Inheritance of Social Capital in the Family: The Case of Multi-child Families

Abstract

The article is based on Coleman’s theory about social capital in the creation of human capital. Social capital is defined by its function. Human capital is created by changes in persons that bring about skills and capabilities to act in new ways. The article examines empirically the value of social capital in the creation of human capital in the next generation. The real cases of multi-child families are very helpful for this task. Human capital is approximately measured by parents’ education (partly expressed by their occupation as well) and provides the potential for social environment for the child that aids learning, occupation, values and norms. The use of the number of siblings as a measure of social capital expresses professional succession in the family, tests decline/growth with sib position, some tendencies of their emigration and family creation.