Social Capital, Deprivation and Psychological Well-Being among Young Adolescents: A Multilevel Study from England and Wales

Kenisha Russell Jonsson, Joan Busfield, Marita Södergren, Miia Karen and Nicholas Kofi Adjei
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Kenisha Russell Jonsson: Department of Sociology, University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK
Joan Busfield: Department of Sociology, University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK
Marita Södergren: Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society, Karolinska Institutet, Alfred Nobels alle 23, 14183 Huddinge, Sweden
Miia Karen: Unaffiliated Researcher, 16847 Broma, Sweden
Nicholas Kofi Adjei: Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research & Epidemiology-BIPS, Achterstrasse 30, 28359 Bremen, Germany

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 10, 1-19

Abstract: Examining the mechanisms influencing mental health and life satisfaction simultaneously allows for a better understanding of adolescents psychological well-being. Six indicators of neighbourhood social capital (NSC), neighbourhood socioeconomic deprivation (SecD) and their association with psychological well-being among young adolescents aged 10-15 from England and Wales were investigated. Using a random sample of 5201 adolescents (7253 observations) from the UK Household Longitudinal Study merged to aggregated local area census measures, we fitted a series of multilevel models. The findings showed that not being worried about crime and friendship networks mitigated the negative effects of deprivation on adolescent’s psychological well-being. These findings suggest that some forms of NSC may have a buffering and protective function, with the strongest effects in deprived neighbourhoods. We further found that psychological well-being of adolescents is dependent on both individual vulnerabilities and neighbourhood context. However caution is required if, and when public health policies are formulated to address this issue, given significant variations (27-36%) in the inter- and intra-individual psychological well-being were found among this group over time. Thus, policies designed to improve psychological well-being among adolescents should take into account the role of social processes in transmitting deprivation’s effects, as well as the various forms of social capital.

Keywords: life satisfaction; mental health; social capital; socioeconomic deprivation; children/adolescents; neighbourhood (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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