Bridging out of Bonding in: How Social Capital Helps and Hinders Leaving Poverty

Background and Purpose. Defining social capital as the by-product of formal and informal social relationships with individuals, community or institutions that engender mutual trust, expectations, obligations, and influence, this study examines the role that social capital plays in helping or hampering young people's route out of poverty and into economic sustainability. This study tests four hypotheses: 1.) There are direct and indirect effects of social capital on the economic sustainability of low-income youth as they grow into adults; 2.) Bonding social capital operates as a deterrent to economic sustainability; 3.) There is a strong correlation between bridging social capital and the future economic status of low-income youth; and 4.) Social capital operates differently for poor and non-poor youth.

Methods: This study includes data from all four waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) a longitudinal study of a nationally representative sample of adolescents in grades 7-12 in the United States during the 1994-95 school year. In the final wave (Wave 4) the sample was aged 24-32. This study includes youth whose families were low-income (up to 200% of the poverty level) when first interviewed (N = 3,376). As social capital is an ambiguous concept in the literature and given the exploratory nature of this study, we first identified social network variables to create social capital scales based on theory through factor analysis, followed by measures for internal consistency (with Cronbach Alpha scores ranging from .72 to .92). Further exploration included recursive path analyses to undercover much of the complexity of the relationship between social capital and economic sustainability and by demonstrating how social capital functions as a direct or indirect function of economic sustainability.

Results: Results indicate that multiple factors play a role in youth transition from a childhood of poverty. Social capital factors held both a direct and indirect effect, indicating a mixture of activities that involve participation with an economically mixed group of individuals made up both of friends as well as family members. Bonding social capital, proved to be strongly negatively directly and indirectly correlated with later economic sustainability in adulthood. Bridging social capital had the strongest positive correlations.

Conclusions and Implications: This study speaks to the complexity of leaving poverty and addresses the role that social capital variables play as a help and a hindrance to economic sustainability. These findings suggest that greater attention should be paid to the role that a young person's social structure plays in helping them find economic well-being. Families and closely tied friends can play a supportive role, but bridging social capital is needed for economic advancement. Social work practitioners who work with those living in poverty are encouraged to consider the positive and negative implications of social ties when working with individuals and families in poverty.