Social capital: linking family and community?

Abstract

Introduction

Social capital can be understood quite simply as networks of social relations characterised by norms of trust and reciprocity. The essence of social capital is quality social relations. It is the quality of relationships, understood through the use of the concept ‘social capital’, which affects the capacity of people to come together to collectively resolve problems they face in common (Stewart-Weeks and Richardson 1998: 2), and achieve outcomes of mutual benefit (Lochner et al 1999). Thus, social capital can be understood as a resource to collective action, which may lead to a broad range of outcomes, of varying social scale.

Defined in this way, it is clear that social capital can exist in family and community life, and is an important feature of both. It is well known that good quality family relationships are important to a whole range of outcomes for family members, including the development of children. What James Coleman (1988) aimed to demonstrate — one of the key social capital theorists — was that social capital within the family - norms of trust and reciprocity within the family — is essential for the transmission of parents’ human capital to their children.

Social capital is also increasingly recognised to be an important feature of community life, in two distinct ways. The first relates to the ‘community sector’ — the mostly not-for-profit organisations involved in the day to day delivery of welfare and services.

Volunteering (the traditional cornerstone of the community sector) is said to be one manifestation of social capital at work (Lyons and Fabionsson 1998). Though the community sector is not made up entirely of volunteers, the input of voluntary work into the delivery of services is critical, especially given state withdrawal from much hands-on service delivery. Trends suggesting a decline in overall levels of voluntary work in Australia, as well as a shift in the nature of volunteering, from regular commitment to participation in one-off events such as Clean Up Australia Day, are thus matters of concern.

In addition, in a resource-scarce, market-driven environment in which competitive tendering for service delivery funding is the norm, the way organisations relate to one another itself becomes a focus of concern. Inter-agency trust and cooperation is necessary to ensure the survival of some organisations, and to deliver services most effectively in most communities (ACOSS 1999).

Second, social capital is increasingly recognised as important for the health and wellbeing of the community at large — including both local communities and the communities of interest in which family life takes place.

The extent to which families are involved in local and other communities (including informal and formal linkages) has been linked to child educational outcomes and decreased levels of delinquency, among other outcomes. The idea is that the more linkages families have with community life, the more likely it is that families and their children will conform to the values of the wider communities, share in community goals, and be subject to the possibility of community sanctions. This theory has been developed most thoroughly in the social capital literature by Coleman (1988) in his study of the influence of the ‘school community’ on the educational achievements of children attending Catholic schools. Coleman linked the tight-knit relationships between children, parents and teachers in these communities to improved educational outcomes.

In addition, it is likely that where children experience good quality connections with community/civil society, these will lead to an increased propensity for those children to become engaged and active citizens throughout adulthood (this in turn leads to sustained, vibrant community life).

As well as the outcomes related to the extent to which families and children are themselves connected to local and other communities and engage in civic life, is the notion that families/children living in ‘cohesive’ (or strong) communities can benefit from this community cohesion as a ‘public good’. In practical ways this can include things such as:

• children growing up in safe, low crime neighbourhoods;
• children being positively influenced by high trust, cooperative relationships in their surroundings; and
• children growing up in well resourced areas, free from poverty.

To a large degree, the ‘public good’ that comes from community life relates to a resources approach to thinking about community cohesion and community strengths. Within this type of approach, social capital is seen as being as important as economic, human and environmental capital. In fact, it is trusting relationships within and between communities that are argued to allow for the transference of one type of ‘capital’ into another (eg for people to utilise their social connections to help with educational or financial outcomes), and facilitate community engagement. This type of social capital can be thought of as ‘generalised’ social capital.

The role of family life in generating social capital

Within the social capital literature, there is a general assumption made about how social capital within families relates to social capital within communities. In a review of social capital and family life, Winter (2000: 5) shows the assertion that ‘family life is a bed-rock of social capital’ features unquestioningly in the work of Putnam (1995), Bourdieu (1993) and Fukuyama (1999) — some of the most influential social capital thinkers. As described by Winter (2000: 5-6):

‘There is a sense in which the role of the family has been idealised ‘as the most productive site of social capital and therefore a pillar of civic virtue and democracy’ (Putzel 1997: 945). The nature of this idealisation is that it is assumed that families will provide models of good relationships and civic virtues (Cox 1995: 28-29).’

