 Community Heterogeneity: A Burden for the Creation of Social Capital?*Hilde Coffé and Benny Geys Social Science Quarterly, 2006, vol. 87, issue 5, 1053-1072 Abstract: Objective. This study examines the relationship between community heterogeneity and social capital on the local government level. Method. We apply both OLS and interval regression techniques to objective macro data of 307 Flemish municipalities for the year 2000. Results. Our results show that, after controlling for various socioeconomic characteristics of the municipality, income inequality is not significantly correlated with the municipality's level of social capital. We do find a significant negative relation between social capital and the number of nationalities within a municipality. Yet, contrary to the prevailing argument in the literature, it is not the presence of people with a clearly different ethnic‐cultural background that drives this negative relation. Conclusions. In accordance with previous international findings, municipalities with large groups of differing nationalities among its citizenry are confronted with a lower level of social capital. Importantly, however, our findings emphasize the need to distinguish between different groups of nationalities and argue for explanations beyond “simple” ethnic‐cultural disparities. Date: 2006 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:socsci:v:87:y:2006:i:5:p:1053-1072 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Social Science Quarterly is currently edited by Robert L. Lineberry More articles in Social Science Quarterly from Southwestern Social Science Association |
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