Abstract
BackgroundTo date, only a small amount of research on bonding/bridging social capital has separately examined their effects on health though they have been thought to have differential effects on health outcomes. By using a large population-based sample of elderly Japanese people, we sought to investigate the association between bonding and bridging social capital and self-rated health for men and women separately.MethodsIn August 2010, questionnaires were sent to all residents aged ≥65 years in three municipalities in Okayama prefecture (n = 21232), and 13929 questionnaires were returned (response rate: 65.6%). Social capital was measured from survey responses to questions on participation in six different types of groups: a) the elderly club or sports/hobby/culture circle; b) alumni association; c) political campaign club; d) citizen’s group or environmental preservation activity; e) community association; and f) religious organization. Participant perception of group homogeneity (gender, age, and previous occupation) was used to divide social capital into bonding or bridging. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for poor self-rated health were calculated.ResultsA total of 11146 subjects (4441 men and 6705 women) were available for the analysis. Among men, bonding and bridging social capital were inversely associated with poor self-rated health (high bonding social capital; OR: 0.55, 95% CI: 0.31–0.99; high bridging social capital; OR: 0.62, 95% CI: 0.48–0.81) after adjusting for age, educational attainment, smoking status, frequency of alcohol consumption, overweight, living arrangements, and type-D personality. The beneficial effect among women was more likely limited to bonding social capital (high bonding social capital; OR: 0.34, 95% CI: 0.12–1.00), and the association between bridging social capital and self-rated health was less clear (high bridging social capital; OR: 0.69, 95% CI: 0.44–1.07).ConclusionsBonding/bridging social capital could have differential associations with self-rated health among the Japanese elderly depending on the individual’s sex. Considering the lack of consensus on how to measure bonding and bridging social capital, however, we need to carefully assess the generalizability of our findings. Further research is warranted to identify health-relevant dimensions of social capital in different cultural or economic settings.
Highlights
To date, only a small amount of research on bonding/bridging social capital has separately examined their effects on health though they have been thought to have differential effects on health outcomes
By using cross-sectional data, this study reported that bonding social capital was beneficial to self-rated health and to reducing stress, whereas bridging social capital did not provide a definitive association with these health outcomes, thereby contradicting the theoretical understanding of bonding/bridging social capital
This pattern was nearly reversed in the present study, which found that elderly men benefit from both bonding and bridging social capital, whereas elderly women benefit from bonding social capital
Summary
Only a small amount of research on bonding/bridging social capital has separately examined their effects on health though they have been thought to have differential effects on health outcomes. By using cross-sectional data, this study reported that bonding social capital was beneficial to self-rated health and to reducing stress, whereas bridging social capital did not provide a definitive association with these health outcomes, thereby contradicting the theoretical understanding of bonding/bridging social capital This conceptualization of bonding/ bridging social capital makes sense in certain social context (e.g., multiethnic nations/groups), it fails to capture meaningful insight in other social contexts, e.g., in an almost ethnically homogenous nation like Japan. To address this concern, a recent community-based study from Japan measured social capital from responses from participants in several groups, and assessed whether each group represented bonding or bridging social capital, measured by diversity of gender, age, and occupation [6]. A differential pattern was found by sex: women benefited more from bridging social capital than men, whereas men may benefit more from bonding capital than women
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