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Social Capital and Health: Evidence That Ancestral Trust Promotes Health among Children of Immigrants

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Abstract

This paper presents evidence that generalized trust promotes health. Children of immigrants in a broad set of European countries with ancestry from across the world are studied. Individuals are examined within country of residence using variation in trust across countries of ancestry. There is a significant positive estimate of ancestral trust in explaining selfassessed health. The finding is robust to accounting for individual, parental, and extensive ancestral country characteristics. Individuals with higher ancestral trust are also less likely to be hampered by health problems in their daily life, providing evidence of trust influencing real life outcomes. Individuals with high trust feel and act healthier, enabling a more productive life.

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  • Ljunge, Martin, 2014. "Social Capital and Health: Evidence That Ancestral Trust Promotes Health among Children of Immigrants," Working Paper Series 1046, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1046
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    Cited by:

    1. Yann Algan & Pierre Cahuc, 2010. "Inherited Trust and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 2060-2092, December.
    2. Fiorillo, Damiano & Sabatini, Fabio, 2015. "Structural social capital and health in Italy," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 129-142.
    3. Ljunge, Martin, 2019. "From Gutenberg to Google: The Internet Is Adopted Earlier if Ancestors Had Advanced Information Technology in 1500 AD," Working Paper Series 1312, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    4. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/432sbils8u9t7qa99cii5psht1 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Niclas Berggren & Andreas Bergh & Christian Bjørnskov & Shiori Tanaka, 2020. "Migrants and Life Satisfaction: The Role of the Country of Origin and the Country of Residence," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(3), pages 436-463, August.
    6. 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.
    7. Damiano Fiorillo & Giuseppe Lubrano Lavadera & Nunzia Nappo, 2020. "Individual Heterogeneity in the Association Between Social Participation and Self-rated Health: A Panel Study on BHPS," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 151(2), pages 645-667, September.
    8. Xue, Xindong & Mo, Erxiao & Reed, W. Robert, 2016. "The relationship between social capital and self-reported health in China," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 10, pages 1-44.
    9. Niclas Berggren & Martin Ljunge, 2021. "Good Faith and Bad Health: Self-Assessed Religiosity and Self-Assessed Health of Women and Men in Europe," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 323-344, January.
    10. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/432sbils8u9t7qa99cii5psht1 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Yann Algan & Pierre Cahuc, 2010. "Inherited Trust and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 2060-2092, December.
    12. Salvatore Bimonte & Luigi Bosco & Arsenio Stabile, 2020. "Integration and Subjective Well-Being Among Off-Site University Students," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 147(3), pages 947-969, February.
    13. Islam, M. Kamrul & Folland, Sherman & Kaarbøe, Oddvar M., 2017. "Social capital and cigarette smoking: New empirics featuring the Norwegian HUNT data," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 174-185.
    14. Jens Detollenaere & Stijn Baert & Sara Willems, 2018. "Association between cultural distance and migrant self-rated health," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 19(2), pages 257-266, March.
    15. 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.
    16. Ljunge, Martin, 2016. "Migrants, health, and happiness: Evidence that health assessments travel with migrants and predict well-being," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 35-46.
    17. Bergh, Andreas & Öhrvall, Richard, 2018. "A sticky trait: Social trust among Swedish expatriates in countries with varying institutional quality," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 1146-1157.
    18. Caiquan Bai & Yuan Gong & Chen Feng, 2019. "Social Trust, Pattern of Difference, and Subjective Well-Being," SAGE Open, , vol. 9(3), pages 21582440198, July.
    19. Hollard, Guillaume & Sene, Omar, 2016. "Social capital and access to primary health care in developing countries: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 1-11.
    20. Mewes, Jan & Giordano, Giuseppe Nicola, 2017. "Self-rated health, generalized trust, and the Affordable Care Act: A US panel study, 2006–2014," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 48-56.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Trust; Social capital; Self assessed health; Subjective health; Self reported health; Cultural transmission; Children of immigrants;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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