Social capital determinants and labor market networks

We explore the links between determinants of social capital and labor market networks at the neighborhood level. We harness rich data taken from multiple sources, including matched employer–employee data with which we measure the strength of labor market networks, data on neighborhood homogeneity that has previously been tied to social capital, and new data—not previously used in the study of social capital—on the number and location of nonprofit sector establishments at the neighborhood level. We use a machine learning algorithm to identify the potential determinants of social capital that best predict neighborhood‐level variation in labor market networks. We find evidence suggesting that smaller and less centralized schools, and schools with fewer poor students, foster social capital that builds local labor market networks, as does a larger Republican vote share. The presence of establishments in a number of nonprofit‐oriented industries are identified as predictive of strong labor market networks, likely because they either provide public goods or facilitate social contacts. These industries include, for example, churches and other religious institutions, fire and rescue services including volunteer fire departments, country clubs and golf courses, labor unions, chamber music groups, hobby clubs, and schools.     

NEIGHBORHOOD SOCIAL MIX AND ADULTS' INCOME TRAJECTORIES: LONGITUDINAL EVIDENCE FROM STOCKHOLM

We investigate the relationship between neighborhood income composition and income trajectories of adults, employing annual panel data from Stockholm over the 1991–2008 period and multiple measures of neighborhood income mix. We advance the human geography literature in three ways by quantifying neighborhood effects that: (1) are unusually precise due to our large sample size; (2) are arguably causal and unbiased due to the econometric techniques employed; (3) are potentially heterogeneous, varying according to gender, income group, and ethnicity. Our innovative, fixed‐effect change modeling indicates that neighborhood income mix affects subsequent one‐ and five‐year income trajectories of residents in highly heterogeneous ways according to gender, income and ethnicity, and for some groups this effect is substantial. The evidence supports on Pareto improvement grounds a social mix policy that attempts to reduce the incidence of lower‐income dominant neighborhood environments and replace them with more mixed or middle‐income dominant ones.     

NEIGHBORHOOD EFFECTS: ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND LOOKING BEYOND THEM*

ABSTRACT The paper addresses the empirical significance of the social context in economic decisions. Decisions of individuals who share spatial and social milieus are likely to be interdependent, and econometric identification of social effects poses intricate data and methodological problems, including dealing with self‐selection in spatial and social groups. It uses a simple empirical framework to introduce social interactions effects at different levels of aggregation, and examines estimation problems in linear models, the impact of self‐selection and of nonlinearities. It also examines neighborhood effects in job matching and proposes a research agenda that offers new techniques and data sources.     

社区建成环境对老年人社会交往活动的影响研究

我国正步入老龄化社会,社会交往活动对实现健康老龄化具有积极作用,深入理解社区建成环境对老年人社会交往活动的影响,是促进老年人身心健康的重要途径.本文基于2015年"第四次中国城乡老年人生活状况抽样调查"数据,运用多水平回归模型,重点考察社区建成环境对老年人社会交往活动的影响.研究发现,我国老年人36％的社会交往水平差异...     

IS SOCIAL CAPITAL USEFUL FOR EXPLAINING ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN POLISH REGIONS?

The concept of social capital is widely perceived as a promising tool for explaining differences in economic development between countries and regions. According to this theory, weak links (bridging social capital) and social trust in an area favour its better access to other forms of capital, that is, economic and human capital. However, strong links (bonding social capital) may stifle creativity and entrepreneurship. Since the vast majority of research on the impact of social capital on economic development focuses on highly developed Western European countries, it seems particularly interesting to evaluate the usefulness of this approach when applied to post‐communist countries with their different experiences. The objective of this article is to identify the spatial variation of different forms of social capital in regions of Poland and then to test a hypothesis on the impact of this capital on regional economic development. The results demonstrate that despite the existing differences between regions there are no significant relationships between levels of social capital and economic development. This may be explained either by low social capital levels or by the overall degree of Polish economic development.     

社区社会资本对居住满意度的影响——基于北京市中低收入社区调查的实证分析

居住满意度是居民对所居住的住房和社区宜居性的综合评价。尽管近年来,中国的城市地理学者开始关注城市重构与居住分异背景对社区邻里关系、社会互动及居民的社区满意度的影响,已有研究对社区社会资本与居住满意度之间因果机制的探讨,缺乏合理的指标构建和实证依据。本文结合城市社会学、地理学和政治学相关理论,构建了一套适合于中国城市转型背景的社区社会资本指标体系,通过对北京市九个中低收入社区的实证研究表明,社区社会资本与居住满意度有显著的正向关系,然而,尽管低收入居民对于邻里信任因素的重视大于对社区组织的信任、邻里互助和共同价值,其在社会资本的几个维度中得分最低。因此,打破社区内的分异与隔阂,建立邻里信任,应当成为社区社会资本建设中首先解决的问题。     

Watch out for the neighborhood trap! A case study on parental perceptions of and strategies to counter risks for children in a disadvantaged neighborhood

Neighborhood is seen as one of the many social contexts that shape children's cognitive, emotional and social development. However, the neighborhood context does not simply ‘imprint’ itself on children, but can be mediated or moderated by other social contexts, in particular the family context through parenting practices. Based on a case study in a low income neighborhood in The Hague, The Netherlands, this paper addresses the question of how living in a disadvantaged neighborhood context constitutes a risk for children and which strategies parents develop in response to the perceived negative neighborhood influences.     

