Exploring the Downside of Social Capital : A Cross-National Analysis

A substantial amount of research has shown that social capital plays an important role in facilitating individual rational action and promoting collective well-being. As has been pointed out, however, previous studies have a functionalist bias in overemphasizing the benefits of social capital. More research is needed that examines the potential “downside of social capital” (Portes and Landholt 1996; van Deth and Zimerli 2011) to provide a more balanced view of its role. The purpose of the current study is to contribute to that endeavor by probing into how and to what extent different dimensions of social capital may be related to negative subjective experiences of people in a cross-national setting. Based on the analysis of the International Social Survey Programme (2001) dataset, this article investigates the association between social capital indicators and the outcome variable that measures the degree to which people have experienced emotional burden because of excessive demands made by their close social contacts. Six independent variables are used for the hypothesis testing, including the level of participation in voluntary organizations, frequency of interaction with relatives, friendship size, number of siblings, and number of children. Hierarchical linear models show that several social capital variables, at both individual and contextual (country) levels, are significantly related to emotional burden, highlighting its negative potential. Implications of the findings, which diverge from the mainstream social capital argument, are discussed in relation to the extant literature.