Appendix A

Alternative Taxonomies of Social Capital

Researchers, working in a range of contexts from economic development to immigration, have proposed sets of social capital indicators with varying content structures. This variation reflects how the importance of a given indicator will vary by place and time and by the questions being asked. In this appendix, we provide four examples of indicator sets:

1. Grootaert, who works from the perspective of World Bank projects.
2. Putnam who seeks to identify key dimensions of community and organizational life, engagement in public affairs, community volunteerism, informal sociability, and social trust in the United States.
3. Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey (SCCBS), developed by the Saguaro Seminar (see Chapter 1), which is included primarily to show its similarity to the Putnam indicators.
4. Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (2005), which is designed to inform research on factors that affect immigrants.

GROOTAERT

Grootaert (1998, p. iii) identified four categories of indicators—horizontal associations, civil and political society, social integration, and legal and governance aspects—as having all been used in empirical studies in the social capital literature to “operationalize the concept of

social capital and to demonstrate how and how much it affects development outcomes.”

Horizontal Associations

• number and type of associations or local institutions
• extent of membership in local associations
• extent of participatory decision making
• extent of kin homogeneity within the association
• extent of income and occupation homogeneity within the association
• extent of trust in village members and households
• extent of trust in government
• extent of trust in trade unions
• perception of extent of community organization
• reliance on networks of support
• percentage of household income from remittances
• percentage of household expenditure for gifts and transfers

Civil and Political Society

• index of civil liberties
• percentage of population facing political discrimination
• index of intensity of political discrimination
• percentage of population facing economic discrimination
• index of intensity of economic discrimination
• percentage of population involved in separatist movement
• Gastil’s index of political rights
• Freedom House index of political freedoms
• index of democracy
• index of corruption
• index of government inefficiency
• strength of democratic institutions
• measure of “human liberty”
• measure of political stability
• degree of decentralization of government
• voter turnout
• political assassinations
• constitutional government changes
• coups

Social Integration

• indicator of social mobility
• measure of strength of “social tensions”
• ethnolinguistic fragmentation
• riots and protest demonstrations
• strikes
• homicide rates
• suicide rates
• other crime rates
• prisoners per 100,000 people
• illegitimacy rates
• percentage of single-parent homes
• divorce rate
• youth unemployment rate

Legal and Governance Aspects

• quality of bureaucracy
• independence of court system
• expropriation and nationalization risk
• repudiation of contracts by government
• contract enforceability
• contract-intensive money

PUTNAM

Putnam’s work is from the perspective of developing indicators of social capital in the United States. The list below is reproduced from Productivity Commission (2003). The numbers in parentheses indicate the item’s coefficient of correlation with the final constructed measure across the individual states of the United States.

Measures of Community or Organizational Life

• percentage of individuals who served on a committee of a local organization in the last year (0.88)
• percentage of individuals who served as an officer of some club or organization in the last year (0.83)
• civic and social organizations per 1,000 population (0.78)
• mean number of club meetings attended in the last year (0.78)
• mean number of group memberships (0.74)

Measures of Engagement in Public Affairs

• turnout in presidential elections, 1988 and 1992 (0.84)
• percentage of individuals who attended public meeting on town or school affairs in last year (0.77)

Measures of Community Volunteerism

• number of nonprofit organizations per 1,000 population (0.82)
• mean number of times worked on a community project in last year (0.65)
• mean number of times did volunteer work last year (0.66)

Measures of Informal Sociability

• percentage of individuals who agree that “I spend a lot of time visiting friends” (0.73)
• mean number of times entertained at home last year (0.67)

Measures of Social Trust

• percentage of individuals who agree that “most people can be trusted” (0.92)
• percentage of individuals who agree that “most people are honest” (0.84)

SOCIAL CAPITAL COMMUNITY BENCHMARK SURVEY

Putnam’s categories and indicators are similar to the domains and dimensions developed by the Saguaro Seminar for the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, which was the first major comprehensive survey related to social capital in the United States.

Trust

• social trust (“thick” versus “thin” trust, radius of trust)
• interracial/ethnic trust (a form of bridging)

Informal Networks

• diversity of friendship networks (a form of bridging)
• informal socializing with family, friends, colleagues

Formal Networks

• civic leadership
• associational involvement
• giving and volunteering
• faith-based engagement

Political Involvement

• conventional politics (voting)
• protest politics (marches, boycotts, rallies, etc.)

Equality of Civic Engagement Across the Community

This is a constructed measure across race, income, and education levels.

LONGITUDINAL SURVEY OF IMMIGRANTS TO CANADA

Family and Relatives

• having relatives in Canada upon landing: 1 if longitudinal respondent (LR) had relatives in Canada upon landing, 0 otherwise
• number of relatives in Canada: number of types of relatives (spouse, children, parents, grandparents, brothers or sisters, etc.) in Canada, ranging from 0 to 11
• frequency of contact with family sponsors: frequency of contact with family sponsor (0~1):
  • – 0: no sponsor or having not seen or talked to sponsors since arriving;
  • – between 0 and 1: seeing or talking to sponsors in varied frequencies; the higher the index is, the more frequently LR contacts with sponsors
  • – 1: seeing or talking to sponsor every day

Friends

• having friends in Canada upon landing: 1 if LR had friends in Canada upon landing, 0 otherwise
• having made new friends: 1 if LR had made new friends, 0 otherwise
• number of sources for meeting friends: number of sources for meeting new friends other than workplace, ranging from 0 to 14

• ethnic diversity of friends: ethnic diversity of friend network (0~1):
• • – 0: no friends or all friends belong to the same ethnic or cultural groups as LR
  • – between 0 and 1: some friends belong to the same ethnic or cultural groups as LR; the higher the index is, the more ethnically diversified is the friend network
  • – 1: none of the friends belong to the same ethnic or cultural groups as LR
• frequency of contact with friends: frequency of contact with friends (0~1):
  • – 0: no friends or having not seen or talked to friends since arriving
  • – between 0 and 1: seeing or talking to friends in varied frequencies; the higher the index is, the more frequently LR contacts with friends
  • – 1: seeing or talking to friends every day

Group and Organizational Network

• number of organizations participated in: number of organizations or groups LR participated in, ranging from 0 to 13
• ethnic diversity of organizational network: ethnic diversity of organizational network (0~1):
  • – 0: not participated in any organization or all the members of all organizations belong to the same ethnic or cultural groups as LR
  • – between 0 and 1: some members of organizations belong to the same ethnic or cultural groups as LR; the higher the index is, the more ethnically diversified is the organizational network
  • – 1: none of the members of organizations belong to the same ethnic or cultural groups as LR
• frequency of activities with organizations: frequency of activities with organizations (0~1):
  • – 0: not participated in any organization
  • – between 0 and 1: having taken part in organizational activities in varied frequencies; the higher the index is, the more frequently LR takes part in activities
  • – 1: having taken part in activities every day
• numbers of organizations for which LR volunteered time: number of organizations or groups that LR volunteered time for organizations or groups, 0 otherwise