空间隔离视角下中西方城市社会排斥研究述评

空间已成为社会排斥研究的重要维度。本文通过梳理国内外相关文献,重点对空间隔离与社会排斥的内在逻辑及其重点研究领域进行阐述。总体上,社会排斥研究的空间维度聚焦于资源和机会的非均衡配置及流动性障碍导致的边缘化过程。具体来讲,从邻里结构性特征中辨识潜在的被排斥主体,强调了社会排斥产生的物质基础;厘清不同尺度、不同空间类型下空间隔离与社会排斥相互作用机制,为消除空间隔离产生的社会排斥障碍提供实践基础。基于社会融合发展目标,提出融贯社会空间隔离到社会空间融合的分析框架,为建构多尺度社会融合路径提供理论支持。     

邻里效应视角下社区交往对生活满意度的影响——基于北京市26个社区居民的多层次路径分析

本文基于2017年北京市居民日常活动与满意度调查数据,运用多层次路径分析方法,以社区及周边环境作为地理背景,探讨邻里环境、社区交往和生活满意度之间的复杂关系.研究发现,在控制个体和家庭社会经济因素后,社区建成环境对生活满意度的直接效应较弱,仅公园可达性显著正相关.然而,建成环境通过社区交往对生活满意度的间接效应显著,尤...     

单位社区杂化过程与城市性的构建

单位社区作为中国城市重要的传统社区之一,曾经是以单位制度作为组织形态和行为规范而形成的"准乡土性"社区。而在转型期,随着城市空间重构、单位制度解体与个人生活方式的转变,单位社区出现了以社区杂化过程为显著特征的制度-空间-社会的全面转型。单位社区杂化从广义上包括居民构成、社会交往、行为模式和社区认同四个维度的变化,导致了单位社区"准乡土性"的消失和"城市性"的构建。本文从城市性作为一种城市生活方式的经典理论出发,从不同维度理解单位社区杂化中城市性构建的现象与机制。     

中国城市社区的异质性社会结构与街坊/邻里关系研究

中国城市社区的邻里交往自从住房市场化以来一直处于较低水平,本文从个体、家庭和社区三方面分析促进街坊/邻里关系水平的因素。研究发现,高度异质性社区中的街邻关系水平低于低度异质性社区,具有普遍性的异质性负效应,在社区层次对街坊/邻里关系水平发挥选择性削弱作用。不同异质性社会结构的城市社区中,家庭纽带提供的情感和切实的支持对家庭成员的街邻融合有积极的作用。居民社团活动参与率在不同异质性类型社区中能有效提高街邻关系水平,表现出并存的正效应。社区组织举办的活动频率能促进街邻关系水平的前提是居民能成为参与者。街邻关系水平较低的群体,动员性的活动参与可以提高其街邻关系水平。     

新中国成立初期的上海里弄整顿

新中国成立初期,作为基层社会管理体制支撑的居民委员会出现了三大危机:组织衰败、劣化、蜕化问题。为此,中国共产党在基层里弄中发动了一场规模宏大的清理整顿工作。在这次整顿工作中,政府通过赋予街居组织以体制支撑,造就了街居组织对非单位人的有效控制;通过对干部、群众的双重清理,传统基层统治权威代表较为彻底地从基层社会权力空间中退出,居民的认同也转向新的街居组织。至此,居委会的效能获得全面提升,政府与居民之间的政治沟通不畅问题迎刃而解,而居委会也因此焕发了生机。     

Tackling the Down Side: Social Capital,Women’s Empowerment and Micro‐Finance in Cameroon

Micro‐finance programmes are currently dominated by the ‘financial self‐sustainability paradigm’ where women’s participation in groups is promoted as a key means of increasing financial sustainability while at the same time assumed to automatically empower them. This article examines the experience of seven micro‐finance programmes in Cameroon. The evidence indicates that micro‐finance programmes which build social capital can indeed make a significant contribution to women’s empowerment. However, serious questions need to be asked about what sorts of norms, networks and associations are to be promoted, in whose interests, and how they can best contribute to empowerment, particularly for the poorest women. Where the complexities of power relations and inequality are ignored, reliance on social capital as a mechanism for reducing programme costs may undermine programme aims not only of empowerment but also of financial sustainability and poverty targeting.     

Testing Competing Explanations of Black Opinions on Affirmative Action

Using the 1996 National Black Election Study, I estimate black opinions of affirmative action by developing models that capture the effects of self‐interest, group consciousness, reference groups, and social justice. The method I used is ordered logit. An examination of the data show that, unlike many studies that examine the effects of self‐interest on public opinion, I find that self‐interest matters. I also find that black individuals also support affirmative action from a sense of group consciousness. The results also suggest that some support affirmative action consistent with the reference group theory and the pursuit of social justice.     

北京城市老年人社区满意度研究——基于模糊评价法的分析

本文基于对北京市三个典型城市社区中老年人社区满意度的问卷调查,运用模糊评价法,对老年人的社区满意度进行案例研究。结果发现,老年人对社区社会环境较为满意,而对社区服务设施等社区物质环境不满;老年人更关注住房条件,而对社交和人际关系的关注较少。老年人特别重视的因子满意度不高,可能是导致社区满意度的综合模糊结果偏低的原因。进一步通过相关性分析和交叉表分析,从个人属性、家庭结构和所在社区类型等三个层面探讨社区满意度评价的影响因素,发现年龄低、学历高、收入高、与孙辈同住的老年人以及旧城平房社区中老年人社区满意度较高。老年人的社区满意度,将成为测度城市老年人生活品质的重要指标。     

Marginalized for a lifetime: The everyday experiences of gulag survivors in post-Soviet Magadan

Over the past decade notions of social capital have become embedded in the social development lexicon, often presented as the ‘missing link’ within development theory. Much social capital‐based research takes Robert Putnam's theorization of the subject as its starting point. Putnam's work argues that social capital can be measured by a region's levels of trust and civic engagement. While its use, and conceptualization, has undergone much academic debate, often formal institutions still employ this very narrow, and arguably Western‐centric, reading of the subject. This paper argues that while at the micro‐level social capital has little to do with the civic engagement and trust theories posited by Putnam, it still has relevance to the lives of marginalized individuals and is an important factor in their continued survival. To explore this, drawing on extensive qualitative research conducted in Magadan, Moscow and St Petersburg, I critically examine the construction of everyday survival strategies among Gulag survivors living in Russia's far northeast city of Magadan. Denied a return to their ‘homeland’ upon their release, this group experienced considerable marginalization in the post‐Stalin period. This was exacerbated when the collapse of the Soviet Union saw pensions in the far northeast of Russia fall to below 50% of the state‐set subsistence minimum. The paper demonstrates the importance of social capital to this group by showing how their survival is based on far more than interactions with formal and informal organizations.     

邻里环境感知对中国城市居民自评健康影响研究——以武汉市为例

邻里作为城市居民的重要日常生活场所，对健康的影响引起广泛关注。本文选取武汉市南湖街道这一典型住区，运用多元回归分析，针对商品房和保障房邻里展开对比研究，解析不同类型邻里中居民的邻里环境感知对自评健康的影响差异。研究发现，控制个人因素后，体育休闲设施感知、归属感和安全感显示出对自评健康独立且显著的影响。而在对比研究中，商品房邻里的居民自评健康受邻里环境感知的影响较显著，而保障房邻里的居民自评健康受个体层面特征的影响较显著。因此，宜针对不同类型邻里制定差异化的社区健康提升策略。     

Identity and social solidarity: an ignored connection. A historical perspective on the state of Europe and its nations

The article comments on the ongoing de‐Europeanisation and re‐nationalisation of Europe from a historical perspective. The article argues that the building of national community from the 1870s onwards focused on the problem of social integration where the development of emotional feelings of belonging and solidarity was linked to the building of institutions for social politics in mutually reinforcing dynamics. The social question emerged in the wake of the spread of industrial capitalism. Its role is underexplored in the study of the building of national and European communities. The social question draws attention to the institutional capacity of nation states rather than nations based on emotions. Nationalism did not only mean the building of friend‐ enemy distinctions through ethnicity but also national socialism as a conservative reform strategy against class struggle socialism. This contention between two approaches to the problem of social integration moulded together national communities through emotions and institutions without deploying the concept of identity. The article outlines this development, culminating in the (West) European welfare states as nation– states in the strong sense of the merger of these two terms, and how it came to an end in the 1970s when a reverse development began towards social disintegration at the end accompanied by accelerating nationalism and xenophobia. The identity concept was mobilised in 1973 as a tool in the European integration project to compensate for the erosion of social institutions by means of emotions. It was taken over and politicised from having been a technical term in mathematics and psychoanalysis. The politicisation of the identity concept was an indication of a deep identity crisis in Europe and its nations. The identity therapy failed, and the identity crisis remains, accompanied by an ever louder nationalistic and xenophobic vocabulary. Emotions replace institutions. The methodological focus of the article is on the semantics around key concepts such as social politics, solidarity and identity in their historical context as forward‐looking and action‐oriented concepts in the construction of community. This approach with a focus on past futures is an alternative to the application of the retrospective analytical concepts of ethnic and civic nationalism outlining present pasts.     

Entry into working life: Internal migration and the job match quality of higher‐educated graduates

We estimate the impact of internal migration on job‐match quality for recent Dutch university and college graduates. We find positive yet modest wage returns. After controlling for the self‐selection of migrants with an IV approach, this effect is no longer significant for university graduates and all graduates from peripheral areas. We also find that, for our alternative job‐match measures, where there is evidence of migrant self‐selection, controlling for self‐selection strongly reduces the effect of internal migration on job‐match quality. In some cases, the returns on internal migration are found to be negative, which may signal forced migration.