This assumption is mirrored in public policy. The Howard Government’s (2000) Stronger Families and Communities Strategy, for example, promotes ‘the family’, along side ‘the community’, as traditional institutions which provide the most effective source and form of social support — and relies heavily on the assumption that these institutions strengthen each other:

Restated in social capital terms, the policy asserts that families rich in social capital will nourish stocks of social capital within their local communities, and that by living in localities rich in social capital, families will prosper.

Yet, in reality we know very little about how social capital within family life translates into more generalised social capital in the Australian context. The question is, can we assume good quality family life will lead to trusting, cooperative and active communities, which in turn will lead to a host of positive outcomes for both families and society at large?

This paper addresses this question by examining how social capital within families translates into a more generalised form of social capital as well as exploring how generalised trust and reciprocity relate to community engagement and ‘action’.

Data and Methodology

This paper draws on survey data collected in 2000/2001 as part of the Families, Social Capital and Citizenship project being undertaken by the Australian Institute of Family Studies. A total of 1506 respondents participated in the survey. These were drawn from a national random sample of households (with at least one person aged 18 years or over). Interviews were conducted via telephone using the Institute’s Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing system (CATI), and were 32 minutes duration on average.

The data contain a number of biases. The first of these relates to the use of the telephone as a vehicle for data collection. Hence, those who are highly mobile, those who do not have a telephone or have a silent number, as well as those who ‘vet’ calls via answering machine, are under-represented in this study.

Another bias relates to those who chose to participate in the survey. The survey over-represents women (69.2 per cent compared with 31.8 per cent men) and those who are tertiary educated (both because they are more likely to be contacted via the telephone and more likely to agree to be interviewed). The survey data have been weighted by sex and education for the purposes of analysis, such that men and women as well as persons with all levels of educational qualifications are represented in the data in proportions consistent with national statistics.

Another source of bias in the Families, Social Capital and Citizenship survey relates to the fact that the survey was only conducted in English. Where householders were unable to undertake the survey in English, these households were excluded from the study.

The survey is based on a theoretical framework developed within the Families, Social Capital and Citizenship project being undertaken at the Australian Institute of Family Studies, summarised at Table 1 (see Stone 2001 for a detailed description of this framework). Thus the survey collected information about respondents’ social networks and the quality of relationships in those networks, as well as information about a range of outcome measures plus detailed demographic information.

The framework conceptualises social capital as a multidimensional concept, comprising networks, trust and reciprocity. Importantly, the framework distinguishes between social capital within different sorts of networks, which exist at different social ‘scales’. These range from household and family level ties, to global connections — the connections people have with individuals or organisations on the other side of the world. Furthermore, the framework highlights the fact that the norms governing these different types of relationships will also vary.

Broadly speaking, the framework includes three main types of values, or ‘norms’. The first relates to trust and reciprocity among familiars. These norms exist within established relationships and social networks. The second type of norm is more generalised, and concerns the extent to which trust and reciprocity are extended to strangers, often on the basis of expectations of behaviour or a sense of shared values. Third are the norms governing relationships individuals have with institutions. These basically concern trust in the formal institutions of governance and markets including fairness of rules, official procedures, dispute resolution and resource allocation.

As described above, these different types of networks and the norms governing them, are related to different types of outcomes within family and community life.

Social capital at different social scales

To measure the levels of trust and reciprocity operating within different types of relationships and network types, respondents were asked directly about the norms governing their relationships in various networks. The survey asked, for example, ‘On a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 equals not at all and 10 equals completely, how much would you say you trust your family in-law to act in your best interests?’. To assess norms of reciprocity, respondents were asked questions such as ‘On the same scale of 0 to 10, where 0 equals not at all and 10 equals completely, how much would you say yourworkmates are willing to help each other out?’.

Based in the framework presented above at Table 1, we can distinguish between norms of trust and reciprocity within family households, within extended kinship groupings, other informal networks (including friends, workmates), generalised social capital of strangers, and institutional confidence. These five social capital arenas are presented in Table 2.

