Social Capital Inequality and Subjective Wellbeing of Older Chinese

Samuelson Appau (), Sefa Awaworyi Churchill (), Russell Smyth and Quanda Zhang ()
Additional contact information
Samuelson Appau: RMIT University
Sefa Awaworyi Churchill: RMIT University

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 2022, vol. 160, issue 2, No 7, 563 pages

Abstract: Abstract Using longitudinal data from the China Family Panel Studies, this study provides insights on comparative wellbeing outcomes for older people who are institutionally segregated into clusters that produce uneven social capital. We present the first study that examines how institutionalized social capital inequality, measured by the social capital gap generated by hukou (household registration) status in China, affects the wellbeing of older people. Our results show that high levels of social capital inequality are associated with lower subjective wellbeing, measured by life satisfaction. This general conclusion is robust to a number of sensitivity checks including alternative ways of measuring subjective wellbeing and inequality. We also find that the negative relationship between social capital inequality and subjective wellbeing is strongest for people with a non-urban hukou living in urban areas. Our findings highlight the need for policies aimed at narrowing the social capital gap and the dismantling of institutional structures that hinder upward social capital mobility.

Keywords: Social capital; Social networks; Trust; Social capital inequality; Hukou; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11205-020-02340-9 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
Working Paper: Social Capital Inequality and Subjective Wellbeing of Older Chinese (2019)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:soinre:v:160:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s11205-020-02340-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11135

DOI: 10.1007/s11205-020-02340-9

Access Statistics for this article

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement is currently edited by Filomena Maggino

More articles in Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().