ISA XVII World Congress of Sociology, July 13th, Gotheborg

1. Bonding and bridging social networks and their influence on subjective wellbeing Bram Vanhoutte & Marc Hooghe Centre for Political Science, KULeuven, Belgium ISA XVII World Congress of Sociology, July 13th, Gotheborg

2. Introduction • Personal subjective well-being dependent on “goodness of others” ? • What kind of social ties are most important for well-being?

3. 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

4. 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

6. 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)

8. 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

9. 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

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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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.

17. Results: Social Background • Very low model fit (5% explained variance)

18. Results: Background+Social Ties (I) • A first, obvious indicator of emotional support, Living with a partner, gives us very large direct effects, and interacts with age

20. Results: Background+Social Ties (II)

21. 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.