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

Introduction

• Personal subjective well-being dependent on “goodness of others” ?

• What kind of social ties are most important for well-being?

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

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

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)

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

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

Flemish region, Belgium (pop. 6,000,000)SCIF-survey: 2080 respondents in 40 municipalities

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Results: Social Background

• Very low model fit (5% explained variance)

BetaHousehold Income (ln) .11

Occupational status

(Ref. Employed.)

Unemployed

Retired

Student

-.10

.08

.06

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

-.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

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

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.