The Alpha scores presented in Table 2 indicate that individual survey items relating to norms of trust and reciprocity at each of these network types, or social scales are correlated, or ‘go together’, such that we can think of five arenas in which social capital exists. Norms of trust within family household groupings are highly related to levels of reciprocity within families, for example (note in social science we can generally think of an Alpha score above .60 as indicating a reliable construct, where 1.00 is the highest possible score).

As well as indicating how well the individual trust and reciprocity items scale together within the various network types, Table 2 also presents the mean scale scores for social capital within each of the respective arenas.

As might be expected, a comparison of mean social capital scores across different network types indicates respondents on average experience the highest levels of trusting, reciprocal relationships with family they live with. The mean score for the family household scale is 9.28. This is clearly extremely high and skewed, on the 0 to 10 scale. In fact, the scores of respondents are so high on average for this scale that it may be that we can think in terms of a dichotomy between the norm of good quality household-based family relationships and others ¹. Thirty six per cent of respondents scored below 10 on the scale, where as the majority (64 per cent) rated a score of 10 on the combined trust and reciprocity within the family household scale.

After family within the household, extended family — including kinship groupings and family in-law where respondents were partnered — scored next most highly (an average of 8.42). Following this general trend of high norms of trust and reciprocity among people respondents know, are relatively high levels of trust and reciprocity reported to exist among ‘familiars’, made up of friendship and workmate connections. These networks scored 7.15 on the 0 to 10 scale on average.

Generalised social capital, comprising levels of trust and reciprocity among people in the local area, and Australians more generally, showed a slightly different pattern. The average score for ‘generalised’ social capital is lower than for networks of people known to respondents personally. Interestingly, though, the average score of 6.88 indicates a generally high level of trust among ‘strangers’ in the Australian community. Notably, the average score for confidence reported in the various institutions listed at Table 2, is lower than for other types of networks.

In sum, analysis of average social capital scores across different types of networks indicates a linear type of relationship between average levels of trust and reciprocity, and the closeness or ‘proximity’ of each network type, to respondents. Reported levels of trust and reciprocity are highest among family members, followed by other informal networks, which appear different from more generalised norms of trust and confidence in institutions. The question addressed by the next section of the paper is what this means for our understanding of how social capital within the family relates to more generalised, community levels of social capital.

The family-community link

We explore the relationship between family based social capital and community life in two ways. First, the relationship between norms of trust and reciprocity within family life and norms and behaviour within community life are examined. Second, we examine the relationship between family practices related to social capital in the family (such as the extent to which family members do things together, as well as the extent to which respondent’s parents were engaged in community life) with community engagement.

The relationship between family norms and community social capital

As set out earlier, one of the key hypotheses posed in the social capital literature is that social capital within one type of social relationship, or at one ‘social scale’, will foster the generation of social capital at another. That is, social capital within one network will translate into social capital in other aspects of social life. In particular, it is most typically assumed that social capital within the family —good quality familial relationships — will generate social capital in other spheres of life (for example increased democracy, trust in institutions, and neighbourhood cohesion).

Whether social capital generation does occur in this way — leaving aside for the moment the question of how this might occur — is an open empirical question. Analysis of the strength and significance of the relationship between social capital within the family and social capital within other arenas of social life, using the scales presented above, can help to shed light on this question.

Before examining the relationship between family and community based norms of trust and reciprocity, it is important to acknowledge the potential limitations of each of these concepts, as they are measured here.

There are a number of potential limitation of our ‘family social capital’ scale. First, as shown above, there is little variation in the measure, which either reflects the fact that norms of trust and reciprocity within family households are quite high overall, which is likely, or that the measure is not adequately reflecting real differences in family life. This relates to the second limitation. It is important to acknowledge that the measure of norms of trust and reciprocity is one aspect of family life only. Other aspects of family life, measured through different items, may show more varied experiences of family life (for example, measures of conflict, exchange, and so on). In defence of the use of the scale, this measure is used to test the assumption in the academic and policy literature that it is social capital within family life (norms of trust and reciprocity) that generates community social capital. Hence, although the scale has limitations, it is nonetheless a legitimate scale to use in this analysis.

