Saturday, 15 January 2005 - 12:00 PM

This presentation is part of: Poster Session II

The Role of Social Capital in Economic and Psychological Well-Being of TANF Recipients

Purpose: This study explores direct and indirect effects of theoretically grounded personal social capital on economic and psychological well-being of former TANF recipients. It tests social capital model with three dimensional concepts regarding helping network: membership, neighborhood connectedness, and trust toward social services.

Methodology: Interviews were conducted with 103 former TANF recipients as a part of the Third Wave Georgia Welfare Reform Research in 2003. This sample represents a half of the original 201 panel in the first wave random sample, who were receiving TANF benefits in July 1999. A measure of social capital was developed only for the third wave and used to explore linkages among the study variables: disposable family income, perceived control, and life satisfaction. Data analyses included descriptive statistics, common factor analyses, reliability analyses, bivariate partial correlations, and path analyses with three latent social capital variables.

Results: The final path model fits the data well evidenced by omnibus fit index [SRMR =.072, RMSEA=.078, NNFI=.95, IFI=.96, CFI=.96] and chi-square difference test [¥ö2 = 38.88, df= 30, p=.12]. Membership, neighborhood connectedness, trust social capital factors account for 25% of the variation in the disposable income, 36% in perceived control, and 33% in life satisfaction. While standardized path coefficients for three social capital factors show significant direct effects on both measure of psychological well-being, ranged from .16 to .55, and all are significant at the p<.05 level, most of the change in the disposable income is due to the indirect effect through perceived control, and has a small positive effect through life satisfaction.

Implications: Findings of this study empirically support that social capital variables are closely associated with overall well-being of the poor population. Social workers and policy makers should understand how social network and trust play a role in the provision of help. Development of macro level interventions designed to improve social capital and neighborhood strength will be discussed.

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