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ISA XVII World Congress of Sociology, July 13th, Gotheborg
Bonding and bridging social networks and their influence on subjective wellbeing
Bram Vanhoutte & Marc Hooghe
Centre for Political Science, KULeuven, Belgium
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Introduction
• Personal subjective well-being dependent on “goodness of others” ?
• What kind of social ties are most important for well-being?
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Theoretical Framework
• Social Support = actual assistance or feeling of attachment
• Social support works as a buffer for stressfull events
• =>Both direct and indirect effect on health– Direct : more social support equals better health/wellbeing– Indirect: social support affects impact of stressful events.
• Social support is multidimensional, and can be explored through the concepts bridging and bonding ties
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Bonding Social Ties
• Birds of a feather flock together (Lazarsfeld & Merton 1954)
• Bonding capital (~Social cohesion)– Strong ties between similar people– Emotional support networks– Thick trust generated by intensive regular contact
• Possible negative outcomes: exclusive groups, parochial norms, social control
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Bridging Social Ties
Bridging or Linking Capital– Weaker ties between different kinds of people (Granovetter 1973)– Access to diverse resources and information (instrumental and
informational support)– Mainly positive outcomes: lowers prejudice, widens perspective
• Cultural diversity: – bridging culturally defined differences (Putnam 2000)
• Socio-economic diversity:– Access to different socio-economical positions (Lin 2001)
• Resource diversity– Access to different kinds of resources (Van der Gaag & Snijders 2004)
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Hypotheses
• H1: Having a high income, being higher educated and being employed has a positive effect on subjective well-being
• H2: Bonding, close ties providing emotional support have more impact than bridging ties
• H3: Emotional support has both a direct and an indirect, moderator effect
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Data
• SCIF (Social Cohesion Indicators Flanders) – Survey, combined with municipality-level data– Fieldwork April-July 2009, n=2080– Egocentric network measures – More info on www.socialcohesion.eu
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Flemish region, Belgium (pop. 6,000,000)SCIF-survey: 2080 respondents in 40 municipalities
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Measurement
• Measurement well-being over different life domains (Cummins 1995)
• Well-being: How satisfied are you with your… – Life in general – Health– Leisure Time– Family Life– Social Life – Sexual Life
• One factor solution, 51% variance
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Bonding Ties:Close network size
• With how many people do you talk about personal matters?– In your family (median=4)– In your friends-circle (median=2)
• Recoded in 3 categories:– 0 or 1 / 2-5 / 6 or more family member– 0 / 1-3 / 4 or more friends
• Size of close network can be seen as a measure for emotional social support
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Bonding Ties: Close network intensity
• Strong ties form through frequent contact, (Homans 1955) so frequency of contact is a good measure for the strength of bonding ties
• How often do you….?(never (0) – several times a week (5))– Visit family– Invite friends
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Bridging Ties:Cultural diversity
• Do you have a friend …? (Yes/No)– With a different religious orientation
– With a different ethnic background
– With a different sexual orientation
– Of a different generation (at least 20 years of difference)
– With different political ideas
• Using item response theory (Mokken-scaling) these items prove to be one coherent scale (H=.40)
• Most common diversity by political ideas and generations• “Difficult” forms of diversity are religious orientation and ethnic
background
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Bridging Ties:Socioeconomic diversity
• Use of position generator (Lin & Dumin 1986)
• With which occupations do you have contact in daily life? Do you know a … in your family ? Or among your friends ? Or among your acquaintances? – These questions were asked for a list of 20
occupations, varying in socio-economic status.
• We use the number of occupations of these 20 that respondents could access, which is a very parsimonous and simple measure for status diversity in one’s network
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Bridging Ties:Resource diversity
• Use of resource generator (Van der Gaag & Snijders 2004)
• Do you know someone in your family …? In your friends circle / acquantainces/ neighbours/ collegues ?– List of 7 items
• practical support (moving/ lending 1000 euro)• skills (pc, repairing car) • information (financial information, finding a job)
• Using Mokken scaling we find a cumulative scale (H=.37), going from practical support over skills to acces to information.
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Results: Social Background
• Very low model fit (5% explained variance)
BetaHousehold Income (ln) .11
Occupational status
(Ref. Employed.)
Unemployed
Retired
Student
-.10
.08
.06
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Results: Background+Social Ties (I)
Beta
Age -.21
Age² .22
Living with Partner .42
Interactions
Age*Living with Partner
Age²*Living with Partner
.17
-.19
• A first, obvious indicator of emotional support, Living with a partner, gives us very large direct effects, and interacts with age
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-.8
-.6
-.4
-.2
0
.2fo
r S
core
s fo
r fa
ctor
1
20 40 60 80age (quadratic)
No Yes
Whether the respondent cohabits with a partner
Pre
dic
ted
Va
lues
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Results: Background+Social Ties (II)
BetaBonding
Having more than 3 friends
Having only 1 or family member
Visiting family often
Inviting friends often
.08
-.07
.08
.07
Bridging
Cultural Diversity
Socio-economical Diversity
Resource Diversity
ns
ns
.06
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Results
• Bonding ties, giving emotional support, more important than bridging ties, giving access to diverse resources
• Direct effects of bonding very clear, indirect effect only from living with a partner on curvilineair relation of SWB and age
• Social embeddedness has large role in explaining SWB (15% increase in R²)
• How much does the goodness of others matter? – People, living with their partner, with a weldeveloped bonding
network score 2 points higher on 10 than isolated single people.