The measure of generalised social capital (that type of community social capital argued most strongly to lead to public good outcomes) used here is arguably also inherently limited. This scale taps into respondents’ trust and reciprocity of ‘strangers’, or people generally. It must be acknowledged that the sample of people who responded to the survey may in fact exclude those members of the population who have little or no sense of generalised trust or reciprocity, and who may have been unwilling to respond to a public survey on account of this. Thus, the levels of generalised social capital reported here may be overstated.

With these limitations in mind, Table 3 presents results of statistical procedures used to determine the extent to which social capital within family life is related to social capital at other social scales.

Focusing on the relationship between average social capital scores reported for household-based families with other network types, we see a type of cascading pattern emerge. The highest correlation score we observe is between family household norms and norms among extended family groupings (r=.42). Next most highly correlated with family household norms are the norms that exist among other familiars (friends and workmates) (r=.19), although this relationship is relatively weak. Weaker still are the correlations we find between the norms governing home life and those relating to people unknown to respondents (r=.13) and institutions (r=.13).

These results provide very little support for the notion that good quality family relationships translate directly into high levels of social capital within the community, in the form of generalised social capital and confidence in institutions. Certainly we would not conclude from this analysis that the most important and significant contributor to community social capital is family norms.

Rather, these figures suggest a proximity or ‘flow on’ effect may be operating between the norms within one set of social relations, and norms within another set of social relations, where that next set of relations is ‘near by’ in terms of social scale. The figures indicate, for example, that norms of trust and reciprocity operating within extended family networks are positively associated with quality relationships among non-household based familiars (r = .37). Norms of trust and reciprocity within networks of familiars outside of the household show a positive correlation with generalised norms of trust and reciprocity (r =.33). However, there is only a weak positive correlation between the quality of relations within family households and more generalised norms of trust and reciprocity (r = .13).

The first of these sets of results also indicates this ‘flow-on’ trend is sustained for patterns of institutional confidence. Trust in institutions is most highly associated with generalised trust (r = .35), and most weakly associated with norms of trust among family households (r = .13).

Another way of testing the relationship between social capital within families and communities is to move beyond analysis of norms alone, and examine the impact of trusting, reciprocal relationships among family members, and the extent to which people participate in community life. Participation in community networks establishes, and reinforces, social ties which can develop into good quality, trusting and reciprocal relationships. Hence, community links are often used as an indicator of community social capital ‘at work’ (see for example the work of Baum et al 2000; Putnam 1993, 1995).

To explore this question, we examine how the combined norms of trust and reciprocity we have identified in family life (above) relate to three types of ‘community engagement’. These are engagement with informal social networks in the community, extended family networks, neighbourhood ties and friendships; engagement in more formal civic groups; and civic and political action not related to group membership.

First, ‘informal’ networks refer to the ties people have with extended family, friendship networks, neighbourhood links and contacts with workmates. Results indicate everyone has at least some informal ties, and most have both familial and non-familial. All respondents had some family ties, most had at least one friend (99%) and most (94%) knew at least one of their neighbours (by name or well enough to have a conversation with). Sixty one per cent of respondents can be assumed to have some ties through work as they are currently in paid work (or on leave from paid work) and 64 per cent reported keeping in contact with at least one work mate from a previous job.

While we find everyone has at least one informal tie, there is considerable variation in the size of informal networks, and in family and friendship networks in particular. The question is whether it is quality relationships within the home that is related to ‘high’ levels of connectedness in the informal aspects of community life.

Second, to gauge how connected people are with more ‘formal’ aspects of civic life, the survey asked respondents about whether they belonged to any of a series of types of civic groups/organisations and, if so, how many of each type they belonged to. The group types respondents were asked about were groups that were: child related; sporting; professional/trade; political; community/welfare; arts/educational; self help/support; or ‘other’. Membership of groups of this kind has been used as a key measure in the social capital empirical literature to date, and often as a single measure (for the most notable example see the work of Robert Putnam 1993, 1995).

Results indicate that 85 per cent of respondents belonged to at least one group or organisation, and the average number of groups respondents belonged to was three². Sporting groups were the most common, followed by community/welfare groups, arts/educational groups, child related groups and professional groups/trade unions.

Third, the survey also asked about a range of types of civic and political action not related to group membership. We asked respondents whether, in the last twelve months, they had: participated in an election campaign (beyond compulsory voting); taken part in a demonstration; signed a petition; contacted the media/a government official regarding a problem; attended a public meeting; joined with people to resolve a problem in common; or taken steps to improve the environment (beyond regular household recycling).

The most common of these activities was petition signing (71 per cent of respondents had done in this in the last 12 months), followed by steps to improve the environment (45 per cent), joining people to resolve problems (33 per cent), attending a public meeting (32 per cent) and contacting a government official (31 per cent). Roughly a quarter of respondents had done none of these things, another quarter reported doing one, around 30 per cent reported doing two or three, while the remainder reported undertaking four or more of these types of activities in the last year.

Before considering how these three types of community engagement relate to family life, it is worth noting the relationship between informal connections, community group membership and civic/political action. Results of the analysis of correlations indicate a positive and significant relationship exists between each of these variables. The higher the number of informal connections respondents have, the higher their likelihood to report belonging to community groups (r = .15) and engaging in civic/political action (r = .20). The strongest relationship exists between community group membership and community activism (r = .37).

While it is interesting to consider the extent to which people are engaged in various forms of community life, and to consider the relationship between these, our key question is how social capital within family life translates into social capital within communities. We next explored how each of these types of community participation relate to good quality family relationships, measured through the concepts of family trust and reciprocity.

Far from indicating a strong connection between family norms and community engagement, analysis of correlations overwhelmingly suggest there is little to no direct relationship between social capital within family households and levels of community participation. Family social capital appears significantly although very weakly related to the number of informal community ties people have (r = .09), and does not appear to be related to community group membership or civic/political action at all.

Indeed, results indicate only very weak relationships exist between norms of trust and reciprocity at any of the social scales we identified earlier in this paper, and levels of community participation. This includes the relationship between generalised social capital and community participation, for which we found significant but weak relationships between generalised social capital and informal ties (r = .11), community groups (r = .02) and civic/political action (r = .02), respectively.

Does this mean family life has no role to play in promoting active communities? Thus far we have considered the relationship between family relationships and community relationships at one point in time. In doing so, we have ignored the role formative family experiences may have in promoting community engagement.

The relationship between family practices and community engagement

To further examine the family-community link, we next examine how normative experiences about community engagement during childhood relate to community engagement in adulthood. While the survey did not ask about the norms of trust and reciprocity that existed in respondent’s family of origin, it did ask about the extent of family and parental engagement in the community. We can use this type of information as another way of exploring the link between family and community social capital. Respondents were asked the question: ‘Thinking of the family you grew up with, were members of your family usually involved with some kind of helping, voluntary work, political or community activity? Was that no, not at all, a little, yes quite a lot, or a lot'.

Almost half of respondents indicated the family they grew up in did not participate in community activities of the type listed at all (44.6 per cent), around twenty per cent indicated their families were involved in the community in these ways a little, with similar numbers reporting their families were involved ‘quite a lot’, and thirteen per cent reported their families were involved ‘a lot’.

In contrast to the weak relationship found between social capital in the family and community engagement at one point in time, results indicate a stronger, positive relationship between norms of community participation in family of origin with community engagement in adulthood. As shown in Table 4, this trend extends for each type of community participation examined.

With regard to informal ties, those respondents who indicated their family of origin was not at all involved in the community were most likely to have a relatively small number of informal ties (40.7 per cent). In comparison, among the minority who reported a strong community norm within their family of origin, we see a significantly greater proportion of respondents who are likely to themselves have large informal networks (46.1 per cent).

A similar pattern is found for the relationship between norms of community participation in families of origin, and the likelihood of respondents to report being group members or to have undertaken civic/political action in the last twelve months. The trend is most marked in relation to group memberships, where respondents who reported high levels of community participation among their family of origin were most clearly likely to be involved in a large number of community groups (57.5 per cent). Similarly, respondents indicating their family of origin was not at all involved in community life were least likely to have undertaken civic/political action themselves (31.7 per cent) and least likely to be highly active in this way (13.1 per cent).

However, it is also important to recognise that experiences of ‘community’ in respondents’ family of origin do not alone account for the extent to which respondents are engaged in the community in their adult lives. The overall correlation statistics (Pearson’s R) recorded between norms in the family of origin and informal, group and action based community participation are r = .15, r = .23 and r = .24, respectively. These figures indicate much of the variation in patterns of community engagement remains unexplained.

*P<.000

Discussion and conclusion

To conclude, the paper comes back to the question it started with: does social capital within family life translate into high levels of social capital within the community? Analysis presented throughout this paper indicates the answer is yes and no.

First, this paper considered how norms of trust and reciprocity within family life relate to norms of trust and reciprocity in other aspects of social life, including informal ties, generalised social capital and institutional confidence. Rather than pointing to a direct and strong relationship between family and community norms, we found that family life relates to norms within informal networks, which in turn are related to generalised social capital, which are related to trust in institutions. It is the quality of informal relations with friends, workmates and the like that may be one of the keys to quality community ties, rather than family life per se (this notion is also supported by the later finding that levels of informal ties are positively related to participation in community groups and civic/political action).

The lack of a direct, strong relationship found between trust and reciprocity in families and communities may in part relate to the very high average levels of trust and reciprocity reported in family life. Given most respondents reported very high levels of family trust and reciprocity, quality of family life may not be a good predictor of variation in community life at all.

If anything, our examination of the relationship between trust and reciprocity in family life and various forms of community participation, as one indication of community social capital at work, indicated even less support for the family as a site of community social capital generation than was found in the analysis of community norms. Good quality family relationships appear barely related to the levels of community participation among adult family members.

In contrast, we found some evidence that the practices of family life do have a role to play in enhancing community life, as a conduit for community participation from one generation to the next. Respondents whose parents/family of origin were most involved in community life were themselves more likely to have large informal networks, be members of community groups and/or participate in civic/community action. This is consistent with previous research which shows a link between parental support of civic engagement among children, and of civic mindedness among adolescents (Smart et al. 2000). However, it is important to remember that this factor explained only some of the variation in levels of community participation we observed.

Clearly the findings presented here suggest that factors other than trust and reciprocity in family life are important predictors of both levels of trust and reciprocity in community life as well as the extent to which communities are active and participatory. One such factor highlighted by these findings is the role of friendship and informal ties. Other relevant factors are likely to include personal characteristics such as self-confidence, open-mindedness and the capacity to form bonding ties (see discussion in Smart et al.). More ‘macro’ factors such as the resources community members have available, in terms of time, skills, infrastructure or the local economy are likely to play a key part. Recent work also points to the role social cohesion (a lack of inequalities) within communities also plays in facilitating community cooperation and interaction. In addition, other aspects of family life not examined here may relate more strongly to the generation of community level social capital than family level social capital itself.

Indeed, let us not discount the role of family life in promoting community social capital entirely. In addition to the family of origin effect, it is likely that just as social capital varies according to different types of families in communities of varying circumstances, so too the relationship between family and community may also vary. Whereas in some families, levels of social capital within family life may be mirrored in the interaction family members have with their communities (ie high levels of trust and reciprocity within the home enhance community ties), this may not always be the case.

Recognising that the dynamic between family and community life may vary over time or circumstance is consistent with a life course approach to social capital as well as a resources approach — which focuses on the links between social, economic, human and environmental capitals. In addition to understanding how social capital varies over time and circumstance, it points to the further critical academic and policy issue to address which is whether and how social capital within community life may compensate for poor quality family relationships, and vice versa.

Notes

1. Whether this is a meaningful distinction will only be determined in future analyses in the project, where family and other norms will be analysed in relation to various other family characteristics, as well as in relation to other outcomes Á such as being able to ask for help with childcare, for example.

2. These figures may be higher than those found in other studies because many different types of civic and community groups/organisations were prompted for.

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