undergraduate Students," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 131(1), pages 305-319, March.
    3. Alison L Bain, 2017. "Neighbourhood artistic disaffiliation in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(13), pages 2935-2954, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Habibov, Nazim N. & Afandi, Elvin N., 2011. "Self-rated health and social capital in transitional countries: Multilevel analysis of comparative surveys in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(7), pages 1193-1204, April.
    2. Fiorillo, Damiano & Sabatini, Fabio, 2015. "Structural social capital and health in Italy," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 129-142.
    3. Xindong Xue & W. Robert Reed, 2015. "The Relationship Between Social Capital And Health In China," Working Papers in Economics 15/05, University of Canterbury, Department of Economics and Finance.
    4. Engström, Karin & Mattsson, Fredrik & Järleborg, Anders & Hallqvist, Johan, 2008. "Contextual social capital as a risk factor for poor self-rated health: A multilevel analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(11), pages 2268-2280, June.
    5. Snelgrove, John W. & Pikhart, Hynek & Stafford, Mai, 2009. "A multilevel analysis of social capital and self-rated health: Evidence from the British Household Panel Survey," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(11), pages 1993-2001, June.
    6. Poortinga, Wouter, 2006. "Social relations or social capital? Individual and community health effects of bonding social capital," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 255-270, July.
    7. Liu, Gordon G. & Xue, Xindong & Yu, Chenxi & Wang, Yafeng, 2016. "How does social capital matter to the health status of older adults? Evidence from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 177-189.
    8. Irwin, Jay & LaGory, Mark & Ritchey, Ferris & Fitzpatrick, Kevin, 2008. "Social assets and mental distress among the homeless: Exploring the roles of social support and other forms of social capital on depression," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(12), pages 1935-1943, December.
    9. Ball, Kylie & Cleland, Verity J. & Timperio, Anna F. & Salmon, Jo & Giles-Corti, Billie & Crawford, David A., 2010. "Love thy neighbour? Associations of social capital and crime with physical activity amongst women," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(4), pages 807-814, August.
    10. Lorenzo Rocco & Elena Fumagalli & Marc Suhrcke, 2014. "From Social Capital To Health – And Back," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(5), pages 586-605, May.
    11. Damiano Fiorillo, 2016. "Workers’ health and social relations in Italy," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 43(5), pages 835-862, October.
    12. Schultz, Jennifer & O'Brien, A. Maureen & Tadesse, Bedassa, 2008. "Social capital and self-rated health: Results from the US 2006 social capital survey of one community," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(4), pages 606-617, August.
    13. Eriksson, Malin & Ng, Nawi, 2015. "Changes in access to structural social capital and its influence on self-rated health over time for middle-aged men and women: A longitudinal study from northern Sweden," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 250-258.
    14. Sehee Han & Heaseung Kim & Eung-Sun Lee & Hee-Sun Lee, 2013. "The Contextual and Compositional Associations of Social Capital and Subjective Happiness: A Multilevel Analysis from Seoul, South Korea," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 1183-1200, August.
    15. Fiorillo Damiano & Sabatini Fabio, 2011. "Quality and quantity: The role of social interactions in individual health," wp.comunite 0073, Department of Communication, University of Teramo.
    16. Baron-Epel, Orna & Weinstein, Ruth & Haviv-Mesika, Amalia & Garty-Sandalon, Noga & Green, Manfred S., 2008. "Individual-level analysis of social capital and health: A comparison of Arab and Jewish Israelis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(4), pages 900-910, February.
    17. Neena Chappell & Laura Funk, 2010. "Social Capital: Does it Add to the Health Inequalities Debate?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 99(3), pages 357-373, December.
    18. Xiaoming Lin & Ruodan Lu & Liang Guo & Bing Liu, 2019. "Social Capital and Mental Health in Rural and Urban China: A Composite Hypothesis Approach," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(4), pages 1-16, February.
    19. Jennifer M. Mellor & Jeffrey Milyo, 2003. "State Social Capital and Individual Health Status," Working Papers 0310, Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago.
    20. Rocco, Lorenzo, 2014. "Trust me, you will be in better health," MPRA Paper 91657, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:108:y:2012:i:2:p:215-238. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.