Social capital I: measurement and associations with economic mobility

Raj Chetty, Matthew Jackson, Theresa Kuchler (), Johannes Stroebel, Nathaniel Hendren, Robert B. Fluegge, Sara Gong, Federico Gonzalez, Armelle Grondin, Matthew Jacob, Drew Johnston, Martin Koenen, Eduardo Laguna-Muggenburg, Florian Mudekereza, Tom Rutter, Nicolaj Thor, Wilbur Townsend, Ruby Zhang, Mike Bailey, Pablo Barberá, Monica Bhole and Nils Wernerfelt
Additional contact information
Theresa Kuchler: NYU Stern School of Business
Nathaniel Hendren: Harvard University
Robert B. Fluegge: Opportunity Insights, Harvard University
Sara Gong: NYU Stern School of Business
Federico Gonzalez: Opportunity Insights, Harvard University
Armelle Grondin: Opportunity Insights, Harvard University
Matthew Jacob: Opportunity Insights, Harvard University
Drew Johnston: Opportunity Insights, Harvard University
Martin Koenen: Opportunity Insights, Harvard University
Eduardo Laguna-Muggenburg: Grammarly
Florian Mudekereza: Opportunity Insights, Harvard University
Tom Rutter: Opportunity Insights, Harvard University
Ruby Zhang: Opportunity Insights, Harvard University
Mike Bailey: Meta Platforms
Pablo Barberá: Meta Platforms
Monica Bhole: Meta Platforms
Nils Wernerfelt: Meta Platforms

Nature, 2022, vol. 608, issue 7921, 108-121

Abstract: Abstract Social capital—the strength of an individual’s social network and community—has been identified as a potential determinant of outcomes ranging from education to health1–8. However, efforts to understand what types of social capital matter for these outcomes have been hindered by a lack of social network data. Here, in the first of a pair of papers9, we use data on 21 billion friendships from Facebook to study social capital. We measure and analyse three types of social capital by ZIP (postal) code in the United States: (1) connectedness between different types of people, such as those with low versus high socioeconomic status (SES); (2) social cohesion, such as the extent of cliques in friendship networks; and (3) civic engagement, such as rates of volunteering. These measures vary substantially across areas, but are not highly correlated with each other. We demonstrate the importance of distinguishing these forms of social capital by analysing their associations with economic mobility across areas. The share of high-SES friends among individuals with low SES—which we term economic connectedness—is among the strongest predictors of upward income mobility identified to date10,11. Other social capital measures are not strongly associated with economic mobility. If children with low-SES parents were to grow up in counties with economic connectedness comparable to that of the average child with high-SES parents, their incomes in adulthood would increase by 20% on average. Differences in economic connectedness can explain well-known relationships between upward income mobility and racial segregation, poverty rates, and inequality12–14. To support further research and policy interventions, we publicly release privacy-protected statistics on social capital by ZIP code at https://www.socialcapital.org .

Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04996-4

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