Are Informal Connections a Functional Alternative to Associational Life in Enhancing Social Cohesion? Findings from Hong Kong

Elaine Chan ()

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 2014, vol. 119, issue 2, 803-821

Abstract: This article aims to ascertain whether organizational life and informal connections, which made up part of Putnam’s (Bowling alone: the collapse and revival of American community. Simon & Schuster, New York, 2000 ) Social Capital Index, have separate effects on social cohesion. Postulating that informal gatherings with family and friends might be a functional alternative to associational life, we employed multiple regression analysis to test the hypothesis. The analysis was based on a 2011 territory-wide door-to-door survey in Hong Kong. Controlling for the effects of demographic variables including gender, age, educational level, and employment status, it was found that formal participation in organizations contributed significantly to the explanation in five of the eight subindexes of social cohesion. In contrast, informal connections contributed significantly only to one subindex. The pattern persisted when attitudinal variables such as life satisfaction, social support, and perceived social class were added to the regression analysis. In short, our analysis demonstrated that participation in formal organizations fosters various aspects of social cohesion, and that this effect cannot be replaced by informal gatherings with family and friends. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Keywords: Social cohesion; Social capital; Informal connections; Hong Kong (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11205-013-0506-5 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
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:119:y:2014:i:2:p:803-821

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

DOI: 10.1007/s11205-013-0506-5

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 ().