Social Capital and Loneliness in Welfare State Regimes Before and After the Global Financial Crisis: Results Based on the European Social Survey

Abstract

Our prime interest in this chapter concerns the concepts of social capital and loneliness in older people. The starting point is that both individual-level social capital resources and welfare state contexts are important in understanding loneliness. We study two commonly used aspects of social capital, structural and cognitive, and their association with absence of loneliness by analyzing the European Social Survey data for five different welfare regimes. We focus on two time points, one before and one after the Global Financial Crisis of 2008–2009. Our analyses suggest that there are differences in social capital, in terms of social contacts and trust, and loneliness between the five welfare regimes. A negative trend of social contacts was observed, whereas the results were mixed for social trust and loneliness. Social capital was associated with absence of loneliness; however, this association differed between welfare regimes. The findings are discussed within the framework of welfare state regime contexts.