Relation and Effect of Social Capital and Family Factors: from the Viewpoint of Gender Theory

Abstract

This paper empirically clarifies the actions and effects of social capital (SC) from the viewpoint of gender theory. SC studies have been often criticized for the gender-blindness. They are unaware that SC strengthens and reproduces gender structure in some aspects. In this article, we examine from the quantitative survey of urban families, in particular, how activities and the power effects in family are related to the women's SC and how it benefits.

The results are as follows. It is women who gain many benefits from rich SC. With regard to living satisfaction, health, recreational activities and citizen consciousness, men draw profits from their own economic and human capital and family SC whereas women are benefiting from networks in addition to them. In particular, the bridging SC brings many benefits for women.

The family SC has a positive effect in both men and women. Dense families use family SC to create many networks. However, what is important is a family that carries out many cooperative actions, not women do a lot of care activities. Care activities interfere with the construction of women's bridging SC. From the above, the proposal to foster family SC brings positive benefits for men, but in the case of women, it is necessary to explore ways to build bridging SC as well as